Issue 1

Haughton Governors Newsletter

Welcome to the first annual Governors Newsletter. For those of you who filled in the recent questionnaire – Thank You.
This helped to establish the following:
  1. The majority of you do not know what the Governors do
  1. The majority of you do not know what the 2013/14 school priorities are
  1. You do want contact from the Governors by newsletter or on the school website at least a couple of times a year
This newsletter will include information which will give you a high level understanding of what your Governors do and also what the school’s priorities are for the remainder of the 2013/14 school year.
Who are we?
Your Governing Body is made up of parents/carers of children who attend Haughton, school staff, members of the local community and local authority and the Haughton head teacher. There are 10 of us at the moment and we have a couple of vacancies. There are some Governors who are linked to each class too.
Governor Name / Governor Type / Governor Name / Governor Type
Tracey Picken / Community & Chair / Sabina Hopkinson / Parent(class 1 & 6)
Gillian Knox / Head Teacher / Peter Gibbs / Parent(The Base & class 4)
Nina MacLeod / Local Authority & Vice Chair(the Den) / Beth Pell / Parent
Jayne Stevens / Local Authority(class 2 & 5) / Michelle Leonard / Parent(Badgers & Class 3)
Vacancy / Community / Mo Hardman / Staff
Vacancy / Community / Ella Thomas / Staff
What Do We Do?
We have 3 main roles which are as follows:
Governor Role / How
Strategic / Contributing to the school’s vision and strategic aims
Critical Friend / Monitoring and evaluating performance, challenge and support of the head teacher
Accountability / Ensuring that the school is accountable to pupils, local community, staff and those who fund it
These link into the key inspection areas of an OfSted evaluation:
Behaviour and Safety/ Quality of teaching/
Achievement of pupils/Quality of leadership and Management
How do We Do It?
  • We observe lessons and from this have been able to make recommendations for areas for improvement.
  • We visit with the Head teacher to monitor and gather evidence on performance and quality standards.
  • We are in attendance at school social events such as the Christmas production.
  • We attendthree full Governor meetings a year.
  • We are all allocated to a sub-committee and also attend meetings for these. For example the Finance sub-committee monitors the spend of the school budget!
  • We are involved in performance management of the school staff and help to hire new staff.
  • We attend training to ensure we have the most up to date information to perform our roles effectively.

School Priorities 2013/14
There are 9 key ones highlighted below.
Ensure All Classes are fully inclusive / Improve Parents participation in the school
Develop Reading/ Letters and Sounds / Improve the tracking of progress of children
Develop/Implement new Computing programme in September 14 / Develop the Governing body to good
Ensure all teaching is good or outstanding / Implement new behaviour monitoring system
Implement a new statistic gathering tool
How Can you contact us?
You can contact us by email at
If you have a question or comments you can leave this with reception and they ensure we get it.
Future Governor Communications
We will aim to produce a full newsletter once a year which will also include the school priorities for the coming year.
We already have a section on the school website under the ‘GOVERNOR’ drop down. This contains more information about us, what we do and any latest news.
We will now have a section included in the school newsletter where we can update you on what we have been up to.
There may also be ad hoc communications, such as the recent questionnaire, if we require your input on a particular subject linked to the school.
And finally.....
Now you have read this newsletter – could you please answer the following questions and return to them back to school.
Has this Newsletter helped you to better understand the role of your school Governors? (please circle) YES/ NO
Has this Newsletter helped you to better understand the 2013/14 priorities of the school? (please circle) YES/ NO
Do you have any other questions or comments about this Newsletter?
Do you have any other questions or commentsfor the Governors?
Thank you, once again, for your continued support in helping us to communicate more effectively with you.
The Haughton School Governors.