MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE
DIRECTORS MEETING HELD AT WINTER GARDENS ACADEMY
HELD ON THURSDAY, 2ND JULY 2015 AT 10.00 AM
üindicates
attendance / Mr Simon Harbrow (SH) – Executive Headteacher ü
Mr Mike Simmonds (MS) – Chair of Directors ü
Mrs Tosca Boothman (TB) – Standards Director, Chair of Winter Gardens ü
Mr Darren Stoner (DS) – Finance Director
Mrs Catherine Stalham (CSt) – Acting Headteacher WGü
Mrs Gemma Thurston – Acting Deputy Headteacher WGü / In Attendance:
Mrs Emma Terris – Clerk ü
Mrs Claire Sellick (CSe) – School Business Manager ü
Miss Jill Pullen (JP) – Chair of IEB of WG ü
Agenda Item / Minutes
1 / Verbal handover report from Mrs Jill Pullen – Chair of IEB / MS welcomed Miss Pullen to the meeting and advised that she has been invited to the meeting in order to give Directors a verbal handover report. JP gave Directors the following handover report where the following points were noted:
·  The QoT in school is fragile and needs to be further addressed. The school needs to make up for neglectful and inadequate teaching and especially in next year’s Year 6 who have a lot of ground to make up.
·  All personnel issues, with the exception of one, which is being dealt with by SH have been addressed.
·  3 Builders are coming into school today in order to quote to remove the tree roots. An earlier quote of £3,000 has been refused as it was considered excessive.
·  A meeting has been held with the pre-school and CSe and JP where it was advised that the pre-school can continue to be run the same way. The pre-school is very well resourced and run. Two lots of ‘measures’ have been declared on the pre-school if there is a need to restructure.
JP advised the Directors to contact her if they needed any further information. MS expressed his appreciation to JP and the IEB for the work they have carried out. MS presented JP with a bouquet of flowers. At 10.25 am she left the meeting.
2 / Welcome and apologies for absence / MS welcomed everyone to the meeting. An apology for absence was received and accepted from Mr Stoner who was unable to attend due to work commitments.
It was agreed that the Clerk and SH will liaise in order to establish a Google Calendar of SEAT meetings in the SEAT Google Drive.
3 / Declarations of Business Interests/
Conflict of Interests.
Members to declare any gifts or Hospitality / Mrs Stalham and Mrs Thurston completed new declarations of business interest forms. There were no declarations of business interests or conflict of interest with any items on the agenda.
There were no declarations of gifts or hospitality since the last meeting.
4 / Minutes of the previous meeting / The minutes of the meeting held on 25th June 2015 were reviewed, agreed and signed by MS as a true record of the meeting.
5. / Mattes Arising from the minutes of the previous meeting / Item 8: Westwood Academy
MS informed the meeting that as Mrs Vanessa Van Blerk has been appointed Chair of Westwood Local Governing Body with effect from 30th June and that she will be joining the Board of Directors in the autumn term.
Item 8: Parkwood Academy
SH informed the meeting that since Directors approved the support Staff structure, two members of the support staff have resigned with a further resignation likely. One of the resignations was from the Finance Administrator. An advert has been placed in order to recruit a School Business Manager who has finance experience.
Item 9: Winter Gardens School Conversion
At 10.55 am GT was asked to withdraw from the meeting in order for Directors to ratify her appointment as Acting Deputy Headteacher for the autumn term. The remainder of this minute has been minuted as a confidential item. At 11.00 am GT was invited back into the meeting to be informed of the Directors’ decision.
Item 10: Executive Headteacher's Report
SH informed the meeting that the three Headteacher’s of the Trusts schools will be meeting next week in order to plan the CPD of the Trust training day which is being held on Friday, 13th November.
6. / Directors’ Responsibilities / MS referred Directors to the Directors’ responsibilities spreadsheet which was uploaded onto the Google Drive. It was agreed that TB will Chair the Winter Gardens meetings going forward and from this point TB chaired the meeting.
It was agreed that SH will produce a Directors’ monitoring plan which will feed into the Single Plan priorities for the school. The dates for future monitoring visits will be included on the Google Calendar.
7. / Report from the Acting Headteacher of Winter Gardens Academy / CSt uploaded the Headteacher’s Report on to the Google Drive prior to the meeting. Directors were given an overview of the report and the following points were noted:
Ofsted 2014
Following the Ofsted Inspection in 2014, the following areas requiring development are as follows:
·  Improve the quality of teaching so that it is at least good.
·  Raise attainment and accelerate progress particularly at KS2 in Reading, Writing and Mathematics so that all groups of pupils, including disadvantaged, disabled, SEN and the most able achieve well.
·  Make sure that actions taken to improve pupils’ behaviour and attendance are followed up.
·  Improve the effectiveness of leaders and managers.
TB informed the meeting that Ian Morton, a member of the IEB, has carried out a monitoring visit on Pupil Premium. TB advised that she has prepared a report and this will be forthcoming. TB added that as the previous records are incomplete the IEB agreed to draw a line under previous data and only use the current recorded data for monitoring purposes.
CSt informed the meeting that following a visit from Maz Norman on 7th July, she has been signed up for a leadership course for disadvantaged pupils. The course will run for a period of one year and Directors were advised that there will be no cost to the school. CSt added that Maz Norman will shortly be coming into school in order to carry out a one day School Health Check with the Leadership Team.
HMI March
CSt advised that HMI have visited the school in December 2014 and March 2015 where it was identified that the school is not making enough progress towards the removal of special measures. Although, it was noted that HMI reported that the school is addressing the concerns and that there has not been enough time for impact. The full copy of the HMI Report has been uploaded onto the Google Drive for information.
Board Assurance Framework (BAF)
Directors were advised that the BAF was created at the request of the Chair of the IEB. The BAF has been very useful to highlight any risks and track actions and progress against these. Governors were given an overview of the BAT where it was noted that there are no areas that are red and that everything is either amber or green.
Directors considered this to be a useful document and it was agreed that the BAF will be implemented across all the Trust schools. MS requested that any threats are to be included in the EHT’s report for discussion.
Impact Document
The Impact Document was crated with an LA advisor and has been useful to record to the impact in areas other than the main priorities of the Single Plan. In time, the Impact Document will feed directly into the Single Plan.
In response to a question from a Director, CSt advised that Keith Pullen and Maz Norman have been into school during the course of the term in order to carry out lesson observations. It was noted that 90% of the lessons that Maz observed good lesson behavior was evident. This has increased from 29% at the beginning of the term. There has been a shift in teaching from Inadequate/RI – RI/Good.
Single Plan
CSt gave Directors an overview of the Single Plan. The following points were noted:
·  Priority 1 – Raise standards and achievement in Reading, Writing and Maths.
CSt advised that when she joined the school it was very difficult to find data. Moderation has taken place in KS1 where it was found that the data is accurate.
63% of students achieved GLD. This exceeded the target set of 60%. 67% of pupils passed the Phonics Screening Test. This is lower than the target of 80%.
Marking and feedback to pupils has been addressed. The Single Plan is being reviewed at staff meetings and areas that require attention are highlighted.
·  Priority 2 – To improve the quality of teaching and learning to consistently Good (70% good or better)
The pitch of lessons for numeracy and literacy has improved. The school is now addressing low/high ability. CSt advised that going forward she would like moderation to take place internally between the Trust schools.
·  Priority 3 – To develop the school as a professional learning community
CSt advised that priority 3 is concentrating on all leaders taking responsibility of their area. The IEB and the LA undertook monitoring of the leaders. CSt advised that at the end of the term a one page summary will be produced highlighting a summary of the subject areas responsibilities and next steps.
Staffing
Directors were advised that at the time of CSt’s arrival there were 5 members of staff on long term sick, 4 day to day supply teachers and several inadequate teachers. With the assistance of Westwood, the LA and the IEB, five new members of staff have been employed and started employment after Easter.
At this point, there is only one teacher on long term sick, one day to day supply who will be leaving at the end of the term and one inadequate teacher who has been taken out of class.
Directors reviewed and agreed the staffing structure for Winter Garden Academy for the 2015/16 academic year.
Directors were advised that a document outlining the roles and responsibilities for September 2015 has been uploaded to the Google Drive. It was noted that Stacy Moore who was the Headteacher’s PA has been appointed to the role of School Business Manager and will be line managing staff all office staff.
MS advised that a timescale will need to be produced for the appointment of the Headteacher during the autumn term. Advice will be sought from Essex HR in regard to advertising externally.
Budget
Directors were advised that the budget has been a high risk area due to the amount of staff on long term sickness, the need for settlement arrangements and the need to over staff for cover possibilities. Last year there was a carry forward of approximately £131,000 however, there has been an overspend this year of £97,000, mostly attributable to overstaffing, supplies and long term sickness issues, and therefore the carry forward is approximately £14,000.
It was noted that the current priorities for next year’s budget are resources to support the new curriculum, an IT overhaul and canopies for EYFS and Year 1 outside area. MS commented that Parkwood have not spent their allocated IT budget which was approved by Directors and suggested that this is reneged in order for an order to be placed for both schools, which may result in greater savings. CSe agreed to ascertain where Parkwood are in regard to the purchasing of IT equipment.
Autumn Single Plan
Directors were given an overview of the ideas for priorities for the autumn term, which are as follows:
·  Literacy – implementation of Talk for Writing, reviewing Read, Write Inc.
·  Numeracy – implantation of Numicon and Abacus
·  Assessment – moderation of bands and steps, ensuring assessment informing planning through gap analysis
·  Provision for vulnerable pupils – PP, SEN, CiC
·  Leadership – leaders to take responsibility for their areas.
Possible support/work with Trust
CSt proposed the following support/work with the Trust going forward:
·  Trust wide moderation to include joint staff meetings each term for teachers from each school to moderate their judgements.
·  Teachers to be given the opportunity to observe good practice in order to develop ‘mindset’.
·  Leaders to spend time with the relevant leaders in the other schools to have planning meetings (SENCOs, AHT, DHT, EYFS leads, Attendance Officers)
·  Stacey Moore, the new SBM to receive further support from CSe as she is new to the role.
Monitoring Areas for Directors
·  Pupil Prorgress – Data analysis
·  Pupil Progress and T&L: Single Plan Priority 1,2,3
·  Safeguarding
·  Attendance
·  Behaviour for Learning
·  Provision for and progress of SEN children
·  Progress of disadvantaged children
·  Sports premium use of funds and provision
·  Finance
SH agreed to produce a report of the Headteacher’s meeting as evidence of discussions.
Threats
The following threats were noted and discussed:
·  Potential issues surrounding the teacher on long term sick.
·  Attendance – currently 94.3%.
·  New staff – ensure good induction and consistency
·  Safeguarding (currently 2 children on Child Protection, 20 children are cause for concern, 10 referrals/advice from Social Services in the last term)
·  Staff conduct issues to address
·  Very low baseline data, especially Year 5, which will be the Ofsted data.
·  Provision for vulnerable children (29% of the school are PP, 15% SEN, currently 6 Chidren in Care)
·  Potential illness/cover issues
·  Capacity of SLT
Directors commended CSt on her very detailed and thorough report.
8 / Executive Headteacher of SEAT Report to Directors / SH informed the meeting that conversion has taken place as planned on 1st July 2015. The pre-school has transferred to the Academy. There is an issue regarding the use of Lake View Hall. This is currently being addressed.
A qualified teacher needs to be employed in the pre-school and advice is being sought regarding the school’s options.
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9. / Identify an Governance Priorities for Winter Gardens / This has been covered in the Acting Headteacher’s report.
10 / Policies to review and adopt / Pay Policy
The draft Pay Policy and Staff Structure for the Trust was uploaded onto the Google Drive prior to the meeting. Directors were advised that staff have been consulted and no issues have arisen. Subject to the Staff Structure for Winter Gardens being shared with staff, Directors were unanimous in agreement for the Pay Policy to be adopted.
Financial Regulations and Scheme of Delegation
The draft Financial Regulations for the Trust was uploaded onto the Google Drive prior to the meeting for review. Directors were advised that the Financial Regulations have been modified to meet the needs of the Trust and the regulations have been sent to the Trust Headteacher’s for review. Following discussions, Directors agreed that the LGB of the Trust schools are given responsibility in regard to managing their budgets to include the virement of money within own budget. Subject to the above amendments, Directors were unanimous in agreement to adopt the Financial Regulations and Scheme of Delegation.
Winter Garden Policies
Directors were unanimous in agreement to for all current Winter Gardens policies to be adopted with a view to review them as appropriate.
13 / Dates for meetings 2015/16 / The meeting dates for 2015/16 have been uploaded onto the Google Drive. The Clerk will arrange for the dates to be added to the calendar on Google Drive.
14 / Directors Monitoring/Planning / This item has been covered in the Acting Headteacher’s Report.
15 / Acting Headteacher's PMR / It was agreed that the date for the Acting Headteacher's PMR will take place on Friday, 11th September at 9.15 am at Winter Gardens Academy.
16 / Data and time of next meeting / Tuesday, 29th September 2015 at 2.00 pm at Winter Gardens Academy

With no further business the Chair thanked everyone for attending. The meeting closed at 12.30 pm.