Portfolio Holder MeetingReport for Local Governing Body
Portfolio: Personnel Date:4th November 2014
Present: Pat Glover (PG), Sharon Marshall (Ht), Laura Nias (notes)
Apologies: John Swan (JS)
SEND – PG reported concerns from the SENCO, primarily surrounding workload and budget arrangements.
Ht was due to meet the SENCO following attendance at a SEND update. A meeting would be arranged and Ht would address i) purchasing Edukey, a method for tracking SEN funding ii) the SENCO’s workload eg could the school General Assistant be employed for a couple of hours extra each week to support filing/shreding for the SENCO? iii) sixth form support.
Staffing Update
An update was circulated and the following points were noted in particular:
Science - No new science teacher had been appointed for January due to a poor field. Interim arrangements would be put in place with another advert placed before Christmas for an Easter start or before if available.
Maths - One of the Maths teachers had been poached by a neighbouring school in the private sector and Ht had written to the Headteacher expressing her disappointment at the way this had been handled. Interim arrangements were in hand for January pending a permanent appointment to start after Easter or before if available.
Long term absences – Occupational Health were supporting the school in managing the return to work of two members of the caretaking team following periods of absence.
- Monitoring of Progress of Improvement Plan
i)Questions from portfolio holder:
How is staffing supporting the new code of challenge? By 2018 all full statements would have transferred into Education Healthcare Plans. In the meantime, nothing below 0.6 of a statement was funded. The school had discovered that two students on 0.8 statements should have been funded last year from county but hadn’t been. The Business Manager was following this up.
In terms of configuring staff, the deployment of Teaching Assistants would need looking at following Ht’s attendance at a SEN course next week. The SENCO had put the special needs register together under the 4 new designations for each year group. Staff marksheets contained information and the SENCO had issued generic guidance to staff. The SENCO had also writen her improvement plan under these 4 headings to facilitate gearing up training and staffing.TA support would become a much more specialised provision.
In terms of DAFs, the school may need governor support in saying that these should not be written by schools but rather by a medic. A staffing review of SEN provision would possibly be requried. For 4 years one system would taper out whilst a new one is coming in. The school will be able to track progress of the new 4 discrete groups much more effectively.
Would the Pastoral Co-ordinators become more involved in this? Possibly yes, their roles were likely to shift, as mentors. The role may need looking at more in the round. Student services was the area where, compared to other schools, the Academy employed more support staff. Ht to feed back on SEN at the next meeting.
The TAs had recently expressed concerns about Performance Related Pay. Ht intended to meet with all support staff to explain the position and would inform the UNISON rep. Support staff would be invited to meet with Ht on Monday 17th November at 3.30 pm. Ht would also meet with one of the TAs in advance of this meeting, as they had expressed specific concern to another member of the senior team.
How was the new SLT framework settling in? Very well. SLT were reviewing this tomororw in readiness for Ofsted.
What about the Stepping up programme? The teaching and learning group was a priority for this term. A new group would be identified to follow the programme in January.
- Policies:
Acceptable behaviour – Ht to read ahead of the next directors’ meeting.
General DCC policies - Ns to check for any more recent versions of the DCC HR policies.
Non teaching staff performance management –with MAT expansion pending, this policy hadn’t been reviewed. Ht explained that ideally, terms and conditions across all schools in the MAT needed to be the same.
Restraint – Graham Hill to review this policy ready for the next portfolio meeting.
- Other issues raised by Portfolio holder:
- Other matters raised by senior staff link:
- Decisions Taken:
- Decisions referring to the LGB
Dates:Same time each Monday of all portfolio weeks - 12.40 – 1.40 pm.