Spotlight on…
Chair of Governors | Nigel Leeder
As we start recruiting our Dream Team of teachers and support staff to Trinity Academy St Edward’s, I will be asking each of them to introduce themselves and to tell you a little bit about their background and interests. Only the most dedicated, hardworking, and talented individuals will be hired at our school. Very soon they will be familiar faces to you around our brand-new building.
I am pleased to announce that we have appointed our Chair of Governors, Nigel Leeder. Nigel has worked in Barnsley for the last ten years and brings a wealth of experience from a safeguarding background and has worked as a Governor in other settings. Here’s a brief introduction from Nigel.
It is my pleasure, through the Principal’s Blog, to be asked to say a few words of personal introduction. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Nigel Leeder and I have been asked by the Principal to support him as Chair of Governors in our new school, Trinity Academy St Edward’s. This is indeed an honour. In telling you a little about myself and the knowledge and experience I bring to this role, I ought perhaps to start by mentioning that I first became involved in school governance over thirty years ago, when I was approached by my eldest children’s primary school and asked if I would be a Parent Governor. This was partly because, at the time, I was an officer in the Royal Air Force and there were a lot of children in the school from armed forces families and it was felt that having somebody on the Board of Governors with an insight into family life for forces families would be of benefit both to the school and the families of the service men and women.
That was the start of what has become over 30 years of virtually continuous involvement as a school governor in varying capacity and in several different schools and colleges. On my retirement after 27 years’ service in the Royal Air Force, and in looking for a new challenge, I accepted my first position with a local authority in Lincolnshire, working in child safeguarding, specifically, at that time, in early intervention.
I now have over 20 years’ experience in various roles, all in and around child safeguarding. The majority of that time has been spent working in the Yorkshire and Humber Region, with the last eleven of those in Barnsley and for the last four years, I have also been Chair of Governors in one of the boroughs larger primary schools.
It is very difficult for me to put into a few words just how honoured I am to have been approached by the Principal to support him in this way. Not just because of the faith he has placed in me to lead the Governing Body of our new school, Trinity Academy St Edward’s, but the pleasure to have the opportunity to work again with a man who I know is absolutely the right person for the job.
His ethics, his vision, his child-focused passion, drive, and enthusiasm are precisely what is required to ensure the team we are building around him will be some of the best in their respective fields. Together, we will ensure that Trinity Academy St Edward’s is the school that Barnsley parents want to send their children to and the school that our children want to attend, with sky-high expectations.
This is a unique and historic opportunity for all of us, and I know I am not the first to say this and I will not be the last. Standing at the threshold of a new chapter in the story of education in Barnsley, the Governing Body of Trinity Academy St Edward’s, in conjunction with Trinity Academy Trust, will do everything in our power to ensure that the Principal and his team have everything they need to drive the school forward; to ensure that we all, collectively, work towards one goal, which is to make Trinity Academy St Edward’s the best school in Barnsley, for our children, their families, the community and the staff who work here.
Once again, my thanks to the Principal, both in asking me to be Chair of Governors and in allowing me some space in his blog to introduce myself. I hope it will not be long before we can all meet again in person but rest assured, in the meantime, things are working at a pace towards us welcoming our first pupils in September 2021.
Best wishes,
Nigel Leeder
