How Ark's governance works
Every school in the Ark network is the legal responsibility of the Ark Schools Board. This board focuses on statutory duties and delegates most day-to-day responsibilities to each school’s individual Local Governing Body (LGB).
This means that our Academy's governors are able to concentrate on the things that really matter – educational strategy, school outcomes and aspiration.
The Ark Schools Decision Making Framework outlines where responsibility and accountability sits for the key functional areas within Ark Schools between the ‘tiers’ of governance.
Our Local Governing Body
Our Local Governing Body (LGB) is made up of 6-10 members – usually people with a local connection or interest who are committed to supporting educational opportunity in the area. The board generally includes:
- Academy Principal
- Up to two Parent Governors
- One Teaching Staff Governor
- One Non-teaching Staff Governor
- One Local Authority representative
We aim to create a balanced group that will have the right skills, connections and dynamic for the LGB to work well and support the school in achieving exceptional performance. Attributes we look for include:
- Good insight into the specific challenges at the school and the general challenges of operating top-quality schools
- Excellent community links
- Specific skills as needed by/relevant to the school
- A link to the senior executive team of Ark Schools
All appointments are made by the Director of Governance for Ark Schools. The term of a governor is three years, except for the Principal, who remains a governor for the duration of his or her time in post. Governors may be reappointed for further terms.
The LGB meets four times a year.
Becoming a governor
If you have an interest and commitment to improving education, and would like to make a difference within your community, please register your interest in becoming a governor by completing our online Governor Application Form. If you have any questions about a governor’s role or responsibilities please contact us at governance.team@arkonline.org
A full programme of induction, training and support is provided. You can see more information, including role specifications here.
Contacting the governors
The current Clerk to Governors is Titilola Kehinde (titilola.kehinde@arkonline.org). Please contact them if you have any governance-related queries, or would like to contact one of the governors.
Our Governors
Nayeem Syed
Nayeem Syed is a senior lawyer at London Stock Exchange Group, and his work focuses on financial technology, complex outsourcing and global transformation. He is married with two children, 15 and 10, and lives in Wimbledon.
Iona Barnett
Iona is a civil servant who currently works in youth justice policy at the Ministry of Justice. She is a former primary school teacher who is passionate that all children should be supported to achieve positive outcomes, regardless of their background. Iona lives locally, on the Ashburton Estate, and she is keen to support the local community and school in achieving its commitment to prepare all students to reach their full potential and succeed in all aspects of their lives.
Rhiannon Cogbill
Rhiannon is a strategy consultant for McKinsey, working across a range of business areas. Prior to consulting, she was a teacher and head of department in London secondary schools and is still very passionate about education. She has an undergraduate geography degree and an MPhil in Polar Studies from Cambridge, as well as a PGCE with QTS in secondary geography. Rhiannon is keen to use her education and corporate experience to benefit schools, including students, teachers and parents.
Genevieve Field
Genevieve Field has been in the education sector for over 15 years and is currently Director of Programmes at Ambition Institute. She currently leads the national initial teacher training programme for Ambition which will train over 500 teachers each year. Previously she has led the early roll-out of Ambition’s ECF provision, and a number of teacher development programmes including the TLIF funded Transforming Teaching, Master's in Expert Teaching, Fellowship in Teacher Education and a series of instructional coaching and curriculum programmes. Genevieve has previously lead Ark Teacher Training's SCITT, playing a key role in partnerships and continuous improvement, as well as running early career provision and piloting Schools Direct for Harris Federation. She has been a school governor with Ark Putney since 2015 and is a trustee for two MATs and a deputy-chair of trustees for an additional MAT.
Amy Fielding
Amy's professional background is in hospitality and event management. Amy has extensive local community knowledge and as a parent of a child with Autism and ADHD understands first hand the challenges faced by many parents in a similar position, she hopes to share her experiences with the school as Parent governor.
Fiona Forbes
Fiona Forbes is a marketing consultant at Off The Fence Marketing. After graduating from Durham University, Fiona spent a decade working at Unilever before setting up Off the Fence Marketing in 2012. She shares Ark’s aim of giving every Ark pupil an outstanding education and the best possible opportunities.
Christopher Forsyth
Chris enjoyed a 30 year professional career as a business lawyer, including as a partner at international firm, Freshfields (2000-2015), where served 4 years as co head of the firm's graduate recruitment function. In 2017, Chris joined the pathfinder cohort of the retraining initiative, NowTeach, successfully completing his QTS and PGCE with Ark/Goldsmiths, working as a trainee history teacher at Ark Putney Academy. As an Ark Putney Academy Governor, he will leverage his legal, coaching and teaching experiences to support the school during its current growth phase.
Ben Williams
Ben is very proud to be a governor of Ark Academy Putney. He is a former secondary school Maths teacher who believes passionately in giving students access to the best opportunities regardless of background. Ben is a qualified chartered accountant with experience in auditing academies, charities and not for profit entities and currently works in finance. Ben is also a founding trustee of a widening participation in higher education social enterprise and a former governor at an inner city London Further Education college.
