KING EDWARD VII SCHOOL
MINUTES OF FULL GOVERNORS MEETING
Tuesday 1 July 2014
6pm – 8pm
Lower School
PRESENT:
Carolyn Leary, Chair of Governors (CL)Barbara Walsh (BW)
Beverley Jackson, Headteacher (BJ)
Huw Parker (Deputy Headteacher HP)
Matt Naylor (MN)
Peter Dickson (PD)
Caroline Fisher (CF)
Michael Williams (MW)
Rebecca Kaye (RK) / Carol James (CJ)
John Cornwell (JC)
Karl Gehring (KG)
Amanda Dempsey (AD)
Clare Allison (CA)
Hilary Mesher (HM)
Dan Heller (DH) Curriculum Leader of Maths
Hayley Brookfield (HB) Y7 Year Leader
Dave Musgrove (DM) Y10 Year Leader
IN ATTENDANCE: J Jackson, Clerk to the Governors
No. / ITEM / ACTION / BYDATE
Apologies for Absence
Rachel Cornish (RC), Linda Gooden (Deputy Headteacher LGO), Rob Whittingham (Deputy Headteacher RJW), Will Davey (WD), Catherine Holmshaw (CH), Cynthia Brooks (CB)
The meeting was quorate.
1. / Declaration of any Pecuniary Interests
Governors were asked to declare any pecuniary interests. There were no interests declared.
2. / Confirmation of the minutes of the previous meeting and report on matters arising from the minutes
Karl Gehring: CL registered enormous thanks to KG as this would be his last Governor meeting. KG has been a school Governor for KES for 20 years, joining in 1994, and was Chair of Governors from 2002-2005. CL gave particular thanks to KG as he was her mentor in her early days as Chair of Governors. During his time at the school, KG has also made a significant contribution across the city to the Sheffield Association of School Governing Bodies and to the Sheffield Funding Forum. He has ensured high quality governance at King Edward VII School and across the city. KG said he has enjoyed his time as a Governor, and as he benefited from his own education, he wanted to put something back. KG said he was grateful for the opportunity and thanked all for their appreciation.
Amanda Demsey: Huge thanks also registered to AD, this is also her last meeting as she has served her term of office and will be moving abroad. Governors wished Amanda the best of luck.
CL clarified that the constitution of the Governing Body will be established when proposals have been considered in the Autumn.
HMI Visit 16th May 2014: HMI’s report/letter has been distributed to Governors by BJ.
Safeguarding: This item will be addressed in September.
Sponsored Walk to raise funds for disadvantaged children: Over £1,000 was raised. Governors registered thanks to staff, who covered 22 miles to raise the money. 110 children benefitted from this by attending Duke of Edinburgh training. CM attended this trip and enjoyed it. / CL/BW
CL/BW/
LGO
3. / Reports on Governor activities: Attendance Panels, Meetings with Students, Attendance at Parents Evenings, Curriculum Links, Working parties – communication, homework etc, Committees, Staff Governor feedback, Response from staff on how we can improve Governor involvement in all areas, with particular emphasis on curriculum links
Attendance Panels:
CF reported that she has attended several of these panels throughout the year, across both sites. CF will be looking at reviewing the format of the panels for next year particularly for Lower School students to enable them to take greater responsibility for their attendance at school. CF would like to find different ways of structuring how to do this. It would be helpful to see more parents attending at Upper School. CF feels that the panels provide a good opportunity to talk with students
CM has attended three meetings, and has also attended a couple of link meetings with J Twyman re: Engineering. J Twyman has asked CM to organise meetings with businesses in September. CM said he is enjoying his involvement on the Finance Committee as it helps him obtain a handle on issues. CM feels it is a very strong group and that the members present the current budget problems in a very real way. CM is looking into setting up a charitable body and will prepare a short document for Governors to consider. CM feels that he can make a good contribution to these two groups that he is involved in. CM said he had attended a recent student meeting with AD and is confident in how the meetings are progressing. CM would like to see some collective feedback from Governors.
DM said he felt that Governor attendance panels are the strongest resource the school has in terms of improving attendance. He does feel that students do improve after they attend the panel but then slip again. He’d like to see the system of a one month follow up reintroduced. DM finds the panels very useful, to bounce ideas off Governors and finds their support very useful. CL asked if DM receives any evaluation data in order that he can see if the panels make any difference to attendance? DM currently doesn’t but will look into this. CL suggested a review. DM will bring some suggestions back to Governors for next year. DM feels that Governors involvement in the recent employer visits is very useful as it drills into students the importance of arriving on time when they start employment. BW clarified that she would like to see a whole school approach to it. HB clarified that the same system is currently used at Lower School.
CF will meet with PD, CF and Heads of Year to look at where the school is with attendance panels, with a view to having a different focus. HB asked if a pastoral link can be included. BJ advised that the intention is to have a KS3, KS4 & KS5 link. CL advised that this will be considered in the new school year. CF expressed interest in the role and will link it with her role as Attendance Governor.
Meetings with Students:
A paper was distributed entitled “Governors Meeting with Y7 students, 25 June 2014.
JC said he has been bowled over by KES students. He feels that they are articulate and asked if a cross section should be selected, as he thought students who attended the meetings were volunteers. BJ and DM clarified that attendees were not volunteers, but were selected, across different groups, ie Pupil Premium etc. JC said the meetings were valuable to Governors. JC is impressed with staff support in allowing Governors to attend these meetings.
JC also thanked the Leadership Team for their support in this. BJ stated that the next step is to provide feedback to the relevant staff in a formal procedure to find the common threads. JC feels that the students are focussed on what they want to talk about it, and it’s not just chatter.
AD said she got the impression that students are proud to be a member of KES. They discussed lots of “likes” and the “dislikes” almost had to be forced. It was apparent that bullying is very low.
BW asked Year Leaders if they wanted Governors to change anything regarding the student meetings. Those present agreed they didn’t want to change anything, apart from they’d like to see more feedback. CL said Governors will work on feedback for this for next year.
Attendance at Parents Evenings:
CF had a attended a couple of parents evenings and has had many discussions about Homework at a recent parents’ evening. Most said they would appreciate the Show My Homework system. CF thinks the Governor “stand” is a good idea but felt that it was much better to circulate around the parents and apporach them.
KG said he had attended the recent Y8 Parents Evening. He sensed purposefulness throughout the whole evening. KG feels that there should be a desk with a notice to identify that it is being manned by a Governor and Governors should wear identify badges so that it is apparent who they are. He feels that the students are enthusiastic and feels that a Governor presence is useful to provide advice to parents.
CF added that she had a photograph of her displayed at the Y7 Parents Evening to identify her to parents.
DH asked if feedback was available regarding the format of Parents Evenings, ie if appointment times were preferred or otherwise. CF said parents preferred the new system with no appointment. The school had recently sent a text out to parents to ask them their preferred format. Some tables were busier than others on the night but this is due to set numbers and subjects and can’t really be avoided.
CL asked Year Leaders if parents contact them directly via email and if so is it overwhelming? HB confirmed that she finds email useful as sometimes parents and staff aren’t always available at the same time to conduct a telephone conversation. MW also prefers email as it ensures a record is kept and ensures replies to parent queries are coming from the correct person in school.
Staff Governor Feedback:
CA gave feedback as a staff Governor: Staff recently raised an issue with CA
regarding some recent post advertisements. MW feels that there is an overlap in teaching and non teaching support staff Governors and he enjoys being asked questions from staff as a Governor as they are willing to give their confidence.
Curriculum Links:
English: CL commented on her link Governor role for English – she has held regular meetings with Head of English and will attend another before the end of half term. CL is confident and assured regarding the department and said that MW and his team work extremely effectively. Particular challenges for the future include lack of English teacher training places across the north of England, the curriculum changes and the resource requirements. Hard work also goes into the Curriculum and Performance Committee, where thorough, detailed updates are given. MW thinks it is useful to have the Governor link and feels it is useful to him to talk to different audiences about data. Governors also applauded the staff support for the debating society.
Science: KG said that during a link meeting with Michael Brown (Science), MB had raised a few issues regarding the complexity of managing a large department such as Science. HP clarified that PP is a whole school strategy and that next year interventions will be addressed on whole school terms.
Maths: BW reflected that in a Y11 top set behaviour was excellent, far different from her previous experiences where there can be low level disruption from students. DH has some staffing issues currently, he said it was useful to have a different ear to chat to about this. He also found the link meeting useful to talk about Pupil Premium issues and is looking forward to continuing to work with Governors.
MFL: This has put time pressures on MN and he would like someone else to take over the role. MN feels that he has contributed to some useful work in school, for example, working with D Ireland to generate income.
Link Governors are required to replace KG (Science) and MN (MFL).
PE: AD thanked the school for supporting her as a Governor, with specific thanks to teachers of her son. AD thinks it is a good reflection on the school, how much all the staff care about the students as individuals. AD feels that the PE Department does an incredibly good job, both in school, and out of school on extra curricular activities. AD feels this department is exceptional in the range of sporting activities it provides. The time and effort given by staff is indicative in how students are willing to participate. Mentoring in Y7/9 gives confidence to students to achieve in other areas. Staff and students should receive recognition for all this. AD has some sporting achievement results from GPP, and will distribute them to JJ/BJ.
JC offered to replace AD as PE link Governor.
Careers: CJ has had two meetings with S Fingleton. This is a small department with an impact on students in a particular year group. CJ looked at an evaluation with Y11 students of how they thought the year had gone. The results showed that work experience went well, and she now wants to look at the impact of activities carried out. CJ wants to ensure that students are informed about the different types of careers not only the ones they enjoy. CJ has given S Fingleton some suggested questions to ask students regarding this. CJ would like to see a link up between pre and post 16. It was suggested that Governors help with meeting students to talk about their specific career area. JC suggested that the Old Edwardian Society be approached as they will have members who have been involved in a wide range of different careers. Fran Walker (admin) is developing her role and is liaising with Governors for assistance. CJ thinks that the school should apply for a quality award for its careers guidance and provision. DM stated that Heads of Year would find it useful to know what Governors areas of expertise are. BJ said this would be revisited and the information widely shared.
Art: HM has talked about Pupil Premium at her meetings, the spread of ability and the need to help students who don’t have resources at home ie paper. HM said that the recent Garden Up project at the Botanical Gardens was amazing. Lots of positive comments received from passers by. HM registered thanks to Helen Lewis for heading up the project, all Helen’s team, and the staff and Governors who helped with it. It was compared to Tatton and Chelsea.
EAL: RK has met with Eva Lamb and Clare Allison. Resources are a large concern, they are very limited. The department is working with other departments on this. There are some new teachers in the department who are doing some wonderful work. BJ commented that this department is better than those in most schools. This will be discussed as an agenda item next year. It was established that the HOLA project was very significant but it is getting increasingly more difficult to find funding for it.
JC asked if the school is allocated its fair share of EAL students. BJ clarified that the school struggles with over 100 extra students with EAL. Continued attention will be given to this next year.