Ms. Susan Cranfield has been a member of the British School Association since 1997. She works at University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria where she is a lecturer in English Language and Translation. She has held the post of faculty Vice-dean for Quality Assurance and has taken part in national quality assurance and inspection processes. She is the governor representative of the ‘Achieving Potential’ pathway of the BSGC Development Plan. Susan has two sons, one of whom is a former British School pupil now living and working in the UK, and the other currently a pupil at the school.

Mr. Robert Hopkins, Jr. was elected a parent governor in 2013 and has since become a Trustee. He is the Treasurer to the Board of Governors and worked as a member of the Building Project sub-committee during the redevelopment of the Tafira site. He and his wife Patricia Guerra have a daughter who recently graduated to attend an American university and two boys in the secondary school. After an international career in professional sailing as a coach and navigator, he now works for an American satellite communications company in product management.

Ms. Monica Vriethoff, like her three brothers, is a former British School pupil. Monica took her IGCSEs here and went to study an International Baccelaureate in Oxford. She has a degree in European Business Administration from the Universities of Madrid (ICADE) and Middlesex, London. She has worked mostly for multinational companies, leading Sales and Human Resources departments in different countries including Germany and Portugal. She is currently a consultant and coach for companies and social organisations. She has one son studying in the school and is the school’s Health and Safety Governor representative.

Ms. Debbie Davies was born in the UK and moved to Spain as a teenager. She holds a qualification in Children’s Care, Learning and Development and has experience of working with Nursery aged children. She has been a trustee member of the Board of Governors since 2000 and is the designated governor for child protection, as well as being a member of the Uniform sub-committee. Both her children are former British School pupils. She is currently the official distributor in the Canary Islands for a number of products in the health and fitness sector.

Mr. Richard Martin was born and educated in Argentina and then lived and worked in the United Kingdom until moving to Spain in 1975. He has been a member of the Board since 1988 during which time he has served as Parent Governor, Honorary Treasurer and, in 2000, elected Honorary Chairman, serving until summer of 2012. He remains a life-member of the British School Association. He has lived on the island since 1977 and runs his own business in desalination and water treatment for the past twenty-five years. Richard has a son and a daughter, both of whom attended the school before studying at universities in England, where they now live and work.

Mr. Alfredo Almeida has been a member of the Board of Governors since February 2013. He is an air traffic controller at the Canary Island Control Centre en-route division. He has also been responsible for the training and professional development of new controllers arriving at the Gran Canaria Tower. He has a degree in English Linguistics and Literature and has worked as a language teacher at different academies in Madrid. He was awarded colours for excellence in sports by Durham University. His daughter and son both study at the school’s Tafira campus.

Ms. Poonan Punjabi was invited to join the Board of Governers in September 2019. She is a former pupil and attended the British School from 1978 to 1990, taking her IGCSE´s, before transferring to the American School to completre her education. After leaving school she joined and expanded her family’s retail business in the south of the island. Poonam´s oldest daughter graduated from the school in 2019 and is now studying business management in London. Her younger daughter attends the South School. Poonam serves on the South School Sub-Committee, focusing on supporting and developing this sector of BSGC.  

Ms Anna Cooke graduated in French and Spanish from the University of Oxford and worked in Finance and Technology in several international banking organisations before a career change led her to teaching English as a Foreign Language and subsequently to completing her post graduate teaching certification through the University of Sunderland.  She has a Masters in International Education, also from the University of Sunderland, and taught internationally in Africa and Asia before moving to Gran Canaria in 2018.  Her stepdaughter is a pupil at the school.

Ms. Carol Eccleston has been teaching at the British school for several years, with many more years’ of varied experience within the UK. Her previous posts include working with nursery children from 6 weeks of age to being a house parent in a boarding school with children and young adults up to 19 years of age. She specialised in Early Years Education at University and then became a manager of a large nursery in the UK before returning to University to complete her PGCE and Masters in Education. She has completed various continuous professional development courses to enhance her own education, ensuring that these are also beneficial to the schools and children she has worked with. These courses have included becoming qualified as a lifeguard and swimming teacher which she has used to teach swimming within our school.

Ms Valeria Valerii is the mother of a Primary pupil enrolled at British School South since 2017 and has been invited to join the Board of Governors in September 2022. Graduated in the area of Linguistics and Literatures at the University of Perugia, Italy, she specialises in English, German and French. After completing her studies, she joined the world of tourism, that allowed her to travel and live in severals countries in Europe and North Africa, until arriving in Spain and residing permanently in the Canary Islands since 1998.

Luis Álvarez Martín, father of two children who study at The British School of Gran Canaria, joined the Board of Governors in 2022. He has a degree in Business Administration and Management, specialising in business advice through the Master’s Degree in Tax Consulting at the Instituto de Empresa (IE-Madrid). His professional career has been developed in the field of tax and financial advice. He currently works for a law and economists firm, as the Head of the tax department.

Mr. Julian Clark having graduated from University of London and completing his post graduate teaching certification at Exeter University, has been an educator for 35 years, teaching in a range of schools in the UK and other countries. Prior to joining the British School, Julian held the position of Head of Secondary School at St Andrew’s Scots School, a large private bilingual school in Buenos Aires, for 11 years. In January 2012 he moved with his family to Gran Canaria to assume the Headship of BSGC. His son is a pupil at the school whilst his two elder daughters are working and studying in Britain.