Members of The Priory Academy LSST's LGB come from a wide variety of different backgrounds. Below you will find a short biography of each of our thirteen Governors. Please click on the following link for details of appointments and attendance:

Governing Body Membership 2023-24 and Attendance 2022-23

Ms V Townshend (Chair)

Victoria is a senior manager within the NHS with nearly 20 years’ experience in operational and strategic leadership; including commercial enterprise, hospital services and leading change programmes across the health & care system in Lincolnshire.

Originating from the South West, Victoria moved to Lincolnshire with the RAF, leaving in 2004 to raise a family and develop the family business. Joining the NHS in 2008 as a general manager for United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, Victoria managed various services for the organisation. In 2017 Victoria was appointed to lead a number of programmes on behalf of the Lincolnshire Sustainability & Transformation Partnership, a unique team which aims to improve health and social care services for the population of Lincolnshire.

Victoria has experience of budget management, designing and implementing robust quality and financial governance systems and effectively interfacing with national regulatory bodies which has a symmetry with publically funded education provision. Outside of “the day job” she has a passion for teaching adult learners, predominantly leadership and management skills, and facilitating sessions for professional teams to develop and implement their own service improvements.

Victoria’s four children currently attend The Priory LSST, joining the LGB provided an exciting opportunity to directly support the development of the school for all current and future pupils and staff.

Mr J Rouston (Vice Chair) 

Jon is a Speech and Language Therapist by background and a senior clinical leader in a local NHS Trust. Jon has been practising in the NHS for 20 years across specialist and mainstream education and with adults with learning disabilities and mental health needs. Jon returned to Lincoln after ten years working in Nottingham to lead a regional team providing communication aids to adults and children in the East Midlands region.

More recently Jon has worked with clinical teams and patient groups to enable their move to digital and data-enabled methods of care, working much more widely into the Lincolnshire Health and Care System. This involves leading multiple system-wide groups, developing strategy and influencing without authority into a much wider group. Jon has led a number of Lincolnshire wide digital programmes aimed at providing care for people in the place that best meets their needs and remote rehabilitation.

Originating from Lincoln and a former pupil of the school, Jon currently has close links through his two sons who attend the school. When not driving them to and from various after school activities, Jon can be found working on his new DIY skills after fully renovating a home close to the school.

Dr Chloe Gilgan 

Dr Chloë Gilgan is a Senior Lecturer in law at the University of Lincoln Law School. She completed an ESRC White Rose Post-doctoral Fellowship at York Law School (YLS) at the University of York and completed her ESRC-funded PhD in law at YLS and the Centre for Applied Human Rights. She holds a Juris Doctor of Law (JD) from New York Law School and a BA in Urban Studies and Film from Barnard College, Columbia University. She was awarded the Professor Lung-Chu Chen Award for Excellence in the Field of Human Rights for her public interest service to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, the Crown Prosecution Service in London, the Women’s Rights Project at the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, the New York State Division of Human Rights and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2009, and then worked at Laura Devine Solicitors, a boutique London law firm handling US and UK immigration before embarking on an academic career.

Chloë and family moved to Lincoln in 2020 during the Covid lockdown for her to take an academic role at the Law School. At the University of Lincoln, Chloë is module leader of the LLM option module Asylum, Migration and Human Trafficking. She teaches on the LLM International Human Rights module and on the LLB modules Human Rights in a Global Context, Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Legal Systems and Skills. Next year, she will be leading a new third year LLB module, Refuge from Atrocities: Ongoing Global Challenges. She has responsibility for personal tutoring and pastoral support for students and supervises LLB, LLM and PhD dissertations in the area of human rights, international relations, and migration. She is the Lead for the Staff Research Group on International Law and Human Rights and serves as the Chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee at the Law School.

Chloë's research is multi-disciplinary drawing on international human rights law, migration, foreign policy, and international relations to address the protection gaps for people fleeing mass atrocities. She has presented her research at over 20 national and international conferences and it has been published in leading academic journals such as the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, International Journal of Human Rights, Journal of Human Rights Practice and Global Responsibility to Protect. She is currently writing a book on the international responsibility for protecting Syrians fleeing mass atrocities. She has written blogs for the Human Rights Defenders hub at the Centre for Applied Human Rights and for the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Her research has also been published as Written Evidence for the UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee and she is an invited researcher in public international law to closed seminars with the FCDO, Chatham House, and relevant NGO networks, on the UK's role in preventing and responding to mass atrocities abroad.

Chloë's eldest daughter attends LSST and her son will hopefully attend in the near future. She is looking forward to contributing to the LGB and wider school wherever she is most needed.

Mrs Sophie Clayton 

Sophie has over 20 years of strategic and operational experience working in Human Resources in the public, private and the third sector, either as part of in-house teams or on a consultancy basis.  With an interest in understanding people and behaviour, Sophie studied Psychology as her undergraduate degree at Royal Holloway, University of London based in Surrey, focussing on Child Development, before embarking on her HR career (following extensive travel and work abroad).  She completed her MSc in Human Resources Management in 2006 and was awarded Chartered status of the CIPD in 2007.  Sophie is currently volunteering as a mentor through the local CIPD branch to support the career development of others within the profession and as a self-professed ‘employment law geek’ keeps up to date with changes in legislation and employment practices.

Sophie’s current role, as Head of Human Resources of Bransby Horses, enables her to act as a trusted partner to the senior leadership team, advising on sensitive and confidential matters and to play a lead role in organisational and culture change initiatives.  Sophie has experience of developing and leading the implementation of organisational policies and procedures, HR systems and process improvements, along with advising all levels of management on strategic plans and workforce resourcing to ensure the delivery of business plans, as well as completing complex employee relations casework. 

Sophie has a passion for people and their performance, supporting them to be the best version of themselves and is keen to use this knowledge to support young people and the wider school community.

Outside of work Sophie is kept busy with her two children and their various activities, both who attend the school.  As a keen traveller and animal / nature lover, she can mostly be found camping in various places in the UK and Europe, or skiing in the colder months, when the family cannot be convinced to camp.

Dr Kirsten McKenzie Fender

Dr Kirsten McKenzie is a Cognitive Neuroscientist and Senior Lecturer within the School of Psychology at the University of Lincoln. She has worked in Higher Education for more than 20 years, across several countries. Having completed a BA and MSc (Hons) in New Zealand, and a PhD at the University of Nottingham, Kirsten worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Manchester before moving to Kuala Lumpur to help establish the School of Psychology at the University of Nottingham’s Malaysia Campus as an Associate Professor, Deputy Head of School and Associate Dean for the Faculty of Science. 

Kirsten is a firm believer that everyone should have the opportunity to succeed, and has championed equity/equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) throughout her Academic career. She has extensive experience in developing, implementing and evaluating the impact of EDI initiatives within Higher Education settings, having Chaired Inclusion Committees for the School of Psychology and the College of Social Science, and has in-depth experience of reviewing Athena SWAN Gender Equality Award and Race Equality Charter applications at both Departmental and Institutional levels for Advance HE. She has also been able to combine her knowledge of EDI, Psychology and educational pedagogy to develop and deliver targeted workshops that increase awareness and understanding of EDI and intersectional issues across various disciplines and on a variety of educational courses. As a Governor, Kirsten hopes to ensure that all students feel that they are a part of the School community and have the opportunity to thrive in an inclusive and welcoming educational environment. 

Kirsten holds a PGCHE and HEA Senior Fellowship, in addition to being a Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Originally from New Zealand, she and her family moved to Lincoln from Kuala Lumpur in 2015. In her spare time Kirsten enjoys making things and is also an enthusiastic (if not particularly accomplished) skater.

Mrs E Forrest-Leigh 

Emma, a strategic manager with over 25 years’ experience in education, is on leave of absence from our LGB during 2023-24 following a new employment opportunity. She will return to active governor status in September 2024.