Trustees/Governors

Helen Parkinson – Chair

Helen has been a director of the Harpenden Secondary Education Trust since February 2015. Alongside her work at the trust, Helen has also been a parent governor at Sauncey Wood Primary School between 2009 and 2019. During that time she has spent 5 years as Chair of Governors and had linked responsibilities which included safeguarding, Headteacher performance management, financial procedures and computing/e-safety.

Helen’s background is in Sport, Health and Physical Education and she currently works within the public health sector. Liaising closely with school nursing teams, Helen works tackling obesity and physical inactivity amongst children aged 5-15 and their families in Luton.

Claire Robins – Member

Claire Robins is head of Sir John Lawes School in Harpenden. After reading Classics at Oxford University, Claire gained a PGCE in English and taught at a number of schools in Hertfordshire before being appointed deputy head at SJL in 2003 and becoming head in 2006. In 2008, Sir John Lawes became a National Support School and Claire was made a National Leader of Education, since when she has led on school to school support work with several local schools, leading to the setting up of the Sir John Lawes Academies Trust in 2011. In 2012, Sir John Lawes became joint lead school in the Alban Teaching School Alliance, which contains the Alban Federation SCITT.

Claire has sat on the Regional Schools’ Commissioner’s Head Teacher Board for the NWLSC region since its inception.  She is also a founding trustee of HertsCam Network, a group which aims to improve teaching through teacher leadership.

Helen Barton – Trustee

Helen is the Headmistress of St George’s School in Harpenden, taking up the post in September 2017. Having studied for a degree in Geography, Helen went on to train as an Accountant in industry. Realising accounting wasn’t for her; she returned to full time study and gained her PGCE in 1993 teaching at a number of schools, both independent and state sectors, within the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire areas. Arriving at St George’s in January 2005 as an Assistant Headteacher whilst studying for her Master’s in Education, she became Deputy Headteacher in September 2008. Helen is a hugely passionate and skilled educator, who’s greatest desire is to see our children grow up to lead fulfilled lives, enjoy healthy lifestyles and make a positive contribution to the wider community.

Helen is looking forward to working with the trust and supporting the development of the new free school.

Philip Waters – Trustee

Philip has been involved in the management and administration of educational organisations for over 40 years. He started as a Graduate Trainee with the Inner London Education Authority in 1974 being successively appointed to administrative positions in three Further and Higher Education colleges in London. He then took a senior appointment at a London Polytechnic before moving to the University of Hertfordshire in 1989 eventually becoming the Secretary and Registrar in 2001. During that time he served as a Director of various national Higher Education bodies before he retired as Registrar of the University in 2013. He continues his involvement with the University chairing the society comprising retired staff and the legacy society. He served as the founding Chairman of the Harpenden Secondary Schools Trust the trust which promotes co-operation between the secondary schools in Harpenden and became the first Chairman of the Harpenden Secondary Education Trust when it was founded in 2014 to make the application for the new school. He is also Chairman of two bus companies (Universitybus Ltd and Unobuses Northampton Ltd) which trade as UNO and he undertakes a range of transport consultancy.

Philip and his family have lived in Harpenden for over 20 years and all four children attended primary and secondary schools in Harpenden. He is Secretary and a Trustee of Harpenden Cricket Club and still plays cricket at vets level.

Julie Newlan – Member

As Pro Vice-Chancellor, Julie is responsible for:

⦁ innovation
⦁ enterprise
⦁ business development
⦁ marketing and communications

As well as overseeing strategy in these areas, she manages teams and initiatives relating to knowledge transfer, graduate employability, reputation management, fundraising and recruitment.

Julie’s role also covers leveraging intellectual property, and developing enterprise and entrepreneurship opportunities for students and staff.

As director of Marketing and Communications, Julie is also responsible for:

⦁ UK, EU and international recruitment
⦁ corporate media
⦁ PR and events
⦁ fundraising
⦁ alumni relations

She joined the University’s Business School in 1996 as a Senior Lecturer in Business Strategy, and held various posts before being appointed Head of the Business School in 2006.

Julie’s academic career began at the London Institute in 1993, after achieving management success in the hotel and restaurant sector. This included running a chain of high street cafés for Martin The Newsagent, and subsequent strategic marketing position with Guinness when it acquired the business.

Julie was awarded her MBE for services to Higher Education in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2014..

Tony Smith – Trustee

Tony studied Economics at London School of Economics then worked for the BBC and EMI before setting up his own music and media companies. After an MBA at Cranfield University, he entered the education profession initially as an unqualified teacher. He trained via the GTP programme at the University of Hertfordshire and qualified as a teacher in 2008. Promoted shortly afterwards to the Senior Leadership Team as Assistant Headteacher at Roundwood Park School, he became Deputy Headteacher in 2012. Driving excellence in education by establishing the best structures to enable staff to deliver an enriching teaching experience and for students to thrive in a nurturing learning environment has been fundamental to the classroom and whole school work Tony has undertaken. He contributed to the initial proposal to establish a new secondary school in Harpenden in 2013 and has worked as project manager for the Trust since 2015. He takes up his position of founding Headteacher of the Katherine Warington School in January 2018.

Jenny Howarth – Vice Chair

Jenny joined the KWS Board of Trustees in January 2019 as a Community Governor. She has been involved with the ‘New School for Harpenden’ project since its inception in 2013 through her involvement with Harpenden Parents Group, a community action group focusing on local school places. Jenny has lived in Harpenden since 2010 and has two primary aged daughters educated locally.

Jenny is a practising solicitor; she works for a global insurance company and focuses on financial and professional risks. Jenny passionately believes that all children deserve an excellent state education providing them with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in our ever changing world. She looks forward to supporting Katherine Warington School achieve its goals and aims.

Angela Karp – Member

Angela is Director for Science Innovation, Engagement and Partnerships at Rothamsted Research. She is leading the Institute’s overall strategy on external engagement and partnerships, and is developing new mechanisms for collaborative innovation, including a new accelerator initiative (AgRIA) to co-develop innovative solutions with businesses to challenges in agri-food. Angela has more than 35 years’ experience in crop genetics and breeding for food and bio-renewables. Her recent research career focused on optimising the sustainable yield and composition of perennial biomass crops (especially willows) for bioenergy, biofuels and other industrial products, under low-input arable systems. She has more than 130 refereed publications, co-authored a text book on genetics, and is co-editor of books on genetics and bioenergy. In 2007, she received the Royal Agricultural Society of England Research Medal and, in 2008, the Alfred-Toepfer Prize for her research achievements. Angela lives in Harpenden and has two children, one of whom attended Roundwood Park School.

Dimple Mistry – Trustee

John Burt – Trustee

John spent 30 years between 1989 and 2019 as a primary school practitioner. This included 20 years as a senior leader, 10 years of which were spent as Head Teacher of, Sauncey Wood Primary.

In 2018 he started to work part-time as a Visiting Tutor for the University of Hertfordshire and from 2019 this became his full-time role. This role concentrates on working with and supporting BEd and PGCE students on placement and interviewing new potential students.

Since February 2019, John has been a  governor at Surrey Street Primary School in Luton and is Vice-Chair of Governors with specific responsibility for finance and safeguarding.

Neal Tobin – Trustee

Neal retired from an accomplished and successful military career as a senior non commission officer after serving in a significant number of theatres and conflict zones around the world. 

Since moving into his civilian career he has gained over 20 years qualifications and experience in Senior Facilities Management, Health and Safety, Construction, Property Estate Rationalisation and Workplace Environment, specialising in hard services facilities management, corporate office fit out and estate portfolio management across the UK and Europe. His Career has spanned the Private sector, Not for Profit Charity sector and the Public Health sector.

He currently leads the Hard Services Facilities Management for one of the largest NHS Trusts in the UK delivering care where it is most needed.

Donna Witter – Trustee

Donna currently serves as a parent governor at KWS and sits on the Education Committee. She is an experienced educationalist having worked in the sector for the past 16 years starting out as a teacher.  She spent much of her career working in a large London Comprehensive School in Hampstead before moving to Bedfordshire and taking up a post as an Assistant Head in a Secondary School. From there she moved to another large comprehensive school and on both occasions was Head of the English Department. In addition, she has trained as an English examiner and has overseen the marking of a plethora of English GCSE language scripts over the years.

Presently Donna works in a department within Hertfordshire Local Authority as an Education Advisor tracking the progress and attainment of a cohort of vulnerable children across East Hertfordshire, Welwyn, Hatfield, Bedfordshire and Lincolnshire.  Her role sees her travelling across counties offering support to schools and teachers in positions of Senior Leadership – a role that she finds extremely fulfilling and rewarding.

Having three children of her own Donna is no stranger to governance and has also served as a parent governor for the past 8 years at her youngest son’s Primary School.  Highlights have included helping the school to grow into two separate sites and championing the transition of this ‘Outstanding’ Primary to Academy status; additionally, serving as vice chair and then being voted to the post of Chair of Governors in the last academic year.

Previous pursuits have included stints in children’s television and for many years competing in brass bands competitions around the country and entertaining abroad.  She is therefore proud to be a member of the ‘Brent Brass’ alumni.

Charlotte Zacharia – Trustee

Charlotte is an ACCA qualified Chartered Accountant with over 15 years’ experience working in practice. Having now run her own accountancy practice for 5 years as well as having her technical knowledge and keen eye for statistics, Charlotte now spends the majority of her working life undertaking business growth and development work with her clients.

Over the last two years, Research and Development has played a major role in Charlotte’s skill set and she has managed to secure over £4.5 million in Research and Development tax for innovative companies in the local area.

Charlotte has undertaken 3 years as Parent Governor for a school in Barnet as well as 3 years treasurer for that school’s PTA

Charlotte is really excited to be involved in KWS, and giving back to the community and the pupils of the school, including her own son currently in Year 8 and in 3 years, her daughter.

Alex Vickers – Trustee

Alex joined the board in late 2020 as a finance trustee.  He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (England and Wales) having qualified over 10 years ago with a Big 4 Accountancy practice.  He currently works for a multinational Financial Services Company as the UK Financial Controller in London and holds several Directorships within the Group.  In this role, he is primarily responsible for financial reporting, financial process improvement and analysing annual performance against budgets.

 Alex moved to Harpenden with his wife and two daughters three years ago and is excited about giving back to the local community through his role on the Board.