Dear Families,

As many of you may be aware, our governing body has recently welcomed several new members, who are already working hard behind the scenes. One of these governors, Ibi Edwards, is taking on a Community and Welfare based role and wanted to share a little about her background, as well as her aims for the school.

"I feel very privileged to have been asked to join the governor’s of the school, with the task of developing links between the school and local community.I felt it important that the school may want to know a bit about me.

I trained as a psychiatric therapist in the US, where I was from originally. I came to the UK a year after graduation to work for the NHS. My work was varied, working in long term and acute psychiatric units as well as some work at Barlinnie Prison in the special unit, which was a social experiment in working with difficult long term prisoners.

I have been married to Robin for 50 years, during which time he has attempted to get me to speak proper English, with limited success. I left hospital work when we started our family and we moved to Somerset and ran a farmhouse holiday business together, specialising in looking after families with young children.

When our children were all in full time school, I retrained as a teacher and have worked at several local schools teaching A level Psychology. We have lived in Axbridge for 12 years and I have two grandchildren now at the school.

I look forward to getting to know more of the staff at the school as time goes by. I see the school at the heart of our local community here Axbridge. I feel there is much untapped potential within this community which I shall endeavour to access for the school’s benefit. I will do my best to support the welfare of the school staff and pupils in my new role."

Later in the Autumn Term, Ibi will be looking to meet with a range of parents from different classes, to gather views on a range of school-related issues. More details regarding this will be shared after the October half-term.