North and East Hants Governors' Forum

Date / 2nd March 2017
Time / 7.30pm
Location / Talavera Junior School
Present / Christopher Martin, Merton Infants (CHAIR)
Michael Anderton, Greatham Primary (VICE CHAIR)
Sarah Ayling, Rucstall Primary
Hilary Betts, St Matthews CE Primary, Blackmoor
Barry Eales, Old Basing Infant
Julia Hyland, Rucstall Primary
Claire Inglis, Dogmersfield CE Primary
Jeff Jackson, Westfields Infant
Abeed Janmohamed, Medstead CE Primary
Rita Jenkins, St Bernadette’s Catholic
Martin Kensett, Cherrywood Primary
Nina Lynch, Southwood Infant
Linda Montgomery, Elvetham Heath Primary / Carol Nicholls, Talavera Junior
Keith Norman, Maple Ridge
Clive Norris, Guillemont Junior
Jefferson Nwokeoma, Tower Hill Primary
Stacey Parsons, Manor Infant
Trevor Pitman, Kingsclere CE Primary
Douglas Ralph, Marnel Junior
Deborah Southerland, Velmead Junior
Simon Walker, St Peter’s CE Junior
Helen Whiting, Four Lanes Infant
David Willey, St Peters CE Junior
Sarah Wood, South Farnborough Junior
Chris Wright, St Peters CE Junior
Also Present / Maureen Bax
Nicola Smith
Catherine Eldred / Governor Services Coordinator
Governor Services Clerk
HCC Landscaping team

Apologies / Robin Gray, The Connaught, Cove & Samuel Cody
Brian Edwards, Calthorpe Park
Claire May, Ropley CE Primary
Tim Hayes, Selborne CE Primary
David Sims, Oakley Junior / Sylvia Vine, Brighton Hill
Ann Nelson, Henry Tyndale
Margaret Crowe, Medstead CEPrimary
John Wall, Testbourne
Tom Moore, St Michaels CE Infant
Janet Ruthven, St Peters CE Junior
1. / Apologies for Absence and Welcome
Carol Nicholls, Chair of Governors, Talavera Junior School, welcomed governors to the school. Apologies are listed above. Chris welcomed all to the meeting.
2. / Catherine Eldred, School Landscaping Team
Catherine explained that her service offered a whole site strategic approach via workshops in schools with stakeholders. This was a sold service and offered to HCC schools at £1000, 25% of cost and at the end a report was produced with a strategic plan and action plan for the school which was often used as a basis for fundraising of bids for grants.
In response to questions she explained that;
· this was additional to Property Services SLA but discounted to 25% if schools bought into that SLA.
· If a school was expanding this service would usually be free as part of the project.
She agreed to check if the service would be free if a school was accommodating bulge classes at County’s request.
3. / Minutes of the Last Meeting
The minutes of the meeting held on 19th September 2016 were confirmed as a true record.
4. / Matters Arising
None
5. / Election of Vice Chair
Chris stated that Douglas Ralph, Marnel Junior had offered to take on the role of
incoming vice chair, who would be Chair September 2017- September 2018. He was unanimously elected.
6. / Election of Primary Representative Schools Forum
Chris explained the role of Schools Forum which met 6 times a year in Winchester. Linda Montgomery, Elvetham Heath Primary was unanimously elected as the Schools Forum Primary representative.
7. / Share experiences and good practice
Governors shared the following:
a. Affordable Curriculum
· Use parents skills to inspire children and enrich topic work (e.g. working on topics such as space and film making)
· Identify specific items for the PTA to fundraise for and formally acknowledge their input once achieved
· Reassess the cost of trips, if enough parents are not contributing they may need to be changed or cancelled.
b. National Funding Formula
· Hampshire is a “loser” overall, already the 3rd lowest funded county.
· Some Hampshire schools still have significant reserves, they will need to spend these or they might be “redistributed”
· Any reserves will be used up due to these cuts anyway.
· There is a greater negative impact on rural and small schools.
· Schools have fixed costs which cannot be avoided regardless of pupil numbers.
· Areas of depravation in Hampshire lose out.
· Hampshire has had a fair policy in the past but under this system there will be no choice on how they share out most of the funding.
· Schools and individual governors encouraged to send comment to their MPs
· 3 of those present had written to MPs about the negative impact on their school, one had received a reply (from a Conservative MP) suggesting they tell the press how good the FFF is.
· The government want to push schools into Multi Academy Trusts (MATs).
· MATs won’t want to take on schools that are in deficit.
· where there are an Infant and Junior school on the same site they could achieve savings by working together.
c. Collaboration – a sample collaboration agreement had been circulated. Maureen explained that GBs could alter this (within reason) to suit their needs, some schools had found it difficult to convene Panels (for appeals, complaints etc) of untainted governors so this was a good thing to have as back up. She suggested that a proposed agreement was run past Governor Services before being enacted.
d. Value for Money/ Hampshire SLAs
· Some GBs and HTs have been looking at alternatives due to budget pressures
· Hampshire SLAs are generally good value for money, especially for a small school.
· IT support seems to the SLA most often opted out of there are several viable alternative companies.
· It takes a lot of work to set up your own cleaning or catering service.
· Companies that specialise in office cleaning don’t understand the standards required in schools.
· If schools attempt to set up their own contracts there are issues around specifying work, tendering and negotiating contracts that are outside their skill set. The Public Contract Regulations would also apply.
· Services taken in-house put pressure on HTs and office staff to supervise and monitor and they don’t have the skill set.
· There are other adjoining LAs that offer SLAs; there is no reason schools can’t look at those as an alternative.
e. Monitoring progress and Assessment
· The HCC assessment model has been updated and is much better now.
· The HCC model is easier for staff to use than Target Tracker.
· WGB training with the LLP using the schools own data is very useful.
· Generic training has to many unknowns to be useful.
· The system changes so often you can’t make comparisons with other years and keep having to learn a new system.
· Schools don’t use a standard system so you can’t compare with other schools.
· It seems hard to measure progress objectively, it is mainly teacher assessment.
Maureen agreed to ask Catherine Redgrave, HCC lead on assessment to attend the next meeting to update governors and answer questions.
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12. / Hampshire Governors’ Association (HGA), Schools Forum (SF) and County Governor Forum (CGF)
Robin Gray’s had not circulated a report and was unable to attend due to illness. Trevor Pitman reported that the last HGA meeting had been cancelled. CGF and Schools Forum had not yet met.
Local Office Issues
None
Topics for presentations or discussion at future meetings
Governors suggested the following, Governor Services to follow up for future agendas:
· Invite a local MP to speak about funding and assessment.
· Invite a teacher educator from Winchester University to speak about assessment, teacher training and recruitment.
Any Other Business
None
Date and Time of Next Meetings
At 7.15 pm for 7.30
3rd May 2017, Merton Infant School, Romsey Close, Basingstoke RG24 9HB
September 17 Liss Infant School, Hil Brow Road, Liss, GU33 7LQ
February 18 Hart/Rushmoor TBA
9. None.