Slimbridge Primary School

Governing Body Annual Report to Parents 2015–2016

As always, this past year at school has been busy, with a mix of successes and challenges. Pleasingly, the school has grown in recent years, and we are now a popular choice for parents looking for a good primary school with a caring ethos. The downside is that we have to find space for everyone! We were delighted to receive funding for the new building for class 4, and while it was a shame that it wasn’t quite ready on time for the start of the new term (for reasons beyond our control), the finished building looks great and the class 4 children have taken a real pride in their smart learning space. We thank Miss Murton and the class 4 children for their flexibility and patience at the start of the year.

Another great success has been our outside play initiative OPAL. Anyone who came to the ‘empty classroom’ afternoon will have seen hordes of children rolling across the playground in cardboard, moving tyres, jumping around, working together and generally having a good time. We thank Mrs McNamara for leading on OPAL for the school and those adults who have donated their time to construct mud kitchens, sandpits and suchlike. And while I’m thinking of people who give up their time to improve school life for all of our children, I have to say a heartfelt thank you to Libby Smith and the FOSS team who work tirelessly to raise funds for the nice things that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to buy, and to Lucy Fairall and her team of librarians, who have created the most wonderful library in school. We also thank the volunteers who come in to help with reading, run after school clubs and generally support the school.

The challenges this year have centred on changes to the curriculum and to mapping children’s progress. All the staff have worked hard to move to new schemes, and you will have seen the changes reflected in the children’s reports. This has been a huge piece of work for all concerned, but we are confident that we are developing a system that helps children to understand their next steps and teachers to check individual learning. If you want to know more, please speak to your child’s teacher or to Mrs Cooke. There were some comments in the recent parent survey about communication with school – we’re looking at ways of improving this, but in the meantime, if you want to see your child’s work or talk to a teacher about progress, make an appointment through the school office or go into the classroom after school and ask. We have a superb team of teaching professionals and assistants, and the teachers are happy to talk to you.

As I run out of space, it remains for me to wish all of our leavers the very best of luck for the future and to thank them and their parents for their contribution to life at Slimbridge School. I thank the staff for their hard work this year, and Mrs Cooke and now co head Mrs Mac for the enormous amount of work and energy they put into the school. And I thank Mrs Elliott for her cheerful and unstinting work to keep the school running.

Have a great summer.

Laura Price
Chair of Governors

This report presents a mix of information about the school year – some of this has to be reported by the governing body to parents, and some of it we would like to share with you. I am indebted to Helen Tilly for preparing this report.

About the governing body

Our governing body is made up of nine volunteers, who are parents, staff or members of the local community. The body is strengthened by the wide range of experience of its individual governors. We work closely with the head teacher, who also sits on the governing body. We decide the strategy and agree the policies of the school. No governor has any individual power unless delegated to him or her by the governing body as a whole. The chair, however, has the power to answer letters, deal with emergencies and liaise with the head teacher without constant recourse to the full governing body. We thank Matt Swift for his work as governor and for chairing the governing body for most of this past year.

Governing body 2015–2016

  • Chair (to Term 5): Matt Swift, parent governor; Chair (to end Term 6): Laura Price, parent governor
  • Vice-chair: Patricia Carrington, LA governor
  • Sue Belej, co-opted governor
  • Helen Tilly, parent governor
  • Alison Cooke, head teacher
  • Rhiannon Randall, staff governor
  • Chris Meadows, parent governor
  • Adrian Peatman, co-opted governor
  • Steve Williamson, co-opted governor
  • Sarah Kiddle, parent governor

Sue Belej:As the school year draws to a close, we are really sad to be saying ‘goodbye’ to Sue Belej as a governor. Sue has put in a fantastic amount of work during her 5 years on the governing body, and nothing has been too much trouble for her. She has been responsible for the very strong links that we have with WWT and our children have benefitted enormously from her commitment, creativity and passion for teaching and learning. Although we will still retain our close links with Sue and the WWT, the governors will miss her greatly and we take this opportunity to thank her for all that she has done for the school.

Contacting governors:DrLaura Price (Chair) and MrsNikki Elliott (Clerk) can be contacted by letter via the school; Laura can also be contacted via .

Structure and way of working:The governing body operates a committee structure, with each committee managing, supporting and overseeing different areas of school life. Individual governors are also assigned different areas of responsibility, for example Literacy, Maths, special education needs and disability (SEND), and they visit the school regularly to see work in these areas. These visits also allow the governors to build relationships with staff and to monitor howthe strategic objectives of the governing body are being met.

Teaching and Learning Committee, chaired by Helen Tilly

The Teaching and Learningcommittee dedicates a number of its meetings to in-depth scrutiny of the data available for the children’s progress and achievement. It reviews the staffing structure in consultation with the finance and premises committee, and also checks that the school is delivering the national curriculum, monitors library provision, school trips and the school’s website.

Safeguarding, Health & Safety, Welfare and Personnel Committee, chaired by Patricia Carrington

The governing body has delegated to this committee its responsibilities in relation to safeguarding/child protection and safer recruitment. The committee monitors online safety within the school, attendance, behaviour and discipline, and policies relating to children with special educational needs and disabilities. It also carries out health and safety inspections of the school premises and oversees repairs, maintenance and new builds, in conjunction with the finance and premises committee.

Finance and Premises Committee, chaired by Adrian Peatman

The role of the finance committee is to monitor the school’s finances in line with the school’s plan for improvement, and set the budget plan. The committee also has responsibility for ensuring work to improve the facilities and premises is undertaken in a cost-effective timely way. We are pleased to say that the school ended the financial year 15/16 with a balanced budget.

Staffing structure for 2016–17

Class 1 (Reception) / Mrs K McNamara
Mrs T Clune
Mrs L Pearce (TA)
Class 2 (Y1/Y2) / Mrs J Wood
Mrs T Clune
Mrs CSutton (TA)
Miss J Gilbert (TA)
Class 3 (Y2/Y3) / Mr C Ford
Mrs L Davies (TA)
Class 4 (Y4/Y5) / Miss A Murton
Mrs K Lucia (TA- am
Miss J Wilkins (TA)
Class 5 (Y5/Y6) / Miss R Randall
Mr G Macklin (TA)
Mrs A Priday (TA)
Mrs K Lucia (TA - pm)
Co-Head teachers, Mrs A Cooke & Mrs McNamara
School Business Manager, Mrs N Elliott
School administrator, Mrs K Webb

Staff news

We are very fortunate to have had a stable staffing structure within school for several years now. Governors are aware of, and extremely grateful for, the high levels of commitment and professionalism of our staff. Over the past year, two members of staff, Mr Ford and Miss Murton have also begun studying for Mastersdegree programmes and we wish them continued success with their studies.

This year has seen the introduction of the new national curriculum for all year groups.Staff have been working hard to develop the new ‘local curriculum’ element, to create learning opportunities that use the school’s rich local environment to make children’s learning relevant to them and their place in the world. This new perspective has seen children studying the River Severn, the life of Sir Peter Scott, Edward Jenner and the history of vaccination, World War I in the parish and Roman settlements in the area, with more subjects in development for next year.

Staff professional development

Over the course of the year, teaching and support staff have attended many training sessions within the Tyndale cluster, with the Stroud Area Schools and nationally. These have included;

  • Talk for Writing Small Schools Project (All teachers)
  • Subject development meetings in English, Maths, Science, IT
  • Behaviour management
  • Children’s Well being
  • Talk for Maths
  • Singapore & Shanghai Maths
  • Reasoning in Maths

Extracurricularactivities

School clubs

The governing body recognises and thanks the staff, parents and, in some cases, children,for all the time they offer to out-of-school and lunchtime activities. This year the school has offered:

Page 1 of 8

  • chess
  • coding
  • cross-country and athletics
  • cookery
  • drama
  • eco club
  • football
  • gardening
  • Latin
  • Zentangle

Page 1 of 8

Sporting activities

This year Slimbridge School children attended:

  • Dursley RFC schools tag rugby festival
  • district athletics meetings
  • schools cross-country meetings
  • village sports day.

We should also mention the school’s own Euro 2016 football competition, which has proved extremely popular with many of our pupils! At the time of writing, the results are still to be decided but Wales, as in the real competition, are doing very well. Secret coaching from Mr Ford?

Music

Our children are fortunate to have Mrs Carter, a specialist music teacher, for their weekly lessons. The sight (and sound!) of a class full of Year 5 and 6 children playing along to Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer, on recorders, trumpets, violin, flutes, clarinet, keyboard, xylophones and various percussion instruments is a joy to behold! The annual music concert is testament to the success of music at our school. Over 50% of our KS2 pupils have instrument tuition at school, where they learn the recorder, flute, clarinet, ukulele, piano, guitar, violin, trumpet and cornet.

Activities, visits and trips

A range of activities has been used to support class-based workthis year.

  • Classes 1 and 2 have visited the Cotswold Wildlife Park and Redwood.
  • Class3 have visited WWT, walked up Cam Peak and along Cam Long Down, enjoyed cooking at the Waitrose Cookery School in Cheltenham and visted the Corinium Museum in Cirencester.
  • Class 4 have made several trips to WWT and visited the Waitrose Cookery School..
  • Class 5 also honed their culinary skills at Waitrose and have made two visits to WWT, to look at bird migration and for a special tour of Sir Peter Scott’s house.
  • The whole school dressed as their favourite book characters for World Book Day.
  • Year 6 pupils enjoyed their residential trip to South Cerney, where they sailed, kayaked, built rafts and tried paddleboarding.
  • Pupils from Year 5 represented the school at a maths competition at Cheltenham College.

In September the Year 6s enjoyed a day of watersport activities at South Cerney,together with pupils from the Tyndale cluster.

All the children went to see the pantomime ‘Cinderella’ at the Everyman Theatre before Christmas.

In January, pupils in Years 5 and 6 took part in Young Voices at the Birmingham NEC; they worked really hard to learn the many songs and had a fantastic time on the day, both on the train journey to Birmingham and at the concert itself. Thank you to Mrs Carter for organising this fantastic opportunity for our children.

Our close links with the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust have been maintained this year with several whole-school and single-class activity days taking place. We are extremely lucky to have this wonderful facility on our doorstep and once again extend our thanks to all the staff there (and to Sue Belej, our governor and the WWT Learning Manager).

The drama production ‘Bombs and Blackberries’ was enjoyed by all who took part or watched the performances.It is wonderful to see so many of our key stage 2 children involved in the acting and singing, and our thanks must go to Miss Murton and Mrs Davies for all their hard work.

Children with special educational needs and disability

SENCo

Mrs Cooke is our SENCo, which means she coordinates the provision for children with SEND.

Support for children with SEND

As for all children identified as needing a boost in some areas, some children with SEND are withdrawn from class for one-to-one support, and/or work in small break-out groups and/or have in-class support as necessary. The school now uses various intervention programmes to help children, according to their individual needs; staff, and governors on the Teaching and Learning committee, keep these interventions under regular review. The school also recognises that withdrawing children from curriculum learning can be disadvantageous, and staff try to ensure that a balance is achieved.

Helen Tillyis the governor with responsibility for SEND. Shemeets with the SENCo several times a year to monitor provision and progress in this area, and reports her findings to the governing body.

Standards of behaviour

The conduct of pupils in the school is generally of a high standard. Our behaviour policy aimsto provide a positive and consistent approach to behaviour management throughout the school.However, the parent survey highlighted concerns about the behaviour of a minority of pupils and the consistency with which the behaviour policy is applied. We have children with widely varying needs at school and, with our ethos of caring for all our children, sometimes different strategies are used for individual children. However, addressing concerns about behaviour is a priority and the staff are dedicating the INSET day at the start of the new academic year to developing a new behaviour scheme.

We enjoy celebrating success at Slimbridge, as you’ll know if you’ve attended a Friday assembly! Children collect stickers in their ‘passports’ for effort and achievement in their ‘Learning Powers (Creativity, Perseverance, Communication and Reflection). When filled, these are exchanged for bronze, silver, and gold certificates. Teams meet regularly for assemblies throughout the year and this strengthens relationships across year groups. The whole school also celebrates individual successes with ‘Proud of’ certificates, which are presented, together with Learning Powerscertificates, in front of the school and parents.

School security

We make every effort to ensure a safe and secure environment in which your children’s education can take place. External doors are locked throughout the day. Access to the school can be obtained by ringing the bell at the main entrance. Note that pupils areunder strict instructions not to open the front door to any adult, even if they are known (or even related) to them.Access to the playground and Little Otters playgroup is via an intercom to the office.

Complaints

Parents should discuss complaints with the class teacher in the first instance and then, if they consider the matter to be unresolved,with the head teacher.We have a comprehensive complaints procedure, and if you continue to be unhappy, there are further avenues to pursue. A copy of the policy is available from the school office.

Public Sector Equality Duty

Under the Public Sector Equality Duty, we are required to publish our equalities objectives, which include our Accessibility Plan and our Equality Policy. Equality Objectives 2016–19 can be found on the school website.

Public access to documents

Parents are entitled to have access to all the school’s policies, copies of which are held in the school. Parents are also welcome to see the Standing Orders for the Constitution of the Governing Body and the terms of reference of the body and its committees. The latest agreed minutes of the meeting of the governing body are also available on request.