Governors

for the Governing Board of Harper Bell Seventh-day Adventist Primary School Academic Year 2023-24

School governing bodies ‘are the strategic leaders of our schools and have a vital role to play in making sure every child gets the best possible education’. (The 2015 Governors’ Handbook, published by the Department for Education).   For maintained schools this is reflected in the law, which states that the purpose of maintained school governing bodies is to ‘conduct the school with a view to promoting high standards of educational achievement at the school’.

In accordance with the Government's requirement for all governing boards, the three core strategic functions of the Harper Bell Seventh-day Adventist Primary School Governing Board are:

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

The Governing Body consists of

• 7 foundation governors
• 1 head teacher governor
• 2 elected staff governors
• 2 parent governors
• 1 Local authority governor

This constitution is laid down in the Instrument of Government for Harper Bell Seventh-day Adventist Primary School which came into effect on 22nd September  2014 when the Governing Body was re-constituted under the School Governance (Constitution) (England) regulations 2012.

The full Governing Board meets once each term with additional committee meetings being held once each term to cover:

• Finance, Pay and Premises
• Standards and Performance

In addition, governor panels may also meet to cover the following areas:

• Appeals Panel
• Complaints Panel
• Disciplinary Panel
• Exclusions Panel
• Pay Review Panel
• Head Teacher Appraisal Panel

Each member of the Governing Board also takes on the role of Link Governor for a particular aspect of school life and reports back to the full Governing Board. Link Governor roles include:

• SEN
• Safeguarding
• Governor Training & Development
• PSHE & RSE
• Pupil Premium
• English
• Maths
• EYFS
• Behaviour & Attendance

The Governing Body delegates some of its work to committees through terms of reference which are reviewed and agreed annually by the Full Governing Body.  The membership of these committees is also agreed annually by the Full Governing Body.  The key committees are:-

• Finance, Pay & Premises Committee (which is principally concerned with function 3)
• Standards and Performance Committee (which is principally concerned with function 2)

Terms of reference and membership of these committees are available via the school office.

During 2021/22 the following meetings have been held:-

Name of body

Number of meetings held in 2021-22

Full Governing Body 3

Finance, Pay & Premises Committee 4

Standards and Performance Committee 3

The majority of the meetings have been held in person although most of the Finance meetings have been held on Teams

In addition, formal meetings have been held of the statutory committees (Head teacher’s performance appraisal and Pay) to enable governors to carry out their statutory duties in these areas

The work we have done on our committees and on the Governing Board in 2020-21

2021-22 continued to be a challenge for all those involved in working in education and those supporting schools. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact significantly on the children, families and staff of Harper Bell Seventh-day Adventist Primary School, as it has for everyone living and working in the UK.

As such, the vast majority of the work covered by the Governing Board of Seventh-day Adventist Primary School has been to:

• support the leadership of the school in ensuring that children, parents and staff have remained safe and well
• ensure that children who are vulnerable or whose parents are key workers have been supported
• provide all children with opportunities to catch up on any missed learning or gaps in their education

Most of the work done by the Governing Board was carried out face to face with meetings taking place in school although some meetings were done remotely via Teams. This year, as well as full Governing Board meetings, committee meetings for Finance and Standards were reintroduced.

The Finance, Pay and Premises Committee have met four times in order to continue to oversee the financial management of the school and received detailed updates from the school leadership, particularly from Mrs Jackson, the School Business Manager. This committee have overseen the annual pay review following in-school performance management and have reviewed school spending and allocation of school funding, including pupil premium. One area that this committee have particularly focused on is how school funding has been impacted by falling pupil numbers.

The Standards & Performance committee have met three times this year and their particular focus has been to monitor the impact of catch up funding and how this has helped groups children to catch up on learning following the pandemic. The committee has met with members of the Senior Leadership Team to discuss progress in terms of the curriculum development, attendance, behaviour, SEND and Early Years. A key area in the School Improvement Plan was to improve reading across school. Although there is more work to be done in this area in order to improve outcomes in Reading at the end of Key Stage 1 and 2, the governors did have an opportunity to see the good progress that children had made.

The full Governing Board have met four times and have received termly Leadership reports that provided an overview of how the school was managing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as progress towards school improvement targets. During full GB meetings, governors have been provided with regular safeguarding updates including progress towards completing the annual Section 175 safeguarding audit. The governors were particularly pleased that the school completed a Section 48 inspection in July 2022 and that received a judgement of Outstanding.

National tests were reintroduced at the end of Y6 this year and, whilst results are not being published, the Governors were pleased with the overall outcomes at the end of KS2 as well as at the end of EYFS and KS1.

The work we are going to do during 2022-23

During 2022-23 we are intending to continue meeting regularly in committees and as a full Governing Board to fulfil our core functions as a Governing Board. Specifically, we will endeavour to support the school with the following:

• Further develop the teaching of reading across school in order to ensure that more children achieve both age-related expectations and greater depth in reading, with a focus on improving the outcomes of boys
• Create opportunities for staff to improve their teaching and develop their pedagogy in order to ensure there is highly effective learning across the curriculum
• Support the wellbeing and ensure the mental health of pupils and staff
• Significantly improve the attendance and punctuality of pupils across the school
• Further embed all areas of the curriculum and support leaders to evaluate that curriculum plans are having an impact on pupils knowing and remembering more

We will also continue to support the leadership of the school in managing the school budget in a time of rising costs and concerns about school funding.

​Ofsted July 2019

• Governance is effective. Governors hold senior leaders to account well.
• They have monitored the use of the school’s finances, notably in how this has improved teaching and academic standards.
• Governors ensure that their statutory duties are met. They check that staff understand and implement safeguarding arrangements appropriately.
• Governors ensure that the pupil premium funding is used to address the barriers affecting disadvantaged pupils’ learning.