The Bude Communities’ Schools’ Trust.

Including

Bude Infant School,

Bude Junior School,

Budehaven Community School,

Jacobstow Community Primary School,

Kilkhampton Junior and Infant School,

Stratton Primary School

Whitstone Community Primary School

In association with their partner schools:

Maramchurch Church of EnglandVA Primary School

St Mark’s Morwenstow,Church of England Primary School

Report on the Consultation

Full Governing Body Meeting

Monday 9thJuly 2012

INTRODUCTION

This document summarises the feedback from The BudeCommunities’ Schools’ Trustpublic consultation exercise for the following schools; Bude Infant School, Bude Junior School, Budehaven Community School, Jacobstow Community Primary School, Kilkhampton Junior and Infant School, Stratton Primary School and Whitstone Community Primary School.

In addition the following local schools wish to become partners in the proposed trust, namely Maramchurch Church of England VA Primary School and St Mark’s Morwenstow Church of England Primary School. They are not consulting themselves (as they are not proposing to change their legal category and already have a Diocesan Trust as their legal foundation.)

This consultation report was produced on behalf of the seven consulting governing bodies by the Co-operative College who also facilitated the consultation. The purpose of the consultation exercise was to allow each governing body to seek the views of its school community ( and any others with an interest), on its proposals to change the school’s category from community to foundation and to establish The Bude Communities’ Schools’ Trustas its legal foundation.

Copies of consultation documents were published on the seven consultingschool websites and distributed widely to consultees including parents/carers, learners, staff, teacher associations and support staff trade unions, local Headteachers and Governors, Cornwall Council as the Local Authority( and also Devon Council), and elected members in the catchment area of the schools.

In addition separate consultation meetings were held for Unions, staff and their representatives, as well as for parents/carers at all the schools. Additionally a general public meeting for anyone with an interest was held. These meetings were well publicised locally.

The views of learners were sought via a series of separate meetings with them - and a range of appropriate methods, including assembles. These generally indicated support for the proposals from learners.

This document summarises the responses received for the consultation as a whole as well as the results for each school (– see Appendices A1 to A11.). Included within this report are a summary of the views and comments received from individuals. All responses will be made available to the governing bodies for examination when they consider this consultation. Individual responses are also available for examination by contacting individual schools.

CONTENTS

1. Executive Summary......

2. Overview of the Consultation Feedback......

3. Recommended Action......

Appendix A – Overall Summary of response forms

Appendix A1 – Summary from Bude Infant School

Appendix A2 – Summary from Bude Junior School

Appendix A3– Summary from Budehaven Community School

Appendix A4 – Summary from Jacobstow Community Primary School

Appendix A5 – Summary from Kilkhampton Junior and InfantSchool

Appendix A6 – Summary from Stratton Primary School

Appendix A7 – Summary from Whitstone Community PrimarySchool

Appendix B – Consultation documents

Appendix C – Additional written responses received.( None)

e

Appendix D – Notes from meetings

Appendix E – Local Authority assurances letter

Appendix F – Draft staffing protocol:

( and UNISON/SCS National Agreement ( attached separately as a pdf.)

Appendix G – Basis for reconstituting the Governing Bodies. t

.

1. Executive Summary

A great deal of consultation has taken place with regard to these proposals.

i)In outline the timescale was as follows:

  1. At the start of consultation on a summary information leaflet was circulated to all required consultees providing details of the forthcoming consultation exercise and clearly setting out the processto be followed. It was accompanied by the response questionnaire plus an accompanying explanatory letter.
  2. This information leaflet clearly gave details of the detailed consultation document,Booklet One – and how a hard copy could be obtained from any of the school offices as well as being available on school websites. An additional Question and Answer ( Booklet Two) was also made available on school websites and printed copies made available to anyone who requested a copy (see consultation documentation in Appendix C - attached).
  3. A joint staff meeting was held at Budehaven Community School on MondayJune 18th. Representatives of the local teacher associations and trade unions were invited to attend this staff meeting which was very well attended. (see Appendix D).This meeting was followed by a meeting for Budehaven parents and carers and then a public meeting for other stakeholders.
  4. Parents and carers’ meetings were also organised at all the remaining six consulting schools.
  5. The Governing Bodies’ meeting to consider this report on the consultation will be preceded by a meeting with the Cornish representatives of school staff trade unions and teacher associations.
  6. A particular feature of this consultation exercise was the relatively high number of views and comments returned with the questionnaires; 57 in total.

ii)The consultation was promoted widely and approximately 2620 consultation packs were distributed when consultation officially opened on May 31st 2012.

iii)At the end of the consultation period on July 5th2012 a total of 110response forms had been returned. This is approximately 4% of the total and is par for the course, especially when secondary schools are involved as their response rates tend to be significantly lower than that of primary schools.

iv)These broke down as follows – 65 from parents; 18 from staff; 17 from Governors, 1 from ‘others’ and 5 from respondents who did not share a category and were listed as ‘don’t know.’ There were also a few questionnaires returned from governors who were either also parents or members of staff – these have been included in the appropriate parent or staff category.

v)The overwhelming majority (106) of the response forms returned were supportive, with a very smallnumber (3) being unsure and only 1response form indicatingcomplete opposition to the proposals (see Appendix A).

vi)Of the 106 respondents who supported the proposals, 65 were parents, 18 were staff, 17 were governors with 1 ’other’ and 5 ‘not known.’

vii)There were 65 response forms returned by parents/carers with 62 supporting the proposals and only 3 unsure and 1 against.

viii)There were 18 response forms returned by members of staff, with all supporting the proposals, something fairly unique in our experience, especially given seven schools are consulting, including a high school. (see Appendix 2).

ix)It is clear from the responses of staff and the views expressed at the meetings that a few support staff, are concerned about the potential impact on their pay and conditions. However it is also clear that the great majority of staff are fully reassured that this legal change of employer will not make any difference to their present pay and conditions arrangements. A letter to obtain the required employment assurances has been sent to the LA (see Appendix E). In addition a staffing protocol (see Appendix F) developed with Trade Unions and Teacher Associations and which has been adopted by governing bodies in most other Co-operative Trusts has also been proposed. Linked to this is a formal national agreement between UNISON and the Schools Co-operative Society ( SCS), which is the recently formed representative body for co-operative schools. Nevertheless there may well be a few staff who still harbour some concerns.It will be important to reassure some themthat experience elsewhere in the other co-operative trust schools, mean any remaining concerns are completely unfounded. The proposed LA reassurances and associated staffing protocols with the TA/TUs plus the UNISON/SCS National Agreement, should all serve to reassure staff. This is particularly true for support staff with regard to the UNISON/SCS National Agreement. Each governing body is recommended to formally adopt these two documents.

x)There were nowritten responses received.

xi)The proposed partners and schools remain committed to the proposed Trust and working within the charitable aims of the Trust to raise standards and promote community cohesion. The Trust and the partners, as well as the mutual co-operative membership dimension, including the proposed Stakeholder Forum are likely to have a positive impact on the schools and theirwider communities and further assist in the raising of standards.

2. Overview of the Consultation Feedback

In most consultation exercises written comments with on the response forms tend to be made by those who have strong views/concerns and not necessarily by those who accept/support the proposals being put forward. In this case the level of response was significantly more supportive than in many such consultation exercises. There is a clear indication of support in the response forms fromthe great majority of those consulted.

However in questions raised by staff and their representatives there are a few understandable concerns around their terms and conditions of employment. However again this is much smaller than in many similar exercises and staff seem very reassured.

It will be important to ensure the necessary arrangements are put in place by the Local Authority and Governing Body to protect the rights of employees as outlined in the assurances letter (see Appendix E) and protocol (see Appendix F), plus the UNISON/SCS National Agreement (see Appendix G).

During the consultation there are inevitably many questions that are raised, many of them outside the remit of the consultation exercise. It is important nevertheless for Governing Bodies to note this and address them, whether by written responses – indeed some will have already being answered during the meetings with those being consulted.

Some of the issues highlighted are caused by a lack of clarity around governance, the partners and how the Trust and schools will operate. These will need to befurther clarified and the proposed governing body structures and final partners will be published as part of the statutory process if the schools proceed to the next stage. These matters ranged greatly and went from uniforms and special achievement shirts to neuro-learning, (all at Budehaven). Other comments from primary schools ranged from concerns about future school funding to consideration of federation arrangements and quite a number of other matters, including staff deployment.

It will be important to emphasise that each school will retain its own Governing Body and continue to run the school in the same way as a LA maintained school. Additional opportunities arise from the charitable nature of the trust and there may be benefits in working together for some projects to access additional resources. Each governing body will take on new responsibilities ( ie becoming the admissions authority and also the legal employer of staff.) (in reality the governing body becoming the legal employer from our experience elsewhere has not made any difference with regard to staff pay and conditions matters.)

Within the responses there were many positive comments about the clarity of the meetings and the explanation of how the trust would work. In addition there were several helpful suggestions of how to engage with the wider community and potential additional partners. This bodes well for the development of the membership and the democratic participation of those members in the trust as it develops.

Another noteworthy feature of the consultation exercise was the high numbers of stakeholders who attended consultation meetings. 249 stakeholders (predominantly parents and staff, with some governors) attended in total, although a figure from Kilkhampton is still awaited. These meetings went into quite a lot of detail as to the reasons for the proposals and there were a significant number of questions, almost all of which were responded to at the meetings. Hopefully these have served to reassure stakeholders on the great bulk of concerns they may have had. Indeed one respondent stated that they had been concerned but had been greatly reassured after attending a consultation meeting.

There were also some strong statements of support made by attendees at some of the meetings – and particularly in the views and comments submitted with via the response forms.

One particular matter which did come up a number of times was the possibility of Budehaven Community School becoming an academy at a future date. Both the Headteacher and the Chair of Governors have made it clear that no decision has been taken on this and that at this stage Budehaven is fully engaged with the co-operative foundation Trust proposals.

NB: the following questions which were asked at the Kilkhampton parents’ meeting will be answered at the GBs decision meeting – and incorporated into the final version of this report.

  1. Charities can’t claim VAT back – this could mean an extra 20% on all VAT able goods. Is there a special arrangement for Cooperative Trusts?

A. Yes as non faith foundation schools staying within the Cornwall LEA family of maintained schools, the individual schools are still able to benefit from the current VAT reclaim arrangements.

  1. Schools are currently under the LA insurance umbrella for buildings, public liability etc – will that cost come back into schools?

A. The current insurance arrangements stay in place.

  1. LA pays school rates – Do schools become liable as a Trust?

A. The governing body which remains the budget holder remains liable for the rates. However as a foundation school it is eligible for an 80% relief in its rates bill. Hoever this is cost neutral as Cornwall now only has to give it 20% of the current total to pay each school’s rates bill.

  1. How is the Coop funded?

A. Depends which ‘Co-op’ is being talked about. There are over 5,000 co-operative organisations in the UK, of all shapes and sizes, the best known of which is the Co-operative Group, which is a multi-stakeholder co-operative owned by its members. It is funded through its very widespread trading activities and it does provide some funding to the Co-operative College for its work with schools, including on developing co-operative schools. The College itself which is the education arm of the UK co-operative movement is an education charity and receives its income from a wide variety of sources. The proposed Bude Communities’ Schools’ Trust would be a local educational and social co-operative for schools and their communities across the area. It would be a charitable limited company registered as such at Companies House and would have to earn its own income, although as a Charity it can receive donations and gifts.

  1. Would like to know proportion of educational staff on the Trust.

A. The majority of the trustees would be school nominated. The seven consulting schools would each appoint two trustees, who would be the Headteacher and Chair of Governors ( or nominee.) Each partner school will appoint one trustee each, presumably its headteacher. So the overwhelming majority of trustees would be school nominated. It is also anticipated that all trustees will have an interest and some level of involvement in education, whether professionally, as a parent or in some other way, including a general interest in seeing local learners achieve their potential.

Governors should clarify that the Trust almost certainly will bring on board more partners – and a number have been suggested, including further education colleges, namely Duchy, Plymouth and St Austell.

Some mixed comments were also made about the Co-operative Movement’s intentions and involvement, particularly that of the Co-operative Group. It will be important to restate that the proposed trust will itself be a local schools run educational and social co-operative for the Bude area, owned mutually by its membership who will be drawn from the local school communities.

There was also some scepticism – and indeed puzzlement about ‘why things could not stay as they currently are’ although this was countered by quite a few comments by respondents who stated they understood the need for change, - and a recognition that this was very different from the academy model.

It was also clear that there many respondents supported the ‘Bude wide’nature of the proposed Trust and how it built on strong working relationships within the existing learning partnership. Overall it is clear that the wider school communities of the Bude area feel comfortable with these proposals and clearly have confidence in their school’s leadership, who are making these proposals.

The Trust will be a mutual co-operative membership trust which will be democratically accountable to its members consisting of pupils, parents, staff, local organisations and others interested in supporting the schools. This membership base will strengthen the links with the local community and lead to greater involvement with the local community through the co-operative nature of the trust.