Governor Profiles

Jo-Ann Staniforth (Chair)

I am a parent to 3 and a grandmother to 7, one of whom attends this school.  When my children were young, I helped in the classrooms with reading and mathematical games.  My occupation is an office manager, although I am a lady with many professional attributes. I enjoy my family and love doing activities with the children, watching them grow and learn.  I am open-minded, confident, passionate, fair, caring and my morals and values will be an asset to this school.  I believe in Longmeadow Primary School.

Lucy Canney (Vice Chair)

I work as the operations and facilities manager at The Nucleus (a life science facility in town) which develops CAR T cell therapy for patients with cancers. I ensure the building is fully compliant and runs smoothly. This is something I am incredibly proud to be a part of. I have worked in this industry for over a decade and have a passion for Health and Safety and compliant related issues (boring I know).    

This is my second time as parent at Longmeadow. I’ve been gone for a while and have seen the changes and look forward to working towards making Longmeadow an outstanding school, one where all our children thrive. In my limited spare time, I enjoy reading and working on the PTA planning events and bringing an injection of fun and community back to the school.

Darren Lovelock

Darren works for a large Retail Bank as a Technology Transformation Manager. His role looks at what technology can be deployed or improved to help customers and colleagues. He will own the end-to-end process from idea to delivery. He has scale leadership experience from his time as a Branch Manager. He has been a governor since 2010 and is the current lead on Health and Safety as well as the lead for GDPR. His outside interests include running, football and music.

Tanya Goddard 

I have been a teaching assistant at Longmeadow since 2007. I'm also a member of the school's 'Wellbeing Team'. I love supporting our children to have a positive school learning experience. When I'm not at work I enjoy meditating, watching films at the cinema and spending time with my two grown-up sons. I wanted to become a staff governor at Longmeadow as I feel it is an additional way I can support the children and staff.

Linda Friis

I moved to Stevenage in 1984 and my three daughters were educated locally. They now live elsewhere in England and I have six grandchildren. After graduating, I qualified as a solicitor and ran my own practice in the Old Town until retirement. Since then, my current interests and hobbies have included being a member of the Stevenage Lytton Players where I have acted in, and directed, many productions and served as secretary and treasurer.

I have always felt that children should be shown that education can be exciting and fun and that school should be a welcoming and inspiring place during their time there.

I hope that, as a governor, I can use my time and experience to get to know and contribute to life at Longmeadow.