As ever there’s been a lot going on school to tell you about!
I have been involved in 4 Governor’s meetings over the last couple of weeks. Our Resources Sub Committee met to discuss the school budget for the next financial year. As I have communicated to parents, school funding is very tight at the moment and we were pleased that our forecast school budget allowed us to keep the high levels of support throughout school, to keep Y1, Y2, Y3 and Y4 classes as 2 separate classes in each Year group next year rather than splitting them ( the 2 bulge years of 60 children going through school make mixed age groups difficult in these years ) and even allowed £20,000 to spend on the school building! As all our building budget went on the roof this year, I’m looking forward to spending some money on something more exciting!
Our Pupil Support Sub Committee discussed SMSC – the Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural education that we offer in school. Some Governor pupil interviews will be arranged as a result of this meeting so that Governors can hear the pupil’s views on these areas.
The Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Sub Committee undertook a ‘Learning Walk’ around school last Friday and came up with 3 WWW (What Went Well…) statements and 1 EBI (Even Better If…) statement for each of the school planning teams – EYFS, KS1, Y3/4 and Y5/6.
Finally, a number of Governors and myself met with the School Planning Team from Leeds City Council to look at the forecast numbers of children in the area over the next couple of years and whether or not there are enough school places to deal with the influx. At the moment, the years 2017 and 2019 are looking very likely to have a shortfall in school places in the Guiseley area and a solution will need to be put in place.
In addition to this Governor activity, we also had an Ofsted inspector in school last week looking at the teaching students from Leeds University and the provision that both school and the University had put in place to ensure these students were doing well. We were delighted to receive excellent feedback – and the inspector also commented very positively upon our pupil’s ‘superb’ learning attitudes and the very high standard of their writing. It’s always nice to get some positive feedback!
In addition, we held a special assembly following on from our ‘Democracy’ focus in the Autumn term, looking at ‘The Rule of Law’ and ‘Liberty’. I was very impressed by how enthusiastic the children were about these very mature concepts – they engaged with the assembly very positively and enjoyed me ‘cheating’ to win a game to demonstrate why rules are important!
Finally, our leadership team met to do a little forward planning – it seems odd to be thinking about next year when it’s not even Easter yet!