Action

MINUTES OF MEETING /
School: / Ravenshead C of E Voluntary Controlled
Meeting title: / Strategic Development Committee meeting
Date and time: / Thursday, 12 January, 2017 5.30pm
Location: / At the school
Membership / Mrs B Howard
‘A’ denotes absence / Mr G Bevan
Rev C Rattenberry (chair)
A / Mrs S Bullough
A / Mrs L Park
Mrs N Thomas
Mrs H Thomas
Mrs C Beeton
A / Mr C Burton
A / Mr E Bunting
A / Mr G Harris
Mrs S Hunt
In attendance / Mr D Silcock (clerk)
Suzy Sanders
Gemma Brown
Kim Jones
SDC/01/17 / Apologies for absence / Action
Mrs Bullough, Mr Emmett, Mrs Park and Mr Harris provided apologies for absence.
It was
Resolved
Governors consent to the apologies for absence.
SDC/02/17 / Declaration of interest
There were no declarations of interest, either direct or indirect, for items of business on the agenda.
SDC/03/17 / Approval of minutes for the meeting held on 6 December, 2016
The minutes of the meeting held on 6 December, 2016, having previously been circulated, were approved and signed by Rev Rattenberry.
Matters Arising
63/16: Behaviour. A parent meeting last night discussed Dojo with some 50 parents, receiving mostly positive feedback.
In response to feedback, parents were asked if they were unhappy with sanctions for not having organisers signed; all parents disliked this situation feeling pupils were punished for parental inaction. Mrs Thomas will consider the situation.
SDC/04/17 / Reports from Maths, English and SEND leaders
EYFS: Mrs Brown reported.
Last year pupils achieved 87.7% GLD (Good level of Development) compared to LA average at 67.1%. This was a strong cohort with only 5 boys and 2 girls falling short of national average.
This year's cohort is lower with poor motor skills on entry. Write Dance (to music) mixes learning with improving motor skills. Literacy uses boy friendly techniques and materials to stimulate learning. Maths and phonics are targeted, with teaching split across the unit.
The Tapestry online tool enables parental communications; teachers can post learning activities direct from iPads and parents reply via the app.
Fewer children are predicted to make exceeding progress in all 5 areas this year, the hope is for over 80% GLD.
A lot of staff change has affected learning with supply teachers currently being trialled ahead of maternity absences.
One child has type 1 diabetes. This takes up a lot of time and the TA who agreed to administer medication is not yet trained in phonics.
Challenge: How is phonics? All staff have targeted groups with all pupils making progress.
Challenge: Does Tapestry successfully promote parent school interaction?
Parents like the programme but it is only suitable for EYFS play based learning, not for Y1 onwards.
Maths: Mrs Sanders updated governors on Maths. The SIP identified middle learners for support in Maths and English. Effective use of lessons and Target Tracker fills the gaps.
Sats papers require enhanced reasoning and problem solving skills. Children are struggling with these concepts at the moment, a common problem for most schools.
Mrs Sanders has worked on her CPD, attending Mastery in Maths training and visiting Farnsfield school to meet with the HT. A learning walk mostly looked at children with concerns, supported by book moderation.
Governors asked about gender attainment. There is very little boy/girl difference. Girls are willing to embrace reasoning; boys tend to just do the work.
Challenge: How does Abacus fit into reasoning and problem solving? Abacus has been tweaked. Work is split into sections and used part of the time with other resources. All methods have problems, including Shanghai Maths (expense, timetable impacts) and schools must be flexible.
English: Miss Jones acknowledged support from Mrs Thomas and Mrs Howard since taking on the English lead.
Starting from the SIP Miss Jones tackled reading in autumn. Research into effective teaching led to CPD courses, network meetings and working with Lowdham school. It was decided to go for whole class reading with a differentiated lesson for every day. Sats require children to explain. Research showed photocopied work sheets inferior to books in developing written replies. All staff viewed Lowdham's books, agreeing they were good. School is now improving with books showing better progress.
Learning walks and book scrutiny show better and longer answers from pupils with differentiated lessons benefiting all abilities. Two visiting HT's were very impressed by workbooks.
Spring term will focus on spelling. Miss Jones and Mrs Howard attended Jason Wade training. This makes teaching interesting as children "investigate" and apply rules, particularly stimulating boys. TA's will be included in staff meetings to improve phonics by fixing learning gaps to enable progress. Spelling is included in English books to help apply spellings to writing.
A twilight staff meeting in March will share good ideas with book scrutiny in the last week of term.
Governors asked if class reading helps the less confident. Undoubtedly, as all children have the same text, with questions differentiated by ability.
Challenge: Does spelling homework have an impact? Staff have mixed feelings on impact as it is dependent on parents. The biggest impact is from moving spelling into writing.
Governors thanked Mrs Brown, Mrs Sanders and Miss Jones for their outstanding presentations and comprehensive reviews of subject areas and pupil progress.
SDC/05/17 / DFE performance tables
Mrs Thomas displayed information.
Challenge: Why is school only at 62% for RWM when taken individually, subject figures are much higher? All 3 subjects must be on target to count in final results.
Data shows average salary to be lower than most local schools and TA ratios slightly higher.
SDC/06/17 / Target Tracker summaries for Autumn term data
Mrs Howard reported.
Teachers are getting better at addressing gaps using Target Tracker, enabling teaching at ARE and catch up interventions. Measuring progress at this time of year is misleading and unnecessary. With progress monitoring, figures become increasingly useful in summer term. As most pupils are accessing the curriculum then spring data at this time suggests these pupils are on track for ARE, whereas summer data shows a more accurate picture.
Mrs Thomas displayed progress data which is used only as a planning tool at this time of year. Appraisal meetings with teachers will assess pupil progress.
All pupils are working towards statements in reading but none have yet achieved their target.
Maths is difficult to report. Figures are lower as discrete subject areas show as non taught curriculum, artificially lowering data.
Governors discussed their requirement to understand data, agreeing learning walks and discussions with subject leaders, supplemented with book inspections were the best tactics to adopt.
SDC/07/17 / Moderation report
Teacher assessments have proven quite accurate. School is aware some pupils may not achieve ARE, despite interventions.
Mrs Howard has spent a lot of time checking progress from books and using data from last year, especially for middle ability learners. It is felt all pupils are making progress and teacher judgments are accurate. Teachers tend to be over cautious but now have a better understanding of Target Tracker.
SDC/08/16 / Date of next meeting
Thursday, 2 March , 2017 at 5.30pm
SDC/09/16 / Determination of confidentiality of business
It was
Resolved
All papers were to be made available.
The meeting closed at 7.00 pm.

Signed ...... (chair) Date ......

DS/sk

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