Warblington School –Staffing and Professional Development Committee- Minutes of meeting on 9 February 2016
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE STAFFING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE HELD ON TUESDAY, 9 FEBRUARY 2016
AT 5.45PM AT WARBLINGTON SCHOOL
Present:Campbell McMurray Community Governor and Chair
Ian CrabtreeCommunity Governor and Vice-Chair
Julia Vincent(until 7.35pm)Headteacher
Cara ChambersStaff Governor
Robert Page(until 7.15pm)Community Governor
In attendance:Jackie Lowe(until 7.35pm)Assistant Headteacher
Jane Wood(until 7.35pm)Assistant Headteacher
Hilary PicklesClerk to Governors
1.Welcome and apologies
Campbellwelcomed everyone to the meeting which was quorate. Apologies for absence were received and accepted from, Nick Bennett, Co-opted Governor, and Andy Palmer, Parent Governor. It was noted that Robert would have to leave the meeting early.
2.Declaration of Pecuniary Interests
Governors were reminded to declare any pecuniary or other interests and none were declared. They were also reminded to advise should any item on the agenda change their interests during the meeting.
3.Matters of urgent business
There were no matters of urgent business.
4.Minutes of previous meetings
Ian proposed,Cara seconded and governors agreed that the minutes of the meeting on 10 November 2015 were agreed as a true record and they were signed. Campbell thanked Hilary for an excellent set of minutes.
5.Action report
There was a discussion about Ian’s action to write to the local MP to express concerns about ICT being removed as a GCSE, the difference between ICT and Computer Science, what benefits Computer Science would offer students, what Ian should write in his letter bearing in mind that the situation could not be changed and whether it would be better to wait until the school had more experience with Computer Science. Julia said she was more concerned about the lack of consultation on the removal of ICT because it was such a key subject. She said there had been a consultation process about Ebacc and Computer Science but the government was removing subjects from the approved list and schools were having to accept ‘fait accompli’ situations. There was a discussion about ICT versus Computer Science and Julia said that not all students had to understand the programming element of Computer Science so there should be room for both subjects.
Campbell asked about the government view on under-performing Havant schoolsand Julia said she was waiting for a response for her invitation to share information about the Federation schools. It was agreed that Campbell would write to Mike Cheshire into school to meet with Julia and that Ian would write to Alan Mak, MP, to express concern that there had been no consultation process about the removal of ICT and to invite him to visit the school during the summer term.
See action report
6.Leadership reports
(i)Headteacher’s report. Julia referred to her report and the associated paperwork as previously circulated.
Staffing. Juliadiscussed staffing, the appointment of two NQTs earlier that day, and the appointment of a School Direct candidate to teach French and Spanish with the option to employ him permanently once his training had been completed in September 2017. It was noted the candidate would be paying his own fees as he was eligible for a bursary. Julia said that, unfortunately, no candidates had applied for the Head of the technologies faculty so an advertisement had now been placed in TES. She said that, if unsuccessful with this, the school would try and recruit from Ireland. Julia said the interview for the additional AHT had taken place earlier that day, the Head of Mathematics had now been made permanent from 1 March 2016, the post of Site Assistant had been re-advertised, a Lettings Assistant for Sunday working had been appointed on a casual basis and a Finance Manager had been appointed from 1 March 2016. She said that the current Business and Administration Manager would be retiring on 18 March 2016 but a celebration would take place after school on the last day of term to which governors were invited. Julia discussed how she had addressed the inequality with the pay scales for the Heads of English, Mathematics and Science, explained the reasons for the promotions of two members of the support staff and discussed the recruitment fayres in Ireland and locally that had been attended by members of senior staff. Julia reminded governors about the recruitment crisis nationally and acknowledged governors’ agreement to support the Solent SCITT which might help recruitment locally. She said students leaving university got paid more for jobs in industry than in teaching.
Safeguarding. Julia thanked governors for attending the safeguarding training session and reminded them that the reason for appointing an additional AHT was because of the amount of changes to safeguarding legislation and the importance of safeguarding, radicalisation and prevent with regards to Ofsted. Julia said that, further to Vanessa’s suggestion, the committee would be responsible for all safeguarding issues and policies and that Vanessa would be providing a safeguarding update to all governors at the FGB meeting in May 2016 and thereafter annually in September. Campbell said that the safeguarding training session had shown that everyone was engaged with and committed to safeguarding.
Mathematics review. Julia referred to the report as previously circulated and said it reflected the excellent work and teaching in the department as well as the enjoyment of the subject by students. She said the new HoD was building on what had already been done by the previous HoD.
MFL review. Julia said the outcome of the MFL review was an enigma as there was good teaching and no discerning problems but there was no impact on results. She said that she was line managing the department this year and focusing on teaching for the exam. Julia said that she would be speaking to the department about the under achieving students who had indicated they preferred to attend revision classes in another subject as the situation needed to be resolved urgently.
She said that she and Jane would also be speaking to the department about the lack of progress being made.
Question: How is staff morale in the department?
Answer: The HoD has received a copy of the draft report and is quite philosophical about the situation.
Governors said they accepted the situation was complicated and that good teaching did not always deliver. Jane said the review process was now unpicking the issues. There was a discussion about the new French and Spanish teacher’s possible input into the process and it was agreed he might be able to provide a different perspective as he had a very positive approach to students.
Question: Does it mean that the strategy is not working?
Answer: There is a new strategy this year and the HoD now understands more about the need for students to pass an exam rather than being taught to speak a language. We are using data and progress more than ever which should help improve things this year.
Question: Does the review indicate that we are on the right track?
Answer: Yes but it will take time. We know it has to be a five year process from the end of Year 6 rather than leaving everything till Year 11.
Question: Is there capacity to do this?
Answer: There will be if we employ the teacher in September 2017.
(ii)Dashboard. Julia referred to the dashboard as previously circulated and said that overall attendance was 95% with boys’ attendance slightly better than girls’ attendance. She said that the predictions for 2016 were encouraging and Mathematics and English would produce quite a few A*-A in the top sets. Julia said that the school was less confident about Science but would be working with the more and most able students to get their A*-A. She said the main concern was the gap and Ian H had identified the students where English could have an impact to help move the gap from 37C% to about 25%. Julia discussed the Science activity on 15 January 2016.
(iii)TLA statistics. Jane referred to the TLA statistics and report as previously circulated and said that there was 88% good+ teaching and the school was very calm and purposeful with good learning. She discussed the support and coaching being offered to five teachers requiring improvement and coaching being offered to three long-term teachers. Jane said that, although no outstanding lessons had been seen, all observations were unplanned so the situation was much more realistic.
Question: How will this impact on Ofsted as eight outstanding lessons were seen in February 2015 but no outstanding lessons were seen in February 2016?
Answer: Ofsted look at overall teaching so 88% good+ is an excellent result. Ofsted do not ask to see TLA statistics as they want to see consistently good lessons.
Question: What is the impact of this on staff morale?
Answer: We do not talk in terms of grades any more. We talk about what has gone well and where teachers can improve. Staff ask for feedback much more now so there are no problems with morale.
Campbell said it was much better if staff were guided about where they could improve rather than how they could improve a grade.
Question: Could you still include information about outstanding lessons in the relevant boxes?
Answer: We are still aware of the information as we have to have a way of calculating the data.
Question: Are you not being unnecessarily harsh by not saying a lesson in outstanding?
Answer: We can have good with outstanding features. There are probably sixoutstanding teachers. Outstanding is being consistently good in every lesson.
Question: Why can you not put this information in the relevant boxes?
Answer: Good+ is outstanding if we see it in every lesson but we do not want to get too hung up on outstanding because it is more important to give students consistently good teaching.
Governors agreed that the TLA statistics provided some very useful information about what was happening in school but that Julia and Jane W could, if necessary, revisit the information it contained about outstanding teachers.
(iv)Subject reviews Autumn 2015 to Summer 2016. Jackie referred to the calendar of reviews as previously circulated and said it was a shared process.
(v)Staffing. This matter had been discussed under Item 6(i).
(vi)Coaching and mentoring.Jackie said that coaching and monitoring was regularly discussed at staff meetings and in conversations with staff and that it underlined everything that was done in school.
(vii)Continuing Professional Development.Julia discussed the safeguarding, SMSC and More and Most Able sessions that had taken place or were due to take place and discussed the ongoing programme of CPD for staff that was based on the SIP. Jackie discussed the SMSC session and said teachers had been able to reflect on how SMSC was happening in their lessons. Jane said that teaching and learning led CPD sessions and staff liked receiving practical advice.
(viii)Performance management. It was noted that the Pay Review Committee meeting had taken place earlier that evening to approve recommendations for support staff progression and Julia said that support staff had now been introduced to the new performance related pay system that would be in place next year.
(ix)Induction of new staff. Julia said that all new members of staff were being cultured in the appropriate way and the new member of the ICT department had settled in particularly well. Jackie said that plans were in place to address the need to do more safeguarding and health and safety training with new staff.
(x)INSET programmes. Julia said that the Inset programme had been completed for the current academic year and discussed the likely arrangements for the next academic year.
7.Inclusion/Seclusion/Exclusion
Julia explained that, during her phased return to work, Vanessa did not work at school on Tuesdays but that she had put together statistics for governors and Ofsted that were more consistent. She referred to the new style reports as previously circulated and explained the contents which showed repeat incidents and whether there were any trends. Julia said that governors might wish to use a Governors’ Disciplinary Committee (GDC) to talk to students who had lost more than eleven days. Cara suggested the inclusion of information about what kind of incident that might be useful before or during the GDC meeting. It was agreed that Julia would ask Vanessa and the inclusion team to suggest which students should be invited to a GDC meeting.
See action report
Campbell said the new style reports were a very useful tool. Julia said that there had been no permanent exclusions and, although it was a struggle, she would continue to try to avoid them. She expressed concern about the number of adults in prison who would have been the subject of permanent exclusions when at school.
Julia said that all students who might have been excluded in Year 11 were LAC or students in care so there would have been more problems with social services.
8.School Improvement Plan
Julia referred to the SIP as previously circulated.
Question: What are the plans to address the actions in the red areas?
Answer: We are developing personalised CPD and believe this area is now amber.
Question: How can you measure the impact for developing the teaching and learning team?
Answer: The impact will be seen in lesson observations and we will be measuring this soon so we are hopeful the rating will change.
Question: What about KS3 catch-up?
Answer: We are not there yet but it is part of the KS3 strategy.
Question: What about metacognition techniques?
Answer: This is still to be picked up.
Question: What about plans for progress, S&C and maps across the KS3 curriculum?
Answer: We believe this area is now amber.
Question: What about the LLP visit?
Answer: That is happening.
It was agreed that Julia and Jackie would re-RAG the SIP although it was noted that there would be the same priorities next term.
See action report
Julia said that the further development of university links had really moved forward and the school currently had seven student teachers. There was a discussion about growth mindsets and Julia said that the school would have to get them back in the minds of students and teachers by assemblies or by offering some kind of reward to students who were putting in exceptional effort.
9.Governors’ self-reflection and coaching
Campbell referred to the coaching question “In what positive ways can a coaching mindset influence our future progress towards closer working and collaboration with our cluster schools?” There was a discussion about WOW days and whether coaching could be incorporated into some of the sessions. Julia said that students often did not realise they were coaching each other and some students did it very naturally which then encouraged other students to follow.
Robert apologised and left the meeting at 7.15pm.
Ian said that Mike (Harbour) had produced a document on the outcomes from the Away Day so a plan could be developed to take actions forward in the future and would be attending the next meeting in April 2016 to discuss this. Governors agreed the Away Day had been excellent and governors had been very positive about what needed to be done. Ian said that the Strategic Committee would be developing a strategic action plan and would also meet with the SLT to discuss the response to the exam results. He said that, if necessary, other governors could be co-opted onto the committee. Campbell expressed concern about the lack of time available at meetings to discuss coaching because of other items on the agenda. It was agreed that coaching should be the first item on the agenda and the question displayed on the screen so that governors could start thinking about it as they arrived at the meeting.
See action report
10.Policies/documents
There was a discussion about the policies/documentsas previously circulated.
(i)Anti-bullying Policy. Julia discussed the new safeguarding agenda and the inclusion of allegations against other students in accordance with Hampshire advice. Governors approved the policy.
(ii)Behaviour Policy. Julia discussed the minor amendments that had been made. Governors approved the policy.