In the last two months, governors have taken the following actions to support schools improvement:

• Governors and senior leaders met to further clarify our vision for the school. Our aims for the school were identified after consulting with children, parents, governor and staff in 2013. We want to provide brilliant teaching and facilities, offer a creative curriculum that stretches and rewards all learners, engage all parents in their children’s learning and the wider community in the life of the school and help children develop the social skills they need to thrive. We explored what we would see happening at the school if these aims were firmly underpinned by the values identified as important by stakeholders. These values are: respect, creativity, inclusiveness, learning, relationships and community.
• Governors reviewed recent progress made towards targets identified as priorities in the school’s Raising Achievement Plan. These are: to embed and deliver the new national curriculum, to establish new assessment procedures, to develop spelling and to further develop teaching.
• Governors reviewed data showing progress, attainment and attendance of all children in the school over the Spring Term. They monitored the quality of teaching and reviewed staff sickness absence rates.
• Governors agreed the budget for the next financial year and visited the school to monitor how the school is spending pupil premium money.
• Governors have met regularly with Ms Brown, led her performance management and helped with interviewing.

For more information about what governors do, see “The role of the Governing Body” and our governor blog which appears on the front page of the website and is archived under “Governor News“.   Click here to find out who the governors are and here to find out how to contact them.

The Governing Body is looking for new governors.   We are seeking people who are committed to improving education for all pupils, willing to learn, committed to the school’s vision and ethos and who able to work as a team and take collective responsibilities for decisions. Governors don’t have to be parents or involved in education as full training and support will be provided. We currently have vacancies for people with knowledge of finance, performance management / HR, facilities management or early years education. It’s important that we have a balance of parents and non parents on our governing body, so if you are interested in becoming a governor yourself or know a friend, colleague or neighbour who you think might fit the bill, we’d love to hear from you. Please email chair@morley.cambs.sch.uk to arrange an initial chat. Click here to find out more details about what governors do.

In the last few weeks, governors have taken the following actions to support school improvement:

• The Salary Review Committee received and agreed salary recommendations for the staff from Mr Catchpool and considered initial feedback from senior staff on how successfully the new pay policy has supported the school’s improvement drive.
• Governors have discussed the school’s strengths and opportunities for development with Morley’s school improvement partner who is part of Cambridgeshire’s Primary School Improvement Service. This forms part of the school’s regular self-assessment and helps to clarify that our development targets are focused on the most appropriate areas.
• Approved a revised “Sickness Absence Policy”.
• Met with the incoming head teacher, Nikki Brown, as part of her planned induction.
• Agreed the design brief for the outdoor space.
• Formally agreed the re-constitution of the Governing Body (GB). Under new government regulations, governors must now be primarily appointed because of the skills they bring and not because they are representatives from different stakeholder groups (e.g. parents, staff, community etc). GBs have been encouraged to become smaller. Appointing governors because they bring specific expertise and experience will enable the GB to better fulfil their roles of:
  • Ensuring the school’s clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
  • Holding the head teacher to account for the educational performance of the school and it’s pupils
  • Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure the money is well spent.

Before half term, the governing body formally agreed the school’s Raising Achievement Plan. This outlines priority areas the school is going to focus its attention on over the next year. The areas identified were:

• Ensuring the new curriculum, which came into place nationally in September 2014, is successfully introduced so that it challenges and inspires all learners. The new curriculum brings considerable change in some subjects. For example, in ICT, children will now be taught programming skills from age 5. We are aiming for changes to be introduced smoothly and to maintain our focus on providing a creative curriculum.
• Establishing a system of assessment which does not use national curriculum levels but which allows careful monitoring of pupil progress. This is a challenge that all schools face as the government has removed national curriculum levels and level descriptors from the new curriculum. Schools may continue to use national curriculum levels but are being encouraged to identify their own methods of assessment.
• Continuing to raise achievement in spelling and grammar. The 2014 Year 6 Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar SATs results showed a marked improvement on the year before. We are keen to further embed good practice.
• Continuing to improve the quality of teaching, to ensure every child is provided with appropriate support and challenge. Teaching is already solidly good and we now aspire to develop more outstanding teaching.

Throughout the year, the governing body will monitor the progress of the school in meeting targets linked to these areas.   We will discuss progress at meetings, look at data and visit the school to talk to staff and pupils. We will also ask for feedback from parents in the annual parental questionnaire.

Communication

• For more information about the work of the governing body, see our regular governor blog. This initially appears on the home page of the school website and is then archived under “Governor News”.
• For full details of how governors communicate with parents, see “Governor Communication” on the school website.