Enhancing Achievement for Our Children and Young People

SPELTHORNE SCHOOLS TOGETHER

Enhancing Achievement for our Children and Young People

SST CONFEDERATION MEETING

Wednesday 29 January 2014 at 8-11.15am at

The Thames Club, Wheatsheaf Lane, Staines, TW18 2PD

Present:*

Secondary Schools:
Toby Miller / Bishop Wand C of E School
Yvonne Hunt* / Bishop Wand C of E School
Denise Fleckney / The Matthew Arnold School
Alasdair Nicol / The Matthew Arnold School
Ceri Bacon* / St Paul’s Catholic College
Peter Rodin / Thamesmead School
Janise Marillat / Thomas Knyvett College
Richard Beeson* / Thomas Knyvett College
Infant, Primary and Special Schools:
Caroline Dyer / Ashford C of E Primary School
Sarah Tarrant / Ashford Park Primary School
Karima Mould* / Buckland Primary School
Sue Jackson (SJ)* / Chennestone Primary School/Beauclerc Infant School
William Neale* / Clarendon Primary School
Sarah Vernon* / The Echelford Primary School
Joe Davies* / Hawkedale Infant School
Kay Scott / Kenyngton Manor Primary School
Neil Meehan* / Laleham C of E Primary School
Rachel Barton / Littleton C of E Infant School
Mary Ellen McCarthy (MEM)* / The Lumen Learning Trust/ SST Chair
Fiona Neal / Manor Mead School (Special School, Primary)
Jonathan Roddick / Primary Director of The Howard Partnership
Maggie Roberton * / Riverbridge Primary School/ SST Vice Chair
Myra Neves * / St Ignatius RC Primary School
Clare Quinn / St. Ignatius RC Primary School
John Lane / St. Michael’s RC Primary School
Liz Felsing* / St. Nicholas C of E Primary School
Bonnie Davies* / Saxon Primary School
Bethan Smith / Springfield Primary School
Colin Franklyn / Stanwell Fields C of E Primary School
Darren Harrison* / Spelthorne School
Kathryn Krynicki/ Sarah Carrington / Town Farm Primary School
Karen Bos / Town Farm Primary School
SST Staff:
Alexandra Williams* (AW) / SST Confederation Manager
Gail Murphy* / SST Business Manager
SST Partners/Speakers:
Liz Borthwick* (Speaker) / Spelthorne Borough Council
Mary West* (Speaker) / Spelthorne Borough Council, Sport Active Lifestyle Officer
Caroline Marden* / Area Schools Officer, Area Education Office
Janice Anastasi* (Speaker) / NE SALP Lead, Area Education Office (In attendance for first half)
MINUTES
1 / Apologies for absence
Toby Miller, Bishop Wand CofE Secondary School - Yvonne Hunt was in attendance.
Ceri Bacon, St. Paul’s Catholic College
Peter Rodin, Thamesmead School
Janise Marillat, Thomas Knyvett College- Richard Beeson was in attendance.
Colin Franklyn, Stanwell Fields C of E Primary School
Kay Scott and Jonathan Roddick, Kenyngton Manor Primary School
Fiona Neal, Manor Mead School
2 / Minutes of the Confederation Meeting of 4 October 2013
Approved
3 / Matters Arising
No matters arising that are not covered under the agenda.
4 / SST Finance and Administration
GM took the group through the FMR.
GM told the group that the Schools Forum had agreed again to top slice primary school’s funding to continue to fund Confederations. Secondary and special schools would receive networking funds directly; the SST will need to agree a formula with these schools for 2014/15 funding. Next year’s budget and partnership agreement levy will be discussed at the Management Meeting on 11 March. / GM/AW
5 / Spelthorne Borough Council
Liz Borthwick SBC Update/Mary West (SBC Leisure) – Youth Games
LB said that recent floods have been a focus for Spelthorne Borough Council. Over 5,000 sandbags have been distributed to properties in the borough, and the emergency Rest Centre has been open to people who cannot use their homes because of flooding. Work continues. LB said that they were learning some lessons and would review flood responses when the water table had gone back to normal levels. They will be setting up a meeting with the agencies involved in the flood response including the Environment Agency and Thames Water etc. CM asked to be involved in the this meeting. MR suggested that Julie Williams from Riverbridge is also involved, as she has done a lot of work with the agencies; it has been very frustrating as the various agencies seemed to move responsibility to others which hampered finding a solution to re-opening Riverbridge Primary School. The school was closed for 3 days in the initial floods. The situation is ongoing.
LB passed on a message from councillors about parking. LB acknowledged that schools already work very hard to encourage parents to park responsibly during school drop off and pick up. Councillors had asked her to pass the message on to ask schools to continue to remind parents about parking responsibly. The use of traffic wardens was discussed as this has been effective outside some schools.
LB reminded the group that the Surrey Supporting Families Conference was at Silvermere Golf Club from 3-5pm on Monday 24 February.
Mary West addressed the group about the P & G Games. A flyer will be delivered to schools around 11 March. She will be writing to last year’s competitors to ask them to become Young Ambassadors for the Games for this year. Mary can present school assemblies about the games where required. She will be writing to all Headteachers at the beginning of March about this. / CM/LB/MR
6 / Secondary Schools Update
CB updated the group: East to West is working in all 6 secondary schools to support vulnerable pupils. Innervate Careers is running a Careers Fair at Kempton Park (tbc) on 27 June 2014 for Y10 pupils.
CB also outlined the role of IYFA local Chair (Toby Miller currently). TB receives information about children who need to be placed from Alex Russell (NE chair), and distributes this to Headteachers for discussion at the steering Group meetings. Schools also communicate out of these meetings, to ensure timely placement of children. CB said it works well in secondary in Spelthorne. The group has passed back children to the AEO if information is insufficient to make a placing, asking for further information before a decision is made.
PRIMARY IN YEAR FAIR ACCESS: JANICE ANASTASI (JA)
JA was not able to stay for the end of the meeting, so addressed the group in preparation for their discussion in Primary Liaison Time.
Since Autumn 2013, secondary schools had been looking at IYFA at a local (borough) level and this had worked well. JA has asked whether primary school in Spelthorne could follow suit. She outlined:
Discussing at borough level helped schools find out more information about the child (often the child to be placed will have been on role at anther Spelthorne school.
It gives schools a better opportunity to negotiate with the Local Authority for services to support the child.
Schools would all know who had been approached and could discuss together.
In secondary, representatives from all schools would attend; if you do not attend and a child is placed in your school, you have no right of reply. It was suggested this might work well in primary too. AW said that it would be possible to invite a representative from Our Lady of the Rosary RC Primary School to this section of the meeting if this goes ahead.
JA said in Autumn, 2 primary-aged children (one in Y3 and one in Y4)had needed to be placed under hard-to-place In Year Fair Access. The group challenged this, and felt that it is likely to average more than 2 children in a term. An estimate of 15 children in a school year (5 per term) was suggested.
Infant Class Size was cited as a challenge to this system.
The current format of meetings is as follows:
1.  Check on progress of previously placed children
2.  Look at the children who have been placed already, out of the meeting
3.  Look at ‘new cases’
The group will discuss this in Primary Liaison.
8 / Spelthorne Schools Together – Core Purpose Review
MEM outlined the debate: she had called a meeting on the Management and Projects Team (without AW and GM) on 8 January 2014 to discuss SST Core Purpose. The group had agreed that the core purpose of Enhancing Achievement for our Children and Young People was achieved by the SST through 4 main areas:
1.  Learning
2.  Overcoming Barriers to Learning
3.  Networking and Support
4.  Working Together for Change
The group was asked to consider two key questions:
1.  Which SST projects have made the most difference to your school and why?
2.  What projects do you think the SST should have in 2014?
Members worked on these questions on tables, each of which had at least one Management & Project Team member on it to help facilitate discussion, and answer questions about the discussion so far. Responses can be found under separate cover.
MEM asked the group if the 4 themes were right, the group agreed that they were. The group suggested we look at the balance of the direction within these 4 themes.
Members were also asked to complete questionnaires: an analysis of these is available separately. Results will be published, and will be discussed at the 11 March MPT.
9 / SST Projects, Activities and CPD Update
AW and GM briefly outlined projects, activities and CPD as per the 2014 Spring Term Action Plan. Some comments were made by the group:
From referral to access, getting into the Nurture Group takes a long time. The group recognised that this is necessary to follow due process but wanted to make this comment. Anything to streamline the decision making process would be helpful. The group said that training in schools from the NG would be useful.
The group discussed possible formats for the NQT training programme, but not agreement was reached.
10 / Primary Liaison Time: In Year Fair Access in NE Quadrant Primary Schools
The group discussed whether to hold IYFA meetings at the end of Confederation Meetings as outlined above. The following comments were made:
·  The end of the CM is not a good time – these meetings are already very long.
·  These discussions are likely to be heated at times, there is a danger that this could have a detrimental effect on Confederation cohesion.
·  This request feels like a passing-down of responsibly from the Admissions Team and Area Education Office onto Headteachers.
·  This could give Headteachers more say in IYFA cases.
·  As a group, we could formulate a ‘format’ of the information required to make a decision - we could pass cases back that do not have enough information to make a good decision.
There was much debate and a decision was not reached. The issue will be added to the 20 March confederation Meeting for further discussion.
11 / Primary Liaison Time::
The SunAsh Children’s Centre: Darren Harrison told the group that the Sun Ash Children’s Centre (duel site) would be splitting into two sites to accommodate the fact that Kenyngton Manor Primary School is now an academy. The two centres will be called : Spelthorne Sure Start Children’s Centre and Kenyngton Manor Sure Start Children’s Centre. The split will be from 1 April 2014. The local community is being consulted on services.
SST Headteacher’s Residential 2014 - Primary Days: NM had emailed GM and AW information about Sue Palmer who talks about ‘Toxic childhood’. NM outlined the topic what he had seen Sue do in Richmond. GM and AW asked the group if this is a possible speaker for a primary day – the group thought it might be. AW and GM to investigate. GM also outlined a possible ‘Courageous Conversations’ course that could run on a primary day – GM to investigate.
Feedback from Surrey Networks/Meetings (eg. Primary Council, Schools Forum etc). MEM fed back. ASD is a huge issue, Godstone House s to become a primary provision. MEM highlighted the Learning Difficulty review, and said P7 is relevant here.
Claire Poitier from Admissions was at the meeting, she said they are trying to arrange a system that will enable schools to log in and see who is on their waiting list. AW and other commented that she had said this 2 years ago at our MPT. (ref. minutes of 13 November 2012 MPT).
The group discussed changes to OFSTED, DH said he had a link to a ‘Track Changes’ document to compare the frameworks for September 2013, and the changes in January 2014. DH to sent to GM for distribution. / AW
GM
DH
12 / Date of Next Confederation Meeting: Thursday 20 March 2014, 8am to 11.15am, The Thames Club

Signed: Date: