GOVERNING BODY ANNUAL IMPACT STATEMENT (2020-21)

In accordance with the Government’s requirement for all governing bodies, the 3 core strategic functions of Lytham Hall Park Primary School Governing Body are:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos, values and strategic direction;
• Holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils;
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.

Governance Structure and Meetings

The Governing Body of Lytham Hall Park Primary School was re-constituted again in 2015/16 year.

We are now made up of:

1 Staff Governor

1 Headteacher Governor

2 Elected Parent Governors

1 Local Authority Governor

10 Co-opted Governors (currently 2 Co-opted Governor vacancies)

MEETINGS

The Full Governing Body meets three times in the year.  We reviewed and revised our committee structure in 2015/16 to move further in line with the core functions.  We now have four committees

• Health and Safety & Projects
• Quality of Education (previously Educational Performance)
• Financial Performance and Staffing
• Strategy and Vision

which meet at least termly, sometimes more often if required.  We have used these meetings to monitor progress of targets in the school improvement plan and challenge and hold senior leaders to account on all aspects of the work of the school.

THE HEALTH & SAFETY and PROJECTS COMMITTEE

This committee is chaired by Alderman Fieldhouse who is a longstanding and experienced member of the Governing Body. The Health and Safety Committee actively and strategically check the whole of school through focused walk throughs each term.  In 2013 they completed the extension to the school as the school has grown to two form entry. The committee then took the lead on key projects to ensure the existing school was fit for purpose providing the pupils’ with a light, bright learning environment with a clear vision that the school would feel a consistent whole.

During COVID, with meetings held remotely,  the walkthroughs have been completed by the School Business Manager and the Site Supervisor and findings have been reported back to the committee.

In 2020/21 key projects have included general maintenance across the school including painting and treating external wood work, filming the windows to the front of school to reduce heat in the offices and classrooms, repairs to the Forest School canopy and replacing the facias in Year 3.

A number of projects delayed by COVID were progressed. This included phase one of the playground repair in KS1, with the surface in KS2 receiving a bonded top coat to prevent shedding until phase two can be completed.  This is planned for 2021/22.  This has been a significant piece of work driven by the Governing Body to ensure this faulty surface was replaced without cost to the school. Other works completed included the fitting of the sound system in the main hall,  the  conversion of a small room into an office for the deputy headteacher and the replacement of the EYFS soft play surface to ensure it was safe.

The committee ensured a thorough risk assessment was in place to support the school working as a COVID secure environment for staff and pupils and families, in partnership with the S&V committee.

The committee continue to access the Health and Safety SLA and the school business manager accesses the support visits as part of the SLA to ensure best practice.  

THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE

The committee is chaired by Mrs Harrison who is a long-standing Governor at Lytham Hall Park and is an experienced educational consultant.  The Committee leads the Governor responsibilities in setting the Curriculum for LHP and changed its title to reflect this remit.   In each term the Committee is presented with detailed information in relation to each of the school improvement plan priorities.  This ensures the Committee can evaluate the impact of the ongoing key actions.

Autumn –      SIP Key Priority: Recovery Action Planning

Spring –        SIP Key Priority: Remote Education

Summer –     SIP KP: Curriculum Evaluation

SIP KP: Catch Up Tier 2 Intervention

This year they have also focussed on PSHE, finalising and agreeing the revised scheme of work and the Relationship and Sex Education Policy and Procedures.  They received regular presentations from the senior leadership team to consider the ongoing development of the LHP curriculum including PSHE, Remote Education, the approach to Catch Up and Curriculum Design including the EYFS Revised Framework.

The Committee regularly have opportunities to examine pupils’ work and identify examples of impact, this year this included viewing the school’s remote education offer and evaluating the impact of remote learning.    The school has had a significant investment in IT resources and in CPD to ensure teachers could provide high quality remote education.  The Committee also received copies of planning models introduced across school and monitoring SERFs to allow them to understand the approach in school.

The Committee reviewed the whole school data across school.  As there was no national measures or assessments, the Committee reviewed the in school data, the attainment and progress of pupils in receipt of pupil premium and examined progress from the autumn baseline to identify the impact of periods of lockdown and the Catch Up Action Plan. 

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE and STAFFING COMMITTEE

In 2020/21, Mrs Kelly Norton-Noon became the Chair of Financial Performance and Staffing Committee.   Mrs Norton-Noon was previously a member of the committee and has a background as an accountant which brings expertise to the role.

The committee meets formally at least once every term to cover the key elements of termly business including holding the Headteacher and Finance Officer to account for the financial performance of the school and approving the draft and final school budgets.  Throughout the year the Chair has provided verbal and written financial summaries to the Committee and to the Full Governing Body highlighting the financial condition of the school.   The committee monitor the spending and impact of the pupil premium finding and related strategy, the Catch Up funding and the Sport Premium to ensure best value.

In recent years, and continuing in 2020/21, the committee have made proactive decisions to appointment additional teaching staff which has further built the leadership capacity through flexibility of the assistant and deputy head in school.  The decision was made to continue the leadership structure with two assistant headteachers due to the growth of the school.    It was also agreed that an additional member of staff be appointed for 12 months to enable the assistant head to lead on teaching and learning as part of the Catch Up approach agreed by the Strategy and Vision committee.  This supports the continued strategic focus on high quality teaching agreed by the Full Governing Body.

The committee have authorised the funding of significant building works providing an excellent learning environment linked to the school vision for independent pupil learning and collaboration.  This has included planned projects for 2021/22 to upgrade toilets and replace the screen doors in classrooms.  This is a significant investment and the committee has identified funding to enable these works to be planned in the next three years for completion. 

The committee explored benchmarking and concluded that spending has continued to impact favourably as pupils’ achievement remains high.  This often links to the proactive decision made in relation to investment in continuous professional development across the whole staff team.  

The committee has steered the school budget during COVID and ensured the budget remained in a strong position with decisions made to facilitate remote education and bubbled staffing to meet the needs of the pupils and to provide a COVID secure environment.

STRATEGY AND VISION COMMITTEE

This committee is chaired by Mr Mason the longstanding and experienced Chair of Governors.  It is made up of the most senior members of the Governing Body.  The main aim of the committee is to aid the strategic direction of the school and ensure that all governors have a clear understanding of the vision and aims and strengths and development needs of the school.   The committee have lead responsibility for monitoring the school improvement plan including aspects of catch up and recovery, and school self-evaluation and staffing.  In 20/21 they made the decision for the school to become a strategic partner in the Embrace Teaching School Hub and to continue the strong school to school links we have established.

The committee leads on the annual Governors’ Action Plan which is shared with the Full Governing Body. Key actions in 2020-21 have included the further development of REACT (Reflective, Evaluative and Creative time) as a standing item on the agenda of every meeting of the Full Governing Body which has now been linked to governor self-evaluation and reflection.  This ensures that the Governing Body are continually reviewing their effectiveness across school.    This has been driven by the full governor self-evaluation training session that took place. 

The committee also provided ongoing support and challenge to the Headteacher during the COVID-19 pandemic.   They reviewed the risk assessment and the full opening guidance, including the LA guidance.  They reviewed and contributed to the decision making around the COVID response in 20/21.

THE FULL GOVERNING BODY

This meeting is chaired by Mr Mason who also Chairs the Strategy and Vision Committee.  At Full Governing Body meetings Governors receive a report from the Headteacher on all aspects of the leadership of the school including the school improvement plan. 

The Governing Body  have been supportive of continuing to further school to school support and have continued to release the Headteacher to work as an associate adviser in partnership with DBE Services.  The deputy headteacher has continued her involvement in initial teacher training (ITT) and in the establishment of the primary SCITT.     The Governing Body recognise the benefits gained through school to school support.  

In 2020/21 the Chair of Governors has continued to drive the governors’ understanding of the role of the nominated governor, however, governor links with faculties was paused due to COVID and staff workload. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic the Governing Body continued to meet via video link. 

OTHER COMMITTEES

The Headteacher appraisal panel met in the autumn term to carry out the Headteacher’s annual appraisal.  The Pay Review Panel met to review the school’s implementation of the Pay Policy linked to appraisal.  There is also a Pay Review Appeals Panel which has not met because there were no appeals.

INDIVIDUAL GOVERNOR RESPONSIBILITIES

In addition to sitting on the committees, Governors have a number of individual responsibilities.

Training Link Governor:

Mr Hale has taken on the responsibility for overseeing governor training.  He ensures that governors attend appropriate and relevant training courses to develop the skills they need and to improve their effectiveness and make an active contribution to the governing body.  This year governors have continued with the 10 minute training sessions at the start of each meeting.  This is in addition to Governor E-Learning online training, such as Prevent training, and face to face training. Governor training this year has moved online due to the COVID_19 pandemic. 

Safeguarding Governor including Prevent, Children Look After and Pupil Premium Champion:

Mrs Harrison is responsible ensuring that we continue to work for an outstanding level of safeguarding provision in school.  She liaises with the designated senior leads in school checking safeguarding policies, procedures and records for ensuring that staff and governors are appropriately trained and reporting back to the full governing body.  She also acts as the voice for pupil premium and vulnerable children including those with special educational needs asking the appropriate challenging questions.

Mrs Harrison consults regularly with the DSL, including reviewing the SCR.  Mrs Harrison is currently DSL trained and completed her Safer Recruitment Training with a focus on the single central record.

As the school entered lockdown in January all vulnerable pupils were identified.  These included CAF/TAF, SEND children with CSC involvement and those who school deemed vulnerable due to additional support the family learning mentor provides in school.  These children were invited into school and had additional interactions with the DSL team.  The family learning mentor provided support via zoom or face to face as appropriate.  

SEND Governor

Mrs Fielding is responsible for ensuring that the key responsibilities of the SENCo are clearly defined and meet the needs of the school. She is in regular contact with the SENCo and monitors the way in which the responsibilities and SEND processes are carried out. She took up this responsibility during 2021 taking over from Mrs Harrison.

Nominated Governors

In 2020/21 Nominated Governors have maintained their links with Faculties across school.  However, during the COVID-19 pandemic and the related workload, governors agreed not to contact the faculty leads.   Other Nominated Governor roles continued and  Nominated Governors provide a verbal report on their faculty at Full Governors’ meeting.

SCHOOL VISITS

Previously Governors have visited the school regularly. Visits provide an opportunity to speak with pupils, staff and parents.  This enables them to observe pupil behaviour, school routines and ethos & values first hand.  However, the operational guidance in 20/21 meant that for the majority of the year face to face visits could take place. 

The Chair of Governors (Mr Mason) meets regularly with the Headteacher via ZOOM and in calls to discuss all aspects of the work of the school.

The Community Link Governor continued working with the Headteacher to maintain and guide community links during the lockdown and the pandemic, communicating, when needed with the parent body.

Governors have sat on interview panels as appropriate.  This year we have made some very positive appointments which remains essential at this time of continued growth.  These moved to face to face for summer 2021 and the Chair of Governors attended these and was fully involved in the whole process, including of shortlisting and interviewing.

LISTENING TO OTHERS

The Governing Body regularly seeks the views of pupils and parents as part of our function of supporting and maintaining improvements in the performance of the school, this includes the provision of weekly parent drop in sessions offered by all teachers and the family learning mentor.     These sessions have continued during the COVID-19 pandemic but moved to either online ‘ZOOM’ meetings or phone calls.

We seek parents' views throughout the year and complete the Lancashire Parental questionnaire every two years in the autumn term, feeding back to parents via the Newsletter.  However, the COVID pandemic has paused this with questionnaires now used to inform the direction of the school in responding to the Operational Guidance.   

School specific questionnaires have been completed more regularly.  This year we consulted the parents to seek their views on full opening and to prepare for this.  At the end of the academic year we consulted with staff and with all families to review changes introduced in COVID and which to keep.

A consultation was carried out with parents when designing the RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) Policy to seek their views. 

In 20/21 we also launched a new school APP with an improved facility for quickly seeking parents’ views in individual questions.   This has been launched with 100% take up across school. 

Findings from all our consultations are fed back to the relevant Committee and used to improve the overall performance of the school.

TRAINING

The Governors have attended a range of training opportunities this year and we have responded to the previous skills audit.  The skills audit recognised that existing Governors have a strong base of relevant expertise and experience and identified next steps for the Governing Body as a whole. 

Governor Training has included:

10 minute training sessions at the start of meetings

Induction training for new Governors

Online training via Governor E-Learning and Lancashire Professional Development Services.

OfSTED update and the role of the Governing Body

Prevent Training

Health and Safety Training

Safeguarding Updates

Lancashire Chairs' Forums termly

Education Inspection Framework 2019

Schools Financial Value Standard

The role of the Training Link Governor

Governing Board Self Evaluation and Development

Covid-19 : DfE Guidance