NoadswoodSchool

Governing Body

School Improvement Committee

12 June2012, 5.00pm

MINUTES

Governors Present:

Val Cacchi VC

Tracy Gates TG

Alan McElevey AMc

Carolyn Millar CM

Alison Munden (Chair of SI Committee) AM

Jim Watt JW

In Attendance:

Matthew Hewitt (Deputy Head Teacher) MH

Jane Hodgson (HCC Governor Services Clerk) JH

Katrina Spence (SENCo) KSp

Apologies:

Alex Bernard (Head Teacher) AB

Jackie Rapson (Chair of Governors) JR

The meeting opened at 5.04pm

Agenda Item / Action
1 / Apologies for Absence
Accepted from those listed above.
2 / Declarations of Personal Interest
None.
3 / Review of Minutes of last meeting26 March 2012
Unanimously approved and signed by the Chair.
4 / Matters Arising
4.1 / 9: House Leader meeting with AM & CM – this has been deferred to September / AM&CM to arrange meeting. Chair Clerk – Autumn 2 agenda
5 / Review of School Development Plan - this item appears after item 6.
6 / SEN Provision Review
This item was taken out of order. All bullet points by KSp unless otherwise stated.
AM welcomed KSp to the meeting. KSp introduced herself and explained that she has been the temporary SENCo since July 2011 when Wendy left. KSp was previously the Co-ordinator for physically disabled (PD) pupils.
  • One of KSp’s key roles is to assist the transition of pupils with SEN between Junior and Secondary school.
CM arrived at 5.08pm.
  • There are 4 pupils in the PD unit, 3 of whom leave this year.
  • KSp and TG have been working to get the SEN register up to date with learning and behavioural needs.
  • There are currently 497 hours a week of SEN support in classes, fairly evenly spread across the school.
  • Various intervention programmes are in place. An especially effective one is Toe by Toe, a phonics based literacy programme.
  • On all programmes, progress is constantly checked and catch-up work undertaken as necessary. Staff are very pleased with progress this year. In the first cohort of interventions only a couple of students had not made significant progress in reading. Some students have made two years’ worth of progress in two months. The second cohort will be tested next week.
A governor asked whether these interventions are a recent thing.
  • No, on the whole they have been in place for some time. One new scheme has been tried with one child, who is being tested next week.
A governor asked what kind of qualifications children can expect to get.
  • A better idea of this emerges in Y10-11. It is rare for students to be withdrawn from GCSEs, as parents prefer them to achieve at least some GCSE grades.
A governor asked about Reading Recovery.
  • This is mainly a primary school programme. This scheme entails children being removed from normal classes daily, which at secondary level causes problems in subject areas. Some secondary schools do use it but limit class withdrawal to half an hour a day.
A governor asked whether the timetable in Y10-11 allows for extra maths and English.
  • The SEN team makes choices about which students to withdraw. Care is needed because by this age many students have ‘switched off’, having had extra help from the infant school stage. Literacy help is more intensive in Y7-9.
  • MH and TG added that study skills are undertaken in Y10-11 and this is a ‘blind option’ which the student doesn’t consciously choose, but it is built into the timetable.
  • The school must be certain that these students will benefit and that they don’t see it as a free period.
A discussion followed about the underachievement this year of a small number of students whose parents were not ‘on board’ and the reasons for the latter.
A governor asked whether early intervention in Y7-8 means they make real progress.
  • Yes definitely.
The same governor commented on the anomaly between students who are very proficient with modern gadgets (iPads, mobile phones) but struggle with reading.
Another governor asked how dyslexia is supported in school.
  • The school screens for those at risk of dyslexia. Appropriate support is then provided for those whose screening test indicates they are at risk, e.g. a word processor or a reader can be provided.
A governor asked whether the school’s capacity to screen is a problem.
  • The school carries out screening but not actual diagnosis. Some parents pay for a private diagnostic test but the reliability of these varies.
A governor asked what triggers the screen test.
  • Various things – CAT tests, teacher identification, parents’ concern. The process is: screening, SEN register, then the implementation of intervention strategies.
A governor asked if these strategies are successful.
  • In general, yes.
A discussion followed about dyslexia. Governors agreed that dyslexia does not mean lacking in ability, and that dyslexic students often work doubly hard to overcome their difficulties.
A governor asked whether junior schools advise us about the SEN of children coming up.
  • Yes, there is full liaison about the support these children need. The important thing is getting them happily settled with us at the start. Sometimes this involves an LSA being a keyworker. Parents are fully involved and great care taken to ensure a good relationship.
A governor asked whether the 497 hours of support actually relates to what children need.
  • Teachers put in requests for support in September and this year they were all accommodated. There are funding changes afoot next year which may change how we work.
  • TG advised that more behavioural support would be welcome and MH added that some children are on the SEN register for behavioural reasons.
A discussion followed about behaviour in school, the various strategies employed and the roles of teaching and support staff. Governors acknowledged the excellent job done by support staff.
A governor asked whether supply teachers know which children in the class have SEN.
  • MH explained that all this information is available electronically, and this is much easier now that all cover is provided from within school, with no external supply teachers brought in. Many Cover Supervisors know the children very well.
A governor asked how KSp felt about progress since she had taken over and if any changes are planned.
  • The statistics for the past year are very good. Two children with physical disabilities have done exceptionally well. Changes may come about because of government funding changes but no detail is known yet.
A governor asked whether junior and secondary schools use joined up thinking for their strategies.
  • Programmes are different at secondary school which is a positive thing – it gives children a boost to do something different and this leads to rapid improvement. The Acceleread and Accelewrite programmes are only used at primary schools.
A governor asked what percentage of children have SEN.
  • It varies between year groups, overall it is between 10-40%.
Governors agreed that the SEN department does and excellent job.
KSp was thanked and left at 5.55pm
5 / Review of School Development Plan
This item was taken out of order.
5.1 / Literacy Policy
All bullet points by MH.
MH distributed the draft literacy policy.
A governor asked about the ‘5 spellings to be corrected’ clause on p2.
  • How spellings are corrected depends on the ability and level of the individual child and in some cases not all spelling errors will be corrected.
A governor asked whether this should be a dialogue between teacher and pupil.
  • Yes, we are also working on the Marking and Assessment Policy, and this incorporates the dialogue aspect where teachers explain as part of marking what the child’s ‘next steps’ are. However this is aspirational to some extent because it is labour-intensive for teachers and needs further discussion.
The same governor praised ‘next steps’ marking, saying it is an excellent strategy.
  • The Literacy Policy is fundamental to future success and it is hoped that a staff member will be allocated a substantial amount of time to implement it.
A governor commented that marking is a crucial aspect of the new Ofsted framework and asked what happens when teachers’ marking is not up to standard.
  • Marking is assessed on Learning Walks and feedback given as necessary.
A governor asked how lesson observations are going.
MH showed a slide of a graph with current cumulative scores:
%
Outstanding / 21
Good / 54
Satisfactory / 22
Inadequate / 3
  • It is important to note that 75% of lessons are good or better. This would have met the ‘outstanding school’ criteria on the former Ofsted framework.
  • The teachers of the inadequate lessons have all since been assessed as satisfactory better. Most of these lessons were ‘one-offs’ where something had gone wrong. The actual number of inadequate lessons has stayed the same, so the percentage has reduced.
MH showed another slide ‘Variation in Practice’ which illustrates that Personalisation is still the major issue. This involves the level of challenge to pupils within lessons and the extent to which they are helped or ‘spoon-fed’ A debate followed about this aspect and how it needs to change in preparation for the return to terminal exams. Governors agreed that greater independence is good preparation for sixth-form college and university.
5.2 / Update on School Improvement Priorities
All bullet points by MH.
Staffing
  • Staff are leaving in Geography, Drama and English and replacements have been appointed.
  • Tim Ennion, Assistant HT, has gained a promotion at another school leaving a half-timetable of geography to be filled. A half-timetable teacher vacancy also exists in Business Studies. The way these are filled may depend on the outcome of the Business Manager appointment process, which is still in progress. The school should be fully staffed in September.
Vulnerable Groups
MH showed a slide illustrating the progress of vulnerable groups towards end-of-year targets. This has been developed by David Crowley and is colour coded in a similar way to RAISEonline. This data will be shared more fully at future meetings.
School Development Plan
MH circulated a summary of the new School Development Plan which will be fully discussed at the FGB meeting on 25 June. There are three main strands; Staff Development, Curriculum & Progress, Facilities.
In relation to Facilities, a governor advised that she had learned on the recent VWV training day that many academies had successfully bid for additional government funds for new classrooms.
Frog
MH gave a short demonstration of the new Frog system and a discussion followed on its benefits for staff, parents, pupils, governors and for the marketability of the school. It was confirmed that pupils cannot access Facebook at all through Frog or any school system. It was suggested that Frog could be used for GB business and the electronic storage of GB documentation. This will also be discussed at the next FGB meeting. / Clerk/CoG – FGB agenda
Clerk/CoG – FGB agenda
6 / SEN Provision Review
This item was taken out of order after item 4.
7 / Update on Work Experience and Work Based Learning
MH advised that there were no developments since the last meeting.
8 / Policy Reviews
None. The Assessment and Marking Policy will be considered at the next SIC meeting. / Chair/Clerk – next agenda
Any Other Notified Business
None.
9 / Date of next meeting
Meeting dates for 2012/13 - TBC. The clerk advised that all meeting dates for the next academic year are being considered by the Chair of Governors and the committee chairs and will be confirmed at FGB on 25 June. SIC meetings will be Wednesdays at 5pm in future.
The meeting closed at 7.05pm

Minutes Approved by……………………………………………

Position……………………………………………………………

Signature………………………………………………………….

Date………………………………………………………………..

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