FRANT CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY SCHOOL

Full Governing Body

Minutes of the meeting held on 17th September 2013 at 19.15

Present / N Jeal (NJ) – Chair; C Scully (CS) – Vice Chair; J Challis (JC); C Harris (CH) M Clarke (MC); D Hardy (DH); E Elliott (EE); S Macintyre (SM); J Packman (JP); P Shefford (PS) and J Thomson (JT)
In attendance / S Morris (SMo) – Clerk; C Laker (CL)
Item / Decision / Action
1 / Election of Chair and Vice Chair
The FGB unanimously re-elected Nick Jeal as Chair and Claire Scully as Vice Chair.
2 / Apologies for absence
Apologies were received from Amanda Douch, Linda Myers and Alistair Kinley
2 / Declarations of Interest/Register of business interests to fill in new forms.
New forms were completed by those present; forms to be forwarded to absentees for completion. / SM
3 / Minutes of the last Full Governing Body meeting held on 9.7.13
Some minor alterations were made to improve clarification, and the minutes were subsequently agreed by all.
4 / Matters arising from the minutes including;
  1. Review of school aims and the School Improvement Plan (SIP).
As AK was not present this will be refered to the Policy and Standards meeting. Any changes made to the school aims will need to be put into the school prospectus and therefore the FGB will need to approve it. PS to ask AK to circulate amendments when ready.
  1. Review of prospectus
This has been delegated to CS. The prospectus has been reviewed and is ready once the new school aims and some performance data from PS have been added. It is expected the prospectus will be ready by the meeting for new parents.
JP questioned whether if the prospectus would not be ready by that deadline due to the revised aims not yet being completed, would it be acceptable to retain the old aims to allow more time for thorough consideration of revising the aims. CS agreed it would be useful to launch the new aims within the school rather than purely for the prospectus. PS agreed better not to rush this through and reminded the FGB it would need their approval prior to its release. It was agreed this item would be added to the December FGB meeting agenda and for discussion/approval at that time.
  1. Letter to the Parish Council re one-way system.
PS had written to the Parish Council but had not yet had a reply.
  1. Letter to parents re safety of parking and crossing
PS said the crossing supervisor had now been appointed and all was going well. As a result it was felt that a letter to parents was no longer needed. The situation was hoped to improve further as cones will be put out to prevent parking on the crossing. There was a discussion as to whether the FGB would take further action if parents continued to park illegally and dangerously around the crossing, as there was concern that this would become the norm. It was also hoped that now there is a supervised crossing there would be no need to walk across the car park to get to the school building. It was agreed that the situation would be monitored and if it did not improve with the addition of cones then the FGB would write to parents.
PS explained the crossing supervisor was from Tunbridge Wells and had replied to advert in local shop. As a result of the appointment the caretaker is now solely working his contracted caretaker hours and has ceased his separate contract as a crossing supervisor.
  1. Letter to East Sussex CC re Benhall Mill Road
PS had written to Gary Langford, the East Sussex officer responsible for setting the number of school places for the county, but had not yet received a response. The letter had pointed out that in the past Frant school have been over-subscribed and asked, with regards to the development in Benhall Mill Road, what provision would be made for school places. The letter made clear that Frant does not have any extra space.
MC had spoken to Sean Hanbrook and Annie Atkins and they had confirmed that schools are now designed with an optimum number of 200. PS confirmed that there was a change in policy with East Sussex CC seeing 200 ast the optimum number of children for a school to be viable.
It was discussed that there were two developments being proposed, although unclear whether the Maryland development would fall within Frant or Tunbridge Wells. / AK
PS
SM/CS
PS
PS
DH
5 / Pupil Premium
PS explained the new additional funding termed ‘pupil premium’ that will be awarded for pupils who are eligible for free school meals or have been eligible at some time in the past six years. (An explanationary sheet was circulated to Governors). Schools will be awarded £900 per pupil for the financial year 2013-2014. At the time the budget was set there were 11 qualifying children at Frant, therefore the school would receive £9900 of pupil premium for the budget 2013-14. PS explained that Governors will have to know what part of the school budget is from pupil premium and how it has been allocated. Some pupil premium will be set aside and used for ‘Access to Activities’ to ensure those children will be able to access any extras, for e.g trips and swimming, and so no-one will miss out. The rest of the money has been allocated to additional support in the classroom for the qualifying children. As the school is required to publish an account of its use of the pupil premium there will be pupil progess interviews to show the impact the funding is having. This information will be reported to the FGB and will be published on the school website.
NJ noted that the FGB will receive a report in July.
6 / Update on actions since the OFSTED inspection
Improve progress in writing – PS reported that at the end of every term pupils progress is assessed. Whilst figures show that progress has been made, it is still not the case that all children have made better progress so there is still the need to keep on making efforts to try to ensure that over a year all children make two sub levels of progress. PS said to improve two sub levels a year is very challenging, but this is the East Sussex CC requirement.
NJ asked if PS could show results of how this year compares with last year. PS agreed to do this. Older boys are now doing better than they were comparatively to the girls. Important to remember when talking about progress this is not the same as talking about what level is achieved, which is why boys look like they are improving.
JC said that because of the changes to the Early Years assesments the marking was very hard – in her view writing has improved greatly but this might not look that way from the results. CL agreed it was very hard to demonstrate progress. NJ asked if children felt differently about writing tasks, whether they were more enthusiastic. CL said that this often depended on the many different writing techniques, and even if it was a subject matter the children enjoyed it was still challenging to put this into writing exercises.
PS concluded this would continue to be monitored.
Monitoring and Evaluating as a Church School – PS said progress has been made with finding places for reflective areas – developing the mosaic and outside area is on-going. JP has become more involved with planning.
NJ asked how improvement would be seen from a parents’ perspective. PS said it is more of a planning issue. Before planning was in isolation and now JP is more involved. / PS
7 / School Improvement Plan (SIP) – for Governors’ approval
CL talked through the main areas of the SIP (copies circulated to Governors). The plan is set out under four headings; Curriculum; Assesment for Learning; Marking and Feedback; Our Learning Environment. The plan sets out actions for each term which are linked to improvement ‘points’. The SIP is a working document and will evolve and poitns will be carried forward if/where need be. The aim is that OFSTED actions will become part of the SIP which will therefore demonstrate the improvements the school are working towards/making. SIMS are up and running and feedback sheets being used.
CS thanked CL for all the work he had put into producing the SIP. DH queried whether the plan was achievable with many points to be covered every term. CL said this was not different from the previous format, but the SIP now includes how to carry out actions. SIMS will do a lot of the processing.
NJ concluded the plan made it easy to see what was hoping to be achieved and when by.
The staff have seen the plan and it is already being used.
The Governors adopted the SIP.
8 / Admissions and appeals
The numbers for Reception were now 16. They went up one in September after a parent had missed the closing date and initially did not get a place. The family already had a sibling at the school and therefore as PS decided not to oppose an appeal, and the authority decided there was no need for an appeal in that case and the child was awarded a place. Another family have a son who started in Reception and they had been about to appeal to get an older sibling admitted. A pupil then left creating a space in year 3 and so the sibling took this place, again with no need for appeal. PS said both cases were exceptional circumstances and would not set a precedent for future appeals.
9 / Delegate authority to appoint staff other than senior teaching staff to Headteacher
This authority was delegated to PS.
JP raised the issue that the FGB should consider preparing a succession plan for recruiting future senior staff. He felt the Diocesan were keen to see that consideration had been given as to how future senior staff were to be recruited/advertised.
It was noted that MC’s position on the Governing Body is up for renewal by the end of the year, and there will need to be a parent governor election. Arrangements to be made for an election by December. / Clerk
10 / Proposed meeting dates for next academic year
All dates to remain as stated apart from the Resources Committee to be moved from 17 October to Friday 25 October. The meeting on 24 April 2014 will be re-scheduled once the budget meeting has been set.
11 / AOB
Sub-Committees
The FGB will confirm who is to sit on which sub-committee by the next FGB meeting.
Actions from Parent Forum Meeting
An invite will be sent to parents to the next Parent Forum in mid October, and will invite suggestions for discussion points. PS reported that staff had not been made aware of the letter that had been sent concerning classroom visits, and had requested they be given notice of letters before they are sent out. NJ noted this and sent apologies to the staff for this oversight.
Class3
SM said that parents from class 3 had not been made aware that Jill Thomson had become a permament member of staff. PS apologised and would clarify the position to parents.
Chestnuts Class
JC reported that all children had settled well and that the home visits had been very useful in strengthening the relationships between the school and parents. JC would be constructing a questionare to hand out at parent consultations to see if everyone was happy with the process. Next year JC and Heather Sewell might consider doing the consultations over 2 days rather than 3.
JT asked if the year one children needed more time to settle into the new class as it is such a big transition from Chestnuts. PS said they did have a day swap session in the summer term, but would consider if more was needed.
Changes to Teachers Pay
PS explained there will be a significantly revised pay structure.
The key changes are;
  • End of automatic pay increase for length of service. Now recommendations will be made for pay progression.
  • Salaries can be made within a range and staff can jump along the scale
  • Teachers moving from one school to another won’t have to have their current salary matched
PS said these changes allow more flexibility. Although these changes come in to effect from 2013 they will follow on from review for this year so any salary changes following this new structurewould be decided next year.There will still be inflationary salary increases. Staff will be on an individual scale rather than a fixed one. Staff will be briefed about this.
In practice salary reviews would not be performed by the Governors, this will be delegated to PS/CL and their recommendations will go to the Resources Committee. PS wanted FGB to be aware of this issue, but it would be put forward to be adopted at a future date.
DH would look at this before the Resources Committee. / PS
PS
DH
Close Meeting
The chair closed the meeting at 21.20.

Signed…………………...... Dated …………………………

[Frant – FGB 17.9.13 - Minutes]]

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