WEST THORNTON PRIMARY ACADEMY
BUILDING FUTURES
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF
THE FULL GOVERNING BODY
ON Tuesday 1st November 2016 at 7pm
Name / Governor Type / Present / Apologies / AbsentAl-Rasheed Amzart (RA) / Appointed / X
Karen Dugan (KD) / Staff / X
Michael George (MG) / Appointed / X
Georgina Harvey (GH) / Parent – CHAIR / X
Sherelle Lauder / Appointed / X
Di Pumphrey (DP) / HofS / X
Sarah Rowe (SR) / Parent – VICE CHAIR / X
Astrid Soiza / Appointed / X
Annabel Thomas / Appointed / X
Femi Yusoof (FY) / Parent / X
Ex-Officio
Keith Robinson / Director / X
In attendance:
Julie Newman / Clerk / X
1 / · Attendance – All governors attended the meeting.
· Declaration of Pecuniary and Personal Interests - Governors who had attended the Raising Achievement Committee meeting had completed the form. Sarah Rowe, Mike George, Astrid Soiza, Al-Rasheed Amzart were asked to complete a Declaration of Pecuniary and Personal Interest form.
· Code of Conduct – Governors who had attended the Raising Achievement Committee meeting had completed the form. Sarah Rowe, Mike George, Astrid Soiza, Al-Rasheed Amzart were asked to complete a Code of Conduct form.
· Declaration of Interest – All Governors confirmed they did not have any business interests in any of the agenda items for this meeting.
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2 / Appointment of Chair/Vice Chair
The Clerk had not received any nominations for Chair.
Chair
Gina Harvey put herself forward as Chair. Mike George seconded the nomination. All Governors present agreed. Gina Harvey was appointed Chair.
The Clerk had not received any nominations for Vice Chair.
Vice Chair
Gina Harvey nominated Sarah Rowe as Vice Chair. Sarah Rowe agreed to the nomination. Femi Yusoof seconded the nomination. All Governors present agreed. Sarah Rowe was appointed Vice Chair.
3 /
Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the meeting held on 9th June 2016 were agreed as a true and accurate record and signed by the Chair.
· Action – Desk top review. SR said she would be able to prepare a desk top review and the HofS needs to confirm what this should be and a date for this to happen.
ACTION 1: HofS and SR to organise and update governors at the next FGB.
4 / Constitution of the governing Board
· Changes to governing body and reconstitution - all governors 4-year term of office will end in September 2016 apart from the three new governors: Astrid Soiza, Annabel Thomas and Sherelle Lauder. There will be a need to reconstitute the governing body. The Chair said the Members and Directors passed a resolution: that governors and directors cannot have a dual role. This was needed because there was pressure from the DfE to build in separation within the Trust. The Chair said Sara Rowe, Femi Yusoof, Karen Dugan and herself had a decision to make between continuing as a Director or a governor at WTA. This decision will need to be made by 31st January 2017.
ACTION 2: At the beginning of January the clerk needs to follow up governors’ decision.
· Changes to contact details – the Chair asked governors to inform the Clerk of any contact changes.
5 / Governor Responsibilities for 2016/17
· Committees
The Chair said the Trust Governance Handbook asked that governing bodies considered holding the following committees Operations, Strategy and Raising Achievements Committee. KR said newly established academies would normally have a Strategy meeting. Governors agreed they would have a Raising Achievement committee and an Operations committee but would not require a Strategy Committee as they were an established academy. The Chair said in the past all governors had been members of both committees and asked if governors agreed for this to continue. Governors agreed to be members of both committees. The Chair said they would hold the Operations and the Raising Achievement meetings back to back this had worked in the past. Governors agreed to back to back meetings.
· Calendar of meetings - Dates for all meetings were at the end of the agenda and the clerk would also email the dates to governors. The Chair said they had allowed for two Operations meetings a term but the second would only go ahead if it was required.
· Governor Responsibilities
The Chair and the HofS said in the past governors had been given year group and or subject responsibilities. The HofS said she would like governors to consider linking their responsibility to the SIP. The Chair asked governors for their views on what responsibilities they would like to take on. MG said he preferred to be linked with a subject and would like to be responsible for science. FY said from the recent training he had attended the message was to ensure school visits are effective they should be linked to the SIP this allows governors to look at the issues and challenge more effectively. KR asked the HofS if they have subject leaders for all subjects. HofS said there were subject leaders for the key subjects or numeracy and Literacy SR said we should look at a theme in the SIP and governors can link that theme to the subject they are interested in. FY said when governors visit the school and attend a maths lesson the role of the governor is not to assess the teachers’ skill level but to look at how improvements can be made to support the SIP and make sure it is achieved. KR said numeracy was very important and was a focus across the Trust. The HofS said linking responsibilities to the SIP would be the best way to support WTA. Governors had further discussions on how to allocate the responsibilities and agreed to follow the SIP and where possible link governors to their chosen subject.
The Chair and KR for the purpose of the new governors explained the expectation and time commitment of the different responsibilities. They said there would be around three meetings a term with a designated member of staff on top of the governor mornings. Governors would be expected to understand the issues and make observations and report back to the governing body. Governors taking on key responsibilities would be expected to write a report of their work and findings throughout the year and present this at the summer governing body meeting. MG said he thought the reports should be issued by email once completed and followed up at the meetings. Governors agreed if you wished to write the report and issue early then that was an individual decision but key responsibilities would be asked to present at the governing body meetings. KR said due to the reconstitution it would be good practice for new governors to shadow on some of the key responsibilities.
· The following responsibilities were agreed:
- Core priority E – Develop practices mindful of staff wellbeing to aid recruitment and retention – Sarah Rowe
- Foundation priority ICT – Rasheed Amzart
- Foundation priority STEM - Mike George
- Foundation priority reading and Early Years – Annabel Thomas
- Core priority B – Develop maths skills
- Core priority C evaluate teaching of writing and D develop a culture of beautiful work – Astrid Soiza
- Core priority A - Evaluate assessment – Femi Yusoof
· The following governors agreed to the following key responsibilities:
Safeguarding – Gina Harvey
SEN – Gina Harvey and Astrid Soiza
Pupil Premium – Mike George and Annabel Thomas
Behaviour – Femi Yusoof
Health and Safety – Mike George
· Terms of Reference
The chair pointed out these were in the ST Governance Handbook that had been issued to governors. Governors agreed to the terms of reference.
6 / Performance Management
· HofS Performance Management committee – Governors appointed Gina Harvey, Femi Yusoof, Sarah Rowe to performance manage the Head of School. The HofS decided to have Stuart Roberts to support the governors during the performance review. The HofS said the meeting is booked for the 5th December at 9.30. The chair will inform Stuart Roberts of the date.
The FGB agreed to delegate responsibility for any pay increases for the HofS to the PM Committee. Any increase will be endorsed at the next FGB meeting.
· The Performance Management – HofS confirmed the staff performance management meetings will all be completed by 31st October. The HofS said all staff had met their July targets and all staff and moved up the scale as appropriate.
· Spinal Points – See confidential minutes.
· Trust Appraisal Policy – The Chair said the Appraisal policy had been agreed by Directors. KR said the Executive Committee had been involved in amending the policy. The HofS said the main change was updating the paper work that needed to be completed to make it more user friendly.
The governors agreed and adopted the new appraisal policy.
7 / Safeguarding
· Safeguarding has been covered in the HofS report.
All governors have attended the Safeguarding training.
· The Single Record has been audited and is now up to date for all staff and new joiners. This has be checked and reviewed by the Chair. .
· Child Protection Policy – Governors noted and approved the Trust wide policy. All governors (except Femi Yusoof and Gina Harvey) attended Child Protection Training which was held on 3rd October Ayla Arli has the signed document of training attendance. Gina Harvey is up to date with Child Protection training.
· Keeping children safe in education
Part 1: The Management of safeguarding the responsibility of Governing bodies, proprietors and management committees. Staff have signed to confirm they have read it and understand their responsibilities.
Part 2: The Management of safeguarding the responsibility of Governing bodies, proprietors and management committees. This has been read and governors signed to acknowledge they understood their responsibilities and the clerk filed it in the Governance / minutes file.
8 / Head of Schools report
The Head of Schools report had been email to governors and they were invited to ask questions.
· Numbers on roll – The HofS explained about the waiting list and appeals`. We are almost full. We have a waiting list but Croydon cannot process the admission fast enough. Unfortunately, we were not full when the census was carried out in October and will not receive full funding. In Key Stage 2 we have a number of appeals. As there is no legal maximum requirement in a Key Stage 2 class we may be forced to increase the class size. An appeal was won to allow a child start in Year 5 and this has set a precedent. There is more movement at the academy and children leave with short notice this is due to Croydon moving families out of the area because it is becoming expensive to house families in Croydon.
· Exclusions – See confidential minutes. GH asked for information on the exclusion this term.
· Persistent absence – GH asked why this was very high at 10.8%. The HofS said today the persistent absence is a lot lower may be even half this percentage. This was due to a high number of pupils celebrating Eid and test for the grammar schools. It was high this time last year and this again was because of Eid it depends when Eid falls. GH asked how many children this amounted too. HofS said 76 this term.
· Health and Safety (H&S) update – MG was invited to inform governors about the H&S walk. The report was emailed to governors. MG said he normally does the H&S walk when the pupils have finished school but this time he did it when it was occupied so he could meet the children and see the systems in place. He was accompanied by two Year 5 pupils. They did not know what ‘risk’ was and would point out what was acceptable. They were very observant. MG said the main issues were in the reception playground where MG saw lots of hazards but with good control measures in place these were made acceptable. MG said his report shows the severity of the risk by who is responsible ie High = Directors, Medium = HofS and low = Head of Year. MG said there is a safe environment for the children at WTA.
· Safeguarding – KR asked who the designated lead was. The HofS said there were a number of designated safeguarding staff members: Naina Chauhan, Ayla Arli, Karen Dugan and herself. KR asked if they were the same for Canterbury Road Hub. Yes these are across WTA but there is also Lorraine Starnes who is works across both sites and she is known to be the designated safeguarding person for the hub. KD said staff know who to go to and any senior leader could deal with a safeguarding issue.
· SEF
- Teaching – .KR asked how many new staff had joined this year. HofS said there were 11 new teachers. KR said you would expect this to impact on teaching. HofS said not all were NQTs some were experienced teachers. KR said at WTA there was an innovative approach to teaching. HofS agreed and said it did take time for experience teachers to be comfortable with the WTA approach to teaching.
- Behaviour – HofS said this was outstanding. GH said she would agree and the evidence is we have fewer exclusions and when you walk around WTA you meet pupils showing good behaviour, being polite and show how they want to learn. HofS said if governors come to visit and take time to talk to the pupils they will see our children are special being able to engage with all and have a great leaning ethos.