Governors Corner

It has been a long while since I published my last Governors corner and I apologise for that. I thought I would discuss some of the items that we have covered on our committee agendas.

Curriculum Committee

The Curriculum committee had their data review meeting where we review all the results for the last year, including National Curriculum Tests (NCTs). The results show that the work we put in for the children on the cusp of level 3 & 4 has proved very effective. Maths has stayed at the same level for the past few years and has not improved in line with our English results. We have put in measures to improve Maths by stopping the setting and introducing different teaching methods that have proven successful in the other subject areas.

Community Links Committee

The Community Links committee, among other things, reviewed the feedback from parents about the new web site and the method of delivering news. It seems that the vast majority of you are happy with the web site but would like an email reminder telling you to check the news. It is possible to request a newsletter summary via email, just ask at the office. We also discussed the Steyning Festival for 2012 and how the school will be involved: there are some very exciting ideas coming through for all the people of Steyning.

Finance, Staffing & Premises

The Finance, Staffing & Premises committee has quite a broad agenda to cover. We discussed a number of issues including the Land Exchange with SGS, Storage space and ICT equipment purchase. We looked at the sickness and absence policy issues from West Sussex with a view to editing this and adopting this as our policy.

Full Governing Body

The FGB meeting is mainly taken up with a report from the other committees and a report from the Head teacher. On occasions the FGB will be asked to decide on strategic and policy issues. The most important of these was the change of school name. The Governors votes unanimously to change the school name to Steyning C of E Primary. We felt that this was important because the school is a major part of our community and the name needed to reflect the community in which we work.

Many thanks

David Peace

Chairman of the Governors

chair@st-andrews-steyning.w-sussex.sch.uk