Local Committee

As part of Elevate Multi Academy Trust, our Local Committee (formerly Local Governing Body) acts as the local layer of governance, ensuring alignment with the trust’s overall governance framework while focusing on the needs of our academy and community. This structure promotes consistency, accountability, and collaboration across all Elevate academies.

We follow the purpose of governance as set out in the Academy Trust Governance Guide 2024, which is to provide:

Strategic Leadership
Setting the vision, ethos, and strategic direction for the academy in line with trust priorities.

Accountability and Assurance
Holding leaders to account for educational performance, safeguarding, and having an overview of financial probity.

Strategic Engagement
Acting as a link between the academy, parents, and the wider community to ensure stakeholder voices are heard.

Why Our Local Committee Matters

Although the Board of Trustees is ultimately accountable for the trust, our Local Committee provides an essential local layer of governance for Elevate. This ensures alignment with trust-wide governance while focusing on the unique needs of our academy and community.

Our Local Committee plays a vital role by:

Connecting the Board of Trustees, the academy, and the community
Acting as a bridge to ensure decisions reflect local context.

Providing strong links to the Board of Trustees
Sharing local insights so trust-level decisions are well informed.

Engaging meaningfully with parents and the wider community
Keeping the academy at the heart of its community and working with local organisations where possible.

Serving as ambassadors for the Trust
Bringing deep knowledge of the community and its specific needs, which is invaluable to the Board of Trustees.

Supporting parental and community involvement
Ensuring decision-making by the board of trustees is shaped by meaningful engagement.

Playing an important role in safeguarding and safety
Offering local oversight and understanding of the academy environment.

Assuring the academy’s performance and quality of education
Using local stakeholder voices to monitor and support improvement.

Escalating issues when necessary
Acting promptly to raise concerns with the Board of trustees.

Acting as a critical friend to the Headteacher
Providing constructive challenge at a strategic level.

Triangulating information
Reviewing policies, visiting the academy, and speaking with staff and children to gain a full picture.

The different responsibilities overseen by trustees and local committees are set out in the Scheme of Delegation, which is reviewed on an annual basis.

Link to Scheme of Delegation

Link to Articles of Association

The Local Committee comprises of:

The Head Teacher

Staff local committee member- elected by the staff at the academy 

2 parent local committee members - elected by parents at the academy

4 community local committee members - Invited by the other Local Committee members for their skill set from the local community

Associate members - Appointed by local committee members to provide short term support in areas identified by the Local Committee. They have no voting rights and their term of office will be limited to 1 year. 

Chair of Local Committee: Vanessa Conman

Email: v.conman@rillingtonprimaryschool.org

Address: Rillington Primary School, High Street, Rillington, Malton, North Yorkshire, YO17 8LA

Our Local Committee Members

Carrie Stabler: Head teacher - ex-officio

During her time at Rillington Carrie has steered the Academy in it's drive for improvement, ensuring that safeguarding is effective and pupil's outcomes are improving. Recently, she led the Academy through a successful Ofsted inspection. Carrie is passionate about reading, mental health and children being physically active, these are at the heart of Rillington's curriculum. Outside of school Carrie is passionate about sports and enjoys spending time watching her children play football and cricket.

Vanessa Conman: Chair of the local committee, Community Local Committee Member, Safeguarding link member.

Vanessa has been employed as an Access and Outreach Manager at the University of York since May 2015, supporting people from under-represented backgrounds and promoting progression to higher education. She manages a range of programmes, focusing primarily on the University’s work to support young people in care, care leavers and young carers. She has built strong partnerships with local authorities, community organizations, and schools across the country. As part of this role, she has also run the University’s flagship schools project for 10-16 year olds, working with over 2,000 children each year in 22 schools. Vanessa is one of the University of York’s Designated Safeguarding Officers, so is one of the first points of contact for staff and volunteers to go to for advice if they are concerned about a child or young person. Vanessa previously worked at York St John University in a similar role in the Widening Participation team, and prior to that ran the Young Adult Carers Project in York for 4 years. She has also managed an after-school club at a York primary school, run various youth clubs, and volunteered with the Youth Offending Team in York.

Vanessa grew up between York and Leeds and went to the University of Exeter to study Drama in 2005. She enjoys open water swimming, playing netball and going to see live music.

Rosie Dale: Staff Local Committee Member - EYFS link member

Rosie joined the Rillington teaching team in September 2022 having previously worked in another school within Elevate Multi Academy Trust. She is our current year 6 teacher and leads maths and PE across school. In her previous school, she has had experience of reporting to local committee meetings as a maths subject leader, and when the vacancy for staff Governor arose, she relished the opportunity to understand the role of a local committee member further. Rosie is passionate about ensuring all children achieve. Out of school, Rosie enjoys playing competitive sport, travelling and spending time with her family and friends.

Sarah Craggs: Vice Chair of the Local Committee, Parent Local Committee Member - School development priorities link member

Sarah is a qualified Actuary and is currently employed as a Senior Deal Manager in Bulk Purchase Annuities for Aviva. Her role is to bid on tenders to take on the liabilities of defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, which involves actuarial calculations, negotiating contracts and pitching to trustee boards. She has been responsible for deals of all sizes, from a few million pounds up to £1.5bn.

Prior to working at Aviva, Sarah worked for a global actuarial consultancy firm, advising trustee boards on their DB pension schemes and also advising corporates on the DB pension elements of mergers and acquisitions.

Sarah has a degree in Mathematics and Music, which are her two main passions. In her spare time, she loves playing the violin and is a member of Scarborough Symphony Orchestra, as well as several other local ensembles.

Michelle Carter: Parent Local Committee Member - Community and EYFS link member

As a busy mum of 5, Michelle is an experienced Primary School Teacher of 14 years. Her passions lie with the arts, and she holds an Honours degree in performing arts with a dance specialism. She has experience in many dance styles, choreography and taking dance performances on tour, as well as playing many lead roles in theatrical productions and pantomime! Prior to primary teaching, Michelle enjoyed taking dance into the community through workshops which involved working with many schools and youth groups. She continues to be passionate about opportunities for creativity within the curriculum and takes great pride in her creative approach when delivering it herself; the arts can truly help to bring the curriculum to life.

Michelle believes it is incredibly important to open up the wider world to children and, being forest school trained, she believes that providing outdoor learning opportunities is an essential part of education for children. Michelle also has a keen interest in sports and fitness, is a keen rock climber, a trained fitness instructor and loves the more extreme sporting events such as ‘Tough Mudder’ and ‘Go Below Extreme’ in Wales, and is always searching for the next challenge! She enjoys amateur dramatics/performing for local theatres, watching musicals at the theatre as well as experiencing other cultures through travel.

Rob Dempsey: Community Local Committee Member - health and safety Governor

Term of Office:

Name	Term of Office	Link Role	Name of Business	Nature of Business	Nature of Interest
Carrie Stabler Head teacher	N/A	N/A	Rillington Primary School	Education	Head teacher
Rosie Dale Staff	01.09.2023 - 01.09.2027	SEND/inclusion	Rillington Primary School	Education	Teacher
Vacancy Co opted		Quality of education and leadership
Rob Dempsey Co opted	02.12.2024 - 02.12.2028	Health and safety	Dempsey tree works	Tree surgeon
Vanessa Conman Co opted	01.09.2023 - 01.09.2027	Safeguarding including attendance	York University	Education	Parent
Vacancy Co opted
Michelle Carter Parent	02.03.2023 to 02.03.2027	Community and EYFS			Parent
Sarah Craggs Parent	01.09.2025 - 01.09.2029	School development priorities			Parent

Clerk to the local committee: Dianne Mousley

Resignations:

June Goodson-Moore resigned 19.03.2024 as co opted member

Diana Weatherell-Terry resigned 10.07.2024 as Chair of Local Committee

Elliott Heward resigned 27.03.2025 as parent governor

Elevate's policies are circulated to all Head teachers and Academy staff.

Copies of the minutes from local committee meetings are available upon request.

Should you need a copy, please do not hesitate to contact the office 01944 758402 or admin@rillingtonprimaryschool.org

Governor Attendance:

	Name	Format
Files

	Rillington Governor Attendance 20232024.docx	.docx
	governorattendance20222023 Rillington.pdf	.pdf
	Governor Attendance 20212022.docx	.docx
	Governor Attendance 20202021.docx	.docx