June 2015

West Chiltington Community School

Chair of Governors Report

Introduction

As we enter the second half of the Summer Term and we start to hopefully enjoy longer and warmer days, I felt that this was an opportune time to update you on the news, work and achievements of the Governing Body that have been made on your behalf since the start of the Autumn Term. The Governing Body is split into two Committees – ‘Quality and Standards’ and ‘Resources’. My Report will give an update on what each committee has been doing and the areas they manage, as well as looking at other areas of the main Governing Body work including:

 Reconstitution  Safeguarding and Child Protection  Benchmarking and Working with other Stars Schools

‘Quality & Standards Committee’ – How Good Are we?

The ‘Quality and Standards’ committee is responsible for all aspects of academic quality, managing relevant policy, monitoring and reviewing progress with oversight of the Quality Assurance Framework and School Development Plan. In short, it makes sure our school is giving the best possible education, with the best possible curriculum and with the best possible teaching. It monitors our children’s progress to ensure that, wherever possible, every child exceeds his or her expected progress and fulfils his or her maximum potential whilst at our school. Meeting every term to review these areas is only part of the remit. A lot of work is done in between reviewing children’s work: 1:1 progress meetings with staff and the head teacher, observation visits as well as benchmarking with other schools through networking and reviewing published school ‘Dashboard Data’. The committee also manages and reviews the ‘Safeguarding and Child Protection’ policies and procedures of the school. I will discuss this area of work in a separate heading. So how are we doing? In short – brilliantly! The latest published Ofsted School Data Dashboard figures (March 2015) for Key Stage 1 show that every single child in our school attained Level 2 or above for Reading, Writing and Mathematics. This puts our school in the top 20% of all First Schools in the UK. This is not a one off – we have been achieving year on year improvement over the last 3 years. Our Key Stage 2 monitoring also shows that children leave us achieving above both National and County averages. This is simply fantastic and shows the high quality of teaching and curriculum we have at our school. The governors’ tough job is to make sure we are never complacent and that this high level of quality, progress and achievement continues.

1

‘Resources Committee’

The ‘Resources Committee’ is responsible for all aspects of building and finance with key responsibilities that include:

 Overseeing the preparation of the annual budget plan, ensuring it links to the School Development Plan priorities as agreed by the Governing Body. Review and agree the final budget and recommend it for approval to the full Governing Body.  Evaluating spending to ensure the budget provides value for money in terms of raising standards of education.  Monitoring the implementation of the school’s Performance Management Policy.  In accordance with Disability Discrimination Act 2005, ensuring the preparation, regular review and revision, where necessary, of a written Accessibility Plan to: Increase the extent to which disabled pupils can participate in the curriculum. Improve the physical environment of the school to increase participation of disabled pupils.  Ensuring there are proper policies and procedures in place for dealing with staff discipline, grievance, capability, redundancy, pay and staff absence, including sickness.  Reviewing the staffing structure on a regular basis, especially following a resignation, taking into account the needs of the School Development Plan.  Organising the preparation and implementation of a premises development plan, which details the annual programme of repairs, maintenance and improvements, in liaison with the LA.  Setting the level of maintenance service the school is able to purchase from service providers.  Ensuring the school complies with health and safety regulations including the security of the school premises and fire safety measures, including the alarm systems and fire drill.

The above list barely scratches at the surface of the work load of the Resources Committee. Since September, every external service contract from Grounds Maintenance to IT has been reviewed to ensure they provide best value and meet the needs of the school. Dozens of policies and procedures have been reviewed and updated to ensure they are legally compliant and fit for purpose and regular Health and Safety walk rounds and reviews have been completed to ensure our school is as safe as it can be. This year, we have at long last refurbished the children’s toilet facilities both in the main school and outside ‘Hut’ classrooms – long overdue! You will also hopefully have seen the large amount of work in the grounds (with the help of FOSA) which is ongoing and should be completed by the end of June. We have also invested in improving our IT capability as well as creating a brand new school website to increase our communication to all of our parents, guardians, and local community and beyond.

This summer, while everyone is away we will be carrying out extensive roof works to the school as well as completing an upgrade to our fire alarm system – all in time for a September return! In the current times of government austerity, every penny counts – made tougher as the majority of our budget is fixed employment costs. The management of our budget is getting more difficult every year but the enormous amount of work we have accomplished this year means that the quality and standards of our school have got better. Our challenge moving forward is keeping this going.

2

‘Safeguarding and Child Protection’

One of our key priorities as a school and a Governing Body is Safeguarding and Child Protection. We have a statutory responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of our children under the Education Act 2002. Not only do we want to ensure that our children are safe but that they feel safe as well. Our responsibilities as a Governing Body are very clear:

 To have relevant policies and procedures in place for carrying out necessary safeguarding checks and monitoring.  To manage how children are taught about safeguarding through the Curriculum including; relationships, water, fire, roads and railways, internet safety etc.  To think about how children’s wishes are taken into account when action is necessary.  To manage Issues around residential accommodation.  To ensure the school meets the needs of looked after children.  To ensure procedures are in place for when/if children go missing.  To challenge and hold the head teacher and other senior leaders to account for pupils’ behaviour and safety.  To review instances of bullying and how the school acts to prevent all bullying.  To be transparent and accountable, including in terms of recruitment of staff, governance structures, attendance at meetings and contact with parents and carers.

The head teacher (as our designated safeguarding staff member) and I have both completed external training to ensure our school leadership has the awareness and ability to make certain that safeguarding in our school is the best it can be. Earlier this year, every governor and school staff member took part in a whole school ‘Child Protection Awareness Training’ event. It is vital that every single person who comes into contact with children in our school has an understanding of safeguarding and child protection. We are also in the process of writing a staff and governor ‘Safeguarding Handbook’.

This year has also seen us focus on internet safety – a growing problem and area of concern. Hopefully you took part in the school survey and attended the evening Parent Seminar. The evening was hugely worthwhile and beneficial and certainly opened my eyes as a parent to the growing challenge of managing our children’s internet safety.

‘Reconstitution’

In 2014, the government changed legislation requiring all Governing Bodies to reconstitute by 1st September 2015. This was done to make certain Governing Bodies are no larger than they need to be and to ensure:

 the size & structure allows all members to contribute relevant skills and experience  Governing Bodies are cohesive and dynamic and able to act more decisively

Like every other school, we have gone through this process and our new constitution came into force on 13th May. Our new Governing Body is made up of 12 members: 3 Parent Governors, 1 Staff Governor, the Head Teacher, 1 Local Authority Governor and 6 co-opted Governors. Following the reconstitution, we have seen 4 of our Governors retire after many years of fantastic service and have welcomed 3 new Governors onto the team.

3

Our thanks and best wishes go to Simon Booth, Sue Gee, Bruce Fryer and to our retiring staff governor – Annie Steel. All four have put in many hours of hard work over the last few years to help drive forward our school and they will be sadly missed. All are valued members of our school and community and so it is certainly not goodbye! We welcome onto the Governing Body – Ann Corkery as our new Local Authority Governor. Ann has a wealth of experience in Education and will be the lead Governor responsible for Special Educational Needs (SEN). Also welcome to Julian Hoad and Selina McKee who were recently elected as parent governors prior to half term. My thanks go to all those who stood for election. Many schools are unable to fill their Parent Governor vacancies – the need for an election shows that our school community really cares about our students and school achievement. My thanks go to those Governors who have stayed on the Board for their continued hard work and commitment: Revd David Beal (Vice Chair), Chris Metters (Chair of Resources), Julia Handley (Chair of Quality & Standards) (all Co-opted Governors), Lian Middleton (Parent Governor), Helen Drummond (Staff Governor) and of course our head teacher – Julian Rose. This is also my opportunity to thank two people who work in the background and keep the Governing Body on track. Diane Brotherston, our school Business Manager, manages the finance and accounts and ensures every single penny is accounted for. Dids Branchflower is our Clerk and ensures we follow legal constitution, policy and procedure as well as producing all of our documents and minutes. Both are very difficult jobs but are done seamlessly and with excellence to ensure the Governing Body’s work is focussed at all times. My heartfelt thanks to you both on behalf of us all!

‘Benchmarking and Working with Other Stars Schools’

As part of our benchmarking and working with others, all local schools’ chairs of governors and head teachers meet termly under the banner ‘STARs Group’. The core purpose of the STARs Group is to work collaboratively in order to ensure the best outcomes for the children and young people in our schools. All members of the STARs learning community are committed to:  Working with all providers and the wider community to provide the best education possible for children and young people aged 0-19.  Providing the highest quality support to children who are vulnerable and/or have emotional needs enabling them to maximise their potential.  Determining a collective view of what the best model of school organisation is for our area.  An equal partnership – enabling us to solve shared challenges, preserving the uniqueness of our schools and locality and ensuring their future together.

Working together, the group has put in place a Locality Plan which is reviewed and discussed on a regular basis. Collaborative work within the plan includes:

 Student Achievement,  Special Educational Needs (SEN)  PE – To improve sport provision in school

The Group allows the sharing of good practice which is so important in driving good performance. I would like to highlight two key achievements (although there are many):

1) The Group has developed and put in place a non-statutory Year 5 assessment tracking process across all schools in the area. This is a huge achievement and is vital to ensure consistency for children across all schools and allows for a smooth transition for children transferring to Rydon.

4

2) The Group jointly funded a school PE Coordinator. This has allowed children to have a greater choice of sports available and has increased opportunities for competitive sports. Our School has seen Golf and competitive Cross Country Running within its PE lessons, to give an example.

Closing Comment

These are very busy times in the education world and our school, like others locally and nationally, is going through an enormous amount of change. Managing change, whether good or bad, is time consuming and requires strong leadership to achieve success. There is no doubt that we have the right leadership team in place to drive our school through the changes that are on both the near and far horizon. Please be assured we will continue to work hard as a Governing Body to ensure that our school will continue to reach the high level of success and maximum achievement that our children quite rightly should expect, and deserve, to receive.

Over the last six months, I have attended meetings and training events in many different schools including , for Boys, St Mary’s Washington, Storrington First School, Rydon Community College, Steyning Grammar and Ashington First School. I have spoken and networked with dozens of fellow school governors and no matter who I speak to, when I say where I am from, I hear the same words: “West Chiltington is a fantastic school - you must be very proud”. In short, I am and we all should be! We are a fantastic school but when you see ‘excellence’ every day it is easy to forget it. As a school community, we have a lot to look forward to as well as a lot of continued hard work to make sure we keep it going.

Finally I would ask all of you to take a few minutes to click onto the Ofsted website ‘Parent View’. Parent View gives you the chance to tell us what you think about our school. It asks for your opinion on twelve aspects of your child’s school, from the quality of teaching, to dealing with bullying and poor behaviour. We have a link from the school website or please see the link below. https://parentview.ofsted.gov.uk/

Many thanks and enjoy what is left of the summer term!

Kind regards,

Tim Rose Chair of Governors

5