Governors
“Governors are highly effective in facilitating the work of the school, and in giving senior staff wise counsel and every encouragement in their endeavours. Financial planning is astute.” Independent Schools Inspection 2011.
The Chair of Governors can be contacted via the School Office, 94, Packhorse Road, Gerrards Cross, SL9 8JQ or by phone on 01753 883370.
- Derek Wilson – Chairman of the Board of Governors
Derek has been Chairman of the Board of Governors of St Mary’s since 2007. He first became a Governor in 1995 whilst his daughter was at the School. He trained as a Chartered Accountant with Deloittes in London and Geneva and held various financial appointments in several industries including senior positions in Wilkinson Match and Cadbury Schweppes.
He became Finance Director of Slough Estates in 1986 and its Chief Executive in 1995, retiring from business in 2002. He was a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of The National Society for Epilepsy from 2003 until 2014.
- Dr Devinder Bansi
Dr Bansi joined St Mary’s School Governors in March 2022, his daughter was a student at the school.
Dr Devinder Bansi is a consultant gastroenterologist and senior interventional endoscopist at Imperial College London. He is also an honorary senior lecturer and a senior member of the consultant staff there as well as a former lead for interventional endoscopy at the Trust. He has extensive experience in gastroenterology as well as diagnostic and advanced therapeutic endoscopy including ERCP and bariatric/metabolic endoscopy which also forms a major part of his research interest. He is one of the leading experts in bariatric endoscopy in London and in the UK, with particular expertise in the management of complications after bariatric surgery as well as the use of endoscopy methods to achieve weight loss. He has extensive experience using the Apollo Overstitch device and is a proctor for the company, regularly teaching and training other doctors both in the UK and abroad in using the technique. He has established the largest series of patients undergoing Overstitch stoma revision for weight regain post gastric bypass surgery in the UK. He is also one of the first endoscopists in the UK to start an endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) service at Imperial College and also at the prestigious private Cromwell Hospital in London. This is a pioneering technique to achieve weight loss using endoscopic suturing without the need for surgery. In addition he has extensive experience in the insertion and removal of gastric balloons and more recently performed the first UK complete EDGE (EUS directed trans-gastric ERCP) procedure in a Roux-en-Y gastric bypass patient.
He was formerly a member of the Hammersmith Hospital’s Research Committee and is an educational supervisor for training of junior doctors, as well as undergraduate medical students. He is a trained consultant mentor for junior consultant colleagues, an examiner for the undergraduate Imperial Medical School and representative for the Royal College of physicians in consultant appointment committees.
- Christine Bayliss
Christine trained and taught as a Primary School teacher in the UK before moving to Germany with her husband and two small daughters. She worked for the Frankfurt International School there for 25 years, initially teaching Year 4 but then as Head of a new satellite campus in Wiesbaden, overseeing its growth to an enrolment of 300 students. As a member of the Senior Management Team, Christine’s responsibilities included strategic planning, curriculum development and assessment, appointment and appraisal of faculty as well as community and public relations and management of buildings and grounds.
She has carried out many evaluations of other schools across the world for the Council of International Schools (CIS). On her return to the UK, whilst no longer working full time, Christine is still involved in school evaluation for CIS and works as an independent educational consultant in the UK and overseas.
- David Campkin
David is a Chartered Accountant and Head of Tax for DAZN, part of the Perform Group, which uses digital technology to make sports content available globally. He previously spent 20 years at the BBC where he is responsible for the worldwide tax affairs of the Group. Originally from Birmingham, David studied mathematics at Exeter University and has lived in London since 1990.
He has worked in professional practice for both KPMG and PwC, and is a regular speaker at specialist tax seminars in the UK and overseas. David lives locally, is married and has two children. Danielle studied at St Mary’s, and Ryan is now at Leeds University. After a career in the City, his wife, Laraine, leads business development for a local creative firm. When time permits, David enjoys golf, squash and travel. He is currently Chair of the F&GP Committee.
- Stephanie Clifford
Stephanie trained as a teacher at The Institute of Education, London University in 1999. She has taught across a diverse mix of primary and secondary schools, in both the state and maintained sectors. She has been Head of Geography in more than one school and a primary school Deputy Head. For several years she represented Independent Schools on the Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board; she takes a keen interest in safeguarding and the mental health of young people. She balances school life with enthusiasm for the natural world, hiking and sustainable travel.
In July 2017, she travelled to southern India, to explore the culture, history and landscape, and to volunteer with Acts of Hope School (a charitable free school for 440 urban poor children),teaching KS2 and KS3, and sharing her teaching and management expertise with the staff. She is a Scout Leader for the youngest section and has recently worked with scouts age 16-18. Stephanie has three daughters, the youngest is completing Year 13 at St Mary’s.
- Anne Freeman
Anne started her communications and public relations consulting career in Canada having received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1985. She was part of a team that developed strategies for a wide array of clients including a province-wide outreach programme dealing with parental involvement in state education, the restructuring of a national broadcaster and the restructuring of state funded health care within a Canadian province. At the start of a second career, Anne returned to England in 1995, completed a law degree at the University of Buckingham and trained in London with international firm LLGM (becoming Dewey LeBoeuf) qualifying into its bank and finance team in 2001 before joining Norton Rose in 2002.
Following several years with Norton Rose in both London and Paris, she relocated to Bermuda to take up a position with international offshore firm Conyers Dill & Pearman where she took the lead in secured lending transactional work including multi-jurisdictional restructurings and reorganisations. Having returned to England in 2015, Anne now practices law via contract consultancy primarily for financial institutions and lives in Gerrards Cross.
- Marina Hall
Marina graduated from Cambridge University, where she studied Natural Sciences. She obtained a post graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Law and European Competition Law from Queen Mary and Westfield College and qualified as a Chartered and European Patent Attorney, becoming a Partner in Elkington and Fife in 1995. Among her clients were Dow Corning. After her son William was born Marina joined the Intellectual Property department at Reckitt Benckiser until 2005 when she set up PR Agency, The PHA Group, with her husband Phil. The agency has won awards for its innovative work on staff development, training and wellbeing and Marina has implemented a number of initiatives including partnerships with charities.
Marina has three children. Her daughter Alice spent nine very happy years at St Mary’s moving on to university in 2017; her daughter Poppy is currently in Year Four and her son William is at Wellington College. She became a governor of St Mary’s in 2016 and lives in Gerrards Cross. Marina was sworn in as a Magistrate in 2017 and now sits in the adult courts mainly in High Wycombe.
- Nick Hallchurch
Nick is an experienced commercial litigation lawyer at DC Kaye & Co in Amersham, having worked for BP Collins in Gerrards Cross for 31 years. Nick acts for established businesses in the South East. Nick has a reputation for winning claims in the High Court and County Court for contract, professional negligence, residential and commercial property, construction, fraud, and defamation disputes. Leading legal directory Chambers UK has named him as a ‘Leading Individual’ consistently since 2005 and recently described him as a “highly intellectual and accomplished” lawyer who, according to clients, “always understands commercial realities and practicalities”.
Nick is an CEDR accredited and experienced mediator, having conducted over 50 mediations, with a very high degree of success. Nick is married to Carol and lives in Coleshill, and their 2 children were educated locally. Nick is a sports enthusiast, and enjoys mountain treks having completed the 3 Peaks Challenge 4 times for charity, and golf and spinning. Nick is also a member of a leading local Rotary Club.
- Nicholas Moss
Nicholas has lived and worked in and around Gerrards Cross for most of his life and has been involved with St Mary’s School as a Governor since 2005. He has two daughters who attended the school from Nursery through to Sixth Form and he sits on the Finance & General Purposes Committee and is the lead governor for health and safety policies.
Nicholas runs his own business locally and was previously a Parish Councillor. He is also involved with various other local organisations.