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Chair of Governors
Sarah worked in Cambridge for several years for Segal Quince Wicksteed Management Consultants and then Acorn Computers where she organised education events and conferences. Now a full time wife and mother, Sarah returned to her Norfolk roots 20 years ago after three years in Paris. Her children have been educated at Town Close and maintained close ties with the school. Since 1995 Sarah has coordinated the mini section of Norwich City Hockey Club and is on the Executive and Youth Development Committees. As well as this, her voluntary work now extends to a charitable organisation, The Norfolk Reading Project, whose aim is to support teachers in improving literacy standards across the County, particularly in areas where attainment falls below national standards.
Governor
Denis and his three daughters are all former pupils of the School and his wife, Clare, was a governor for many years. He is currently a consultant with Mills & Reeve solicitors, but previously taught French, German and Law to year 7-13 students at a local state High School for ten years. Away from the professional world, his main interest is sport. He is a former international athlete and has been a team coach at two Commonwealth and one Olympic Games.
Governor
Adrian worked at Cushman & Wakefield for over twenty years specialising in retail and leisure property throughout the UK and the Netherlands, where he was based for seven years. He came to Norfolk in 2001 and is a Partner at Roche Chartered Surveyors. Adrian’s three children were all educated at Town Close. Adrian enjoys cycling, skiing and travel.
Governor
Faye Fenton-Stone is Head of King’s Ely Acremont Pre-Prep and Nursery at King’s Ely. She began her teaching career in North London, teaching History at secondary level. Faye then qualified as a Chartered Accountant at Price Waterhouse Coopers and after a career break to bring up her family, returned to teaching. She taught at King’s College School, Cambridge for ten years, teaching throughout the pre-prep years and latterly as Deputy Head.
Governor
Simon has worked as a senior finance professional in the public sector for 30 years, initially at the BBC and then with several local authorities (Including Norfolk County Council). Simon is currently CFO for the Office of Police and Crime Commissioner, Norfolk. He also sits on the Council of the UEA as Treasurer and is a Trustee of Norwich City Community Sports Foundation. Simon’s son has been at Town Close since Nursery and is currently in year 8. Simon enjoys, sailing, fishing and walking.
Deputy Chair
Murray Graham is a Chartered Accountant who has practiced in Norwich for thirty years. Most recently he was a partner with Lovewell Blake LLP and is currently a non-executive director and business advisor. He is married with four children, all of whom attended Town Close.
He is Deputy Chairman of Governors and Chairman of the Finance and General Purpose Committee.
Governor
Governor
Louise North is Principal and Head of the Senior School at Framlingham College. She began her career at St Peter’s, York as a teacher of French and Spanish. Having run a Day House there, she spent nine years as a boarding housemistress, first at Glenalmond College, Perthshire and then at Marlborough College, Wiltshire. She moved to Stonyhurst College as Head of Upper School and, more recently, to Oakham School as Senior Deputy Head.
Governor
Gerard is a Full Professor in Telecommunications Engineering and has been Head of School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) from 2016-2023 which involved a range of senior management roles and responsibilities covering Teaching, Research, Innovation and Outreach. He holds a PhD in Self-Stabilising Protocols from Ulster University, aspects of which were completed with University College London (UCL) and one of the founding Fathers of the Internet (Professor Jon Postel) as a Visiting Research Scientist at the DARPA/University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles. Within his academic career, areas of research include Wireless Sensor Clouds, UAV for Disaster Response Communications, ICT for the Rural Economy, Converged Network Management & Control Protocols for Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks, delay-sensitive QoSLAs, energy-aware autonomic networking and IoT-edge computing. He has attracted several £millions of external research and commercial funding and has advised governments on the allocation of funding to large-scale projects valued in total at approximately £3 billion. He has extensive experience of working with developing economies, in particular, India, where he was the UK Academic co-ordinator for the major EPSRC-DST India-UK Advanced Technology Centre in Next Generation Networks Systems and Services which was the largest collaboration of its kind between UK and India in the ICT sector attracting total investment of over £20 million and also helped establish a Virtual Graduate Research School for 67 PhD students under the UKIERI Programme. Gerard was awarded an MBE in Queens New Year Honours for 2018 for contributions to Telecommunications Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Most recently in December 2022 he was successful as a Co-PI on a bid to UKRI-ESRC concerning Digital Technology in Teacher Agency. The £5.3 million fund will support a total of nine projects. He is also a Member of the UKRI-EPSRC Digital Security & Resilience Advisory Group.
Safeguarding Governor
Sonal Patel is a Specialist Orthodontist, Practice Principal and Partner at Smile Orthodontics. She also works at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital as an associate specialist. She is married with two children who both attended Town Close from Nursery to Year Eight and her husband Haren was a former pupil of the school.
Deputy Chair and Deputy Safeguarding Governor
Ruth started her career in corporate banking and, later, institutional stockbroking in London. She moved to Norfolk in 1991, and took an extended career break to bring up her three children, all of whom attended Town Close. In the last ten years, Ruth has been a governor in three state-funded schools, one village primary, a high school in Thetford, where she was safeguarding governor, and a High school in Norwich where she was chair of governors. Her experience in schools led her to start Teacher Training in 2018 and she has worked as a part-time primary school teacher since. Ruth has a particular interest in children’s literature and, in her spare time, loves travelling, playing bridge, walking and anything food related.
Governor
Isobelle Webster is a chartered accountant at the Norfolk-based accountancy firm MA Partners LLP. She has been at M+A for the past 12 years. She spent 9 years carrying out external audits, internal audits and Teachers’ pension EOYC audits within the education sector. She is now a general practitioner with experience in corporate finance.
She is married with two children. Isobelle enjoys socialising with friends, flower arranging and playing golf and tennis.
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