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Governance

Our Trustee/Governors are a central part of the governance of St Catherine’s, contributing an enormous breadth and depth of both experience and expertise. Between them, this includes: mental health, education, law, business management and engineering. 

At the present time, we have 15 trustees/governors who operate via three committees, each which covers one of the core functions of our work. These committees meet between three and six times every year and report to the Governing Board: 

  • Children and Learning
  • Post 19 Provision 
  • Finance and General Purposes

Each trustee/governor (with the exception of staff governors) has a ‘Link Governor’ role, where they link to a specific area within the school, where they can support with their specific skills and experience.

The role of a trustee/governor is to:

  • Hold the Principal to account for the performance of the school:
  • Oversee the financial performance of the organisation including budgets and pay increases
  • Support with decisions on student exclusions, staff disciplinary, Pupil Premium, policies
  • Challenge staff performance

Please see below short biographies for our elected, appointed trustees and governors and for our parent governor:

Details of trustee/governor meeting attendance and relevant business interests

Henry Blacksell KC

Finance and General Purposes Committee Member

Henry is a retired Crown Court Judge. Henry practised for 22 years and specialised in serious crime. Before becoming a judge, Henry was a barrister for 24 years.

Since retiring in 2018, Henry has taken on various voluntary roles to help the community, including the role of Independent Person for Wandsworth/Richmond, a school reader for a primary school and a churchwarden. Henry is passionate about music and theatre, tries to keep fit and always has a book on the go. Henry is married with two children.

Daniel Carmichael BA(Hons), MSc

Committee Member of Children and Learning and Post 19
Link Governor for Safeguarding and Careers

Daniel was a public servant with over 30 years as a Chief Officer at Director level with a number of local authorities across England, including two London Boroughs. These roles, including one as Chief Executive, ranged from Management, Human Resources, Education and Social Services. Before retirement, Daniel was professionally qualified in management services; personnel management & development; training and counselling. This is his first role as a trustee/governor, and he is passionate about young people getting the best opportunity in preparing for a happy and fulfilling life, whatever the odds.

Daniel is married and has four sons and nine grandchildren. He is Scottish, from the Isle of Bute, but has lived on the Island with his family for over 40 years. His interests include travel, golf, motoring and visiting family and friends in Australia, Scotland, Essex and Kent.

Pete Elliott

Children and Learning Committee Member
Link Governor for Therapy

Pete is a Chartered Clinical and Health Psychologist and formerly was Director of the Doctoral Programme in Clinical Psychology at University of Southampton. As well as trustee/governor at St Catherine’s, Pete is also a trustee at the IOW Youth Trust and the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy. Pete is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and has 6 children, 4 grandchildren and his hobbies include playing the guitar and drums.

Tony Flower

Finance and General Purposes Committee Member
Link Governor for Buildings and Maintenance

Local Chartered Surveyor with 45 years of property related experience in both public and private sectors.

Martyn Heather

Chair of Post 19 Committee
Link Governor for PE and Pupil Premium

Martyn is a former PE Teacher and School Senior Leader, professional football club academy director and was most recently Head of Education and Welfare at the Premier League.

Karl Hunter

Children and Learning Committee Member
Link Governor for Communication Charter

Karl has served as a Police Officer for nearly 20 years, specialising in Marine Policing and Firearms. Prior to this, he worked for the Prison Service. Karl has two children, including a son at St Catherine’s. In his spare time he enjoys writing scripts and spending time on the water. He also has a passion for animal welfare and keeping fit.

Hayley Jarvis

Children and Learning Committee Member

Michael Loftus BA (Hons), MBA

Finance and General Purposes Committee Member
Link Governor for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards

Michael has over 30 years of business experience, including being a CEO of a listed Plc, main operating board director of an international facilities company and most recently CEO and owner of a distribution business. Michael ran an education services business within the facilities company and also, in his most recent business, dealt with over 1,000 private and public schools in the South East of England.

Michael is married with 3 sons. His interests include sailing, cycling and trying to keep fit.

Sarah Loftus BSc Hons, PGCE

Chair of Children and Learning Committee & Trustee
Link Governor for Marketing and Teaching and Learning

Sarah has taught Key Stage 3, Key Stage 4 and BTEC Science, and A-level Biology in private and state schools for over 25 years. Most recently she taught science retake classes for students who had not achieved the grade to access level 3 courses at a leading Sixth Form College in Surrey. Many of the students had special needs that had not been recognised or addressed by their feeder schools.

Prior to Sarah’s teaching career, she was a director of an international public relations firm where her major client was a leading global pharmaceutical company. Her expertise in corporate communications and her knowledge of education has been subsequently used to provide marketing consultancy to schools.

Married with 3 sons, her interests include swimming, yoga, hiking and food.

John Metcalfe MBA, DMS, BSc (Hons)

Vice-Chair of Trustees and Governors
Chair of Finance and General Purposes Committee

John is an experienced public sector leader with over 37 years’ in local government working mostly at executive level. He spent the last seven and half years of his career as the chief executive of two upper tier local authorities which he successfully led through local government reorganisation and the Covid-19 pandemic. He now works in interim chief executive roles and as a management consultant. John’s particular strengths are in organisational transformation, and financial, performance and project management. He has been a Trustee/Governor at St Catherine’s since 2013 and was appointed Chair of the Finance and General Purposes Committee in 2023.

John is married with two children and two grandchildren; he is keen on all sports, current affairs, reading and travel.

Graham Pengelly BSc, C.Eng, MICE, FRSA

Chair of Trustees and Governors
Committee Member of Finance and General Purposes and Post 19
Link Governor for Leadership and Management

Graham is a Chartered Civil Engineer with over 35 years’ experience at director level, a founder and director of a private company which delivers services in the Education, Care and Housing sectors across Southern England, and founder and director of an IW based Housing Development company.

Graham also has over 30 years’ experience as Trustee/Governor in various primary, middle, high and special schools on IW. As a long-serving member of St Catherine’s board, he was appointed Vice-Chair in 2015 and Chair in 2021.

Graham is married with 2 sons and 4 granddaughters. His interests include watching sport, playing bridge, gardening and travelling the world.

Mark Rhodes

Finance and General Purposes Committee Member
Link Governor for Whistleblowing, Health and Safety

Mark was a chartered surveyor by profession, retired now, but when working advised clients as diverse as the Home Office, housing associations, local government, hospitals and a large private client base.

Mark grew up on the Isle of Wight and is in fact a former student at St Catherine’s, albeit many years ago. Mark has an interest in social housing and served on 2 housing association boards.

Mark’s hobbies are running around after the family (if that is a hobby), boats and keeping up with friends. He is widowed with 5 children.