The Governors may be contacted in confidence by email to Simon Holmes, Clerk to the Governors and Chief Operating Officer, at coo@stchris.co.uk or by emailing the Chair of Governors jakub.kozlowski@stchris.co.uk
You can also write to the Governors c/o the main school address: Chair of Governors, St Christopher School, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire SG6 3JZ
Alison attended Presdales School in Hertfordshire and went on to read Psychology at Lancaster University where she graduated with a BSC Hons with a minor in the History of Education. She then qualified as a Chartered Accountant working at Smith & Williamson. Alongside corporate audits she worked as part of the charity audit team for their North London office.
Moving into industry Alison worked in a venture capitalist backed Facilities Management company where she was Executive Director of Finance and Support Services. She has experience of corporate finance, business acquisition, MBOs and refinancing.
Having left the corporate world to have her child, who attends St Chris, she has since started her own business as a branding photographer providing visual branding content and advice for businesses and entrepreneurs.
Rouane was raised in Canada before coming to the UK for her Sixth Form in a northern comprehensive school and going on to study English at Oxford. She later studied Theatre, directing at Tel Aviv University and Victoria, British Columbia. She lived for years in Nigeria and Turkey where she taught in local schools. She went on to teach in Forest Gate, London and schools in Letchworth Garden City, Biggleswade and Royston before becoming Head of Giles Nursery and Infants School, Stevenage, in 2011 where she has been ever since.
Rouane also worked for many years as part of County’s Early Years advisory body, supporting settings to improve their practice and working as part of the team that developed HQS, now a national kitemark for excellence in Early Years.
Rouane lives in Letchworth Garden City. Her three children all studied at St Chris and she has had a connection with the school since 1998, being for many years a member – and then Chair – of the Parents’ Circle during the jurisdiction of three successive head teachers. So, Rouane knows the School and its history well. She is a lapsed French horn player, adores a Capella singing and in a misspent youth was lead singer in various rock bands. She believes passionately that pupils learn and thrive in a caring, creative environment.
Paul is the Assistant Head responsible for Boarding at Bede’s Senior School and the Head of the Animal Management Department – where he has been fortunate enough to design and build the School Zoo. He also teaches Science at GCSE and is a Designated Safeguarding Lead and BSA Level 4 Accredited Boarding Practitioner.
Paul’s background is one of combining education and zoos: his father was a keeper at London Zoo, and before training as a teacher, he spent a decade working as a zookeeper, at a variety of British collections, including Southport Zoo, in Lancashire, Chester Zoo, Port Lympne, in Kent and Woburn Safari Park, in Bedfordshire. His experience is with Asian Elephants, with Binturongs (shaggy- haired, Labrador-sized, arboreal beasts, with a fantastic smell), and with a plethora of primates. He has a passion for educating young people about science, and about conservation issues in particular.
He has taken many students on conservation visits into the African bush, surveying populations of Hazel Dormice in the Kent and East Sussex countryside and breeding endangered species of fish that have become extinct in the wild in his science lab.
Encouraging young people to be the best versions of themselves and promoting opportunities for children in care within the independent school sector are where he gains most satisfaction at work. But he feels his greatest skill is building effective teams of people, both in schools and in zoos, who work together supportively and in a collaborative way to achieve strategic ambitions effectively.
The governors act as our trustees and decide the best course for St Christopher School.
St Christopher School is an educational charity organised as a company limited by shares. The directors of the company, called Governors, are responsible for the management and control of the activities of the charity, namely the running of the School.
The governors act as trustees for the School and decide the best course for St Christopher School in the interests of current and future beneficiaries. They delegate (within agreed limits) the responsibility for the leadership and management of the School to the School’s Head who reports to the Governors on a regular basis.
Download further information about the Governance of St Chris here.