Governors’ newsletter – June 2011

Welcome to Sherston School Governors’ second newsletter of the 2010 / 2011 school year. We promised to keep you up to date with Governor news and here it is.

Changes to the Governing Body

We have a number of additions and reshufflings to report. Isabelle Picken, in the role of Parent Governor has joined the Curriculum Committee; Sally Clayton and Suzie Powers are two Associate Governors who have joined the PR and Admissions Committee and Julia Pugh has joined Staffing Committee as a Foundation Governor. Judy Laddle has moved from Curriculum to Staffing Committee and Laura has changed from a Parent Governor to being a Foundation Governor.

A full list of the Governors and their responsibilities can be found on the side panel of this blog in a document called Who does What.

 

Parent Questionnaire

Once again we had a fantastic response from parents filling in the Parent’s Questionnaire. Many parents also noted issues that were of particular concern to them. In response to this Suzie Powers and Nick Bowditch met and addressed each comment/issue that was raised. These responses are available to you on the Governor blog http://sherstongovs.wordpress.com/parent-questionnaire-summary-of-responses/

 

School Development Plan (SDP)

Following on from the Parent Questionnaire, governors would like to hear your views and comments on various issues. Recently governors and staff met to review the SDP for instance. (An explanation of the SDP is available on the governor blog). Please visit and share your thoughts and ideas. We would like to involve you as much as possible in this very important aspect of the school.

Catering

We have just come to the end of the first year of our contract with the new school caterers, ABM. We are really pleased with the progress that has been made over the last 12 months to improve the quality and uptake of school dinners. Almost two thirds of pupils are now regularly eating hot school dinners and this is a significant achievement. There is a lot of research which suggests that eating a hot and healthy school meal improves our children’s health, behaviour and performance at school. School meals are subsidized at Sherston and we feel that this is a worthwhile investment from the school budget.

ABM have introduced a range of lunch time initiatives at the school which are very popular with the children – including monthly Lucky Plate and regular Theme and What’s Cooking in the Wok Days, as well as running competitions.  ABM’s nutritionist is a regular visitor to the school and has been working closely with the pupils to promote healthy eating. ABM are committed to serving freshly prepared and nutritious meals to the pupils and we’d like to thank Pam and her team in the kitchen for their continued hard work. We also hope that you will continue to use the School Dinners Blog to find out what’s going on and to let us know what you think about the school dinner service.

 

Improvement to School Foyer

Some of the governors are currently working with staff to give the school foyer a face lift. Soon there will be a large noticeboard to display important information for parents and to highlight recent developments and achievements at the school. Some of the pupils will be creating a symbol to display in the foyer to reflect the Christian ethos and values of the school. There will also be new comfortable chairs and a small table so that visitors who are waiting can sit in comfort and admire the pupils’ work and snapshots of school life. We would welcome any ideas/suggestions that you have for the reception area revamp. So do please visit the governors’ blog to let us know. http://sherstongovs.wordpress.com.

Staff changes

We are sorry that Mrs Jacqui Muttock will be leaving us at the end of the summer term after 10 years of dedicated service to the school. We would like to thank Mrs Muttock for all her hard work and contribution to the school and wish her well for the future. The governing body has recently appointed Mrs Alison Pegg to replace Mrs Muttock in Beech class in September. Alison has a wealth of expertise and experience, having previously worked in Sussex and Norfolk and we are delighted to welcome her to the teaching staff. There have been a few other staff changes since our last newsletter. The governing body appointed Sally Walker as the new Teaching Assistant in Birch class to replace Mrs Panayides who sadly left us after many loyal years of service to the school. We wish Mrs P the very best of luck in her new role at Malmesbury Secondary School and we are delighted that Sally has joined us at Sherston.

Objectives 2010 / 2011

At the start of the 2010/2011 academic year the Governing Body set a series of annual objectives for the school. These objectives are specifically aimed to ensure that the school continues to improve over the long term. Each objective is handled by one of the Governing Body’s sub-committees and below we list our progress to date.

 

Staffing

One of the Staffing sub-committee’s goals was to improve the overall standard of teaching in the school through the allocation of appropriate financial resourcing in providing a structured training matrix for the staff. A structured training matrix has been created and we are already working on version 2 of this. As a result of this process, the average overall standard of teaching has improved from the beginning of the year and it is hoped that this progress will continue.

The second goal is to review the role of TA’s and how they can best assist in the delivery of the National Curriculum to pupils. The annual appraisals of all Teaching Assistants have now been completed and the results will form the key part of the proposed consultation. 

 

Curriculum

One of the main goals of the Curriculum Committee has been to improve the collection and review of assessment data particularly for Maths and Literacy.  Although this sounds dreadfully dull, assessment data is vitally important to improve the delivery of the Curriculum, spot problems (such as dips in individual and overall class performance), inform lesson planning, and track how our children are progressing throughout their years at Sherston. 

A number of tools are used to help teachers and the school’s senior management team to assess pupil performance — SATS are not the only set of data used!  

Governors are now given an extensive Assessment Report in the Autumn Term and a mid-year progress report at the beginning of the Summer Term.  Both internal and external monitoring of assessment throughout the school has increased. 

The Committee will continue to focus on assessment to ensure that the data is consistently used throughout the school to inform lesson plans and help children to achieve their full potential. 

Next the Committee will focus on the delivery of the Curriculum.  Our goal is to ensure that the Curriculum is delivered in a stimulating and creative way, and that Sherston provides an interesting environment in which to teach, learn and achieve. 

 

PR and Admissions

The main goal of PR and Admissions committee was to improve communication between all parties associated with the school. The committee has created a more proactive Governor blog and would like to encourage parents to use this forum to share their ideas and concerns. We are also initiating a complete review of the school website as this has been as one of the core components of our future communication strategy.

To start with, we have invited parents to comment on the School Development Plan or any other aspect of school life that you feel you would like to comment on. Visit http://sherstongovs.wordpress.com and leave a comment.

Finance

One of the two goals for this year was to specify, tender and finance, subject to our capital funding allocation in 2011, the Early Years Foundation Stage canopy in 2011. This has now been completed and the Reception class can benefit from a vast “outdoorsy” curriculum regardless of the weather. This structure was funded jointly by the school and FSS with input from governors at various levels.

The second goal was to investigate the costs and benefits of introducing a cashless payment system to the school. This is an ongoing project and we hope to make significant progress before the end of the year.

 

Catering

The Catering sub-committee goal was to maintain the average number of pupils having school meals in excess of 80 per day. Presently about 100 pupils regularly have a hot school dinner!

 

Other Governor news

Governors have also helped to organise getting most of the school, and some past pupils, to re-plant their ‘tree for life’ in Grove wood in late March/early April.

Secondly, in conjunction with the Environment Area Group, Crispian Huggill is overseeing the building of an outdoor classroom. This is a fantastic addition to the Wildlife Area and means that pupils will benefit from a space that allows the curriculum to be taken out of the classroom.

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