Governors’ Report
Governors’ Annual Report to Parents - October 2009
Governing Body Membership
Ruth O’Donnell Parent Chair
Sam Healey Parent Vice Chair to 07/09
Theresa Baker Parent
Debbie Shardlow Parent
Lynda Bayman Community
Anne Billingsby Community
Joan Matthews Local Authority
Gary Shaeffer Local Authority
Barbara Lomas Staff - Headteacher
Vicki Masters Staff
The School
The number on roll at January 2009 was a steady 64. Pupils joined throughout the year.
Class size was an average of:
Class 1 23 pupils
Class 2 17 pupils
Class 3 24 pupils
Number of staff to pupils 1:8
Governors meet at least three times a year. In addition to the full governor meetings they also meet in 5 smaller groups, focusing on the schools; curriculum, premises, HR and finance, performance and marketing activities. Governors’ visit the school and observe classes in all the subject areas.
A Message from The Chair
The main focus for Governors this year has been to challenge positively the direction and future strategy of the school in order to maintain the current process of constant improvement, involving the Headteacher, staff, pupils, parents and the Community. We have focused on strengthening our communication with parents, thus introducing a ‘Governor News and Views’ as well as regular Head Teacher updates and feedback.
We have maintained some excellent results from pupil attainment placing our school within the top ten schools in Northamptonshire. We also have been privileged to see a fantastic outcome for three pupils that started their education in Brington School and are now this year collecting the highest achievable A Level results in the nearby Secondary school.
We are developing new innovative ways of teaching, such as ‘team teaching’ to provide a more flexible and joined up approach through the key stages. Governors have seen, firsthand, the pupils’ engagement as a whole school focusing on discussion topics. Our objective is to focus on enhancing the resources required to deliver the curriculum within the financial constraints of the school, and through the support of The Friends of Brington Primary.
Staff should be commended for their commitment to other innovative developments such as being the first school in the county to establish the Enable Learning Platform. This really has a real focus for the school ensuring it is an important part of community through the use of technology as well as physically being involved with community life such as litter picking and being involved in local emergency planning.
We have strengthened this feeling with regular village walks and visits to local museums and places of interest, such as the Roman village in Nether Heyford and Abington Park Museum. We have also started an exciting journey engaging with another school, the Head Teacher and Governor to develop first hand experience of Community Cohesion.
Pupils’ are also confident to speak about any changes they would like to make to improve their well-being, and we have responded to their PE surveys by introducing martial arts as an extra-curricular activity. We as Governors are always impressed with all pupils’ behaviour in class, the happiness of the pupils experience and the hard working and cohesive team of staff.
Staff Training and Development
We welcomed Miss Rachel Rogers to our teaching team. Having completed her training at Nottingham University, Rachel joined us for her NQT year and having successfully passed is now a fully qualified teacher. Mrs Vicki Masters was her mentor and parents were also supportive during the settling in period. This support has resulted in Rachel settling quickly into her new role and having a good relationship with the pupils throughout the school.
Staff have also attended courses, some which were mandatory, such as risk assessments for trips and finance, and some which focus on improvements for the school, such as ICT Learning Platform Training and MEP Maths Project.
School Attendance
Although the attendance rate is relatively good, the Governors discussed school attendance at the end of last term, recognising that it is important that parents show commitment to ensuring a good stable school community as well as providing some realistic flexibility.
Parents were made aware of the importance of attendance and to discuss any potential absence with the headteacher.
Parents have engaged positively with the need for pupils to attend, providing a more trusting relationship when discussing the need to be absent from school.
Our Focus on the Environment, Learning Outside the Classroom
This year we saw changes in the school playground.
The installation of new climbing frame (illustrated above) and a tyre play area has given the children the opportunity to be more active and at the same time create and learn some new fun games together in groups and individually.
The pupils also took turns to use the apparatus.
This was a safety measure as well as seen as a fair way for all children to feel included as advocated by the school council.
They provided help and support to each other to get the most out of the experience.
They have also made good use of the more traditional apparatus in the playground, concentrating on developing skills.
A Year of Children’s Activities and Prizes
Once again this has been a very busy year with a full diary of both school and out-of-school activities.
All classes enjoyed Drama workshops. The children thoroughly enjoyed a Christmas Disco on the 5th December.
The whole school went to the Castle Theatre to watch ‘Alice in Wonderland’ on the 12th December.
Christmas proved a busy time, in school, as always. The children sang at the Cluster Carol Concert as well as performing in our Christmas Productions of ‘Santa’s Setbacks’ and ‘Cinderella Rockafella’. Brass and violin tuition also continues and it is pleasing to hear that ex-pupils are still continuing in bands and orchestras.
One of our year 5 pupils attended a residential music course at Grendon Hall.
These events were just part of a whole range of music and drama experiences throughout the year.
We had a great time at Book Week with parents, governors, grandparents and friends visiting the school to read with the children.
Some celebrity guests also arrived to make the whole experience a lot more exciting.
We celebrated European Languages Day. Children in class 2 & 3 have continued to learn French as part of the curriculum.
Alison Johns teaches in both key stage 2 classes and helps teachers with understanding and delivering the scheme.
Years 4, 5 and 6 children took part in St John Ambulance First Aid Training as part of their PSHE work.
Class 1 had a fun filled Yoga session.
During Anti Bullying Week we held assemblies exploring and discussing issues.
The Life Education Bus proved very popular yet again with pupils and parents.
The themes covered were; Friends, Great To Be Me, Feelings, All About Me.
Classes enthusiastically undertook pieces of work following a range of visits, such as; Natural History and Tate Britain.
We had many in school and after school clubs, such as; French club, freestyle lunch time football club, football, hotshots basketball.
Clubs running throughout the spring term and into the summer term were; Boys’ Football and Girls’ Football, hot shot basketball, tag rugby, sign language, gym, cricket, freestyle football.
Gifted and talented children have been involved in cluster run sessions throughout the year.
Residential Trips
Years 5 and 6 attended the Kingswood Centre, Overstrand, Norfolk for a fun-filled 5 days in June. Great fun was had by all with activities such as quad-biking, climbing, abseiling, archery and fencing.
The evening entertainments programme also proved very enjoyable with the teachers’ rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody being the undoubted highlight of the karaoke evening – although it was felt that the children enjoyed the disco more!
The weather was reasonable – nobody got too wet – and allowed the children to take a full part in the wide range of outdoor and adventurous activities.
School Improvement
Governors have been involved in understanding how individual pupil’s progress is assessed and recorded.
We have also been involved with the action that staff take to support the pupils on certain areas of need, as well as identifying improvement across the whole school.
Our results continue to reflect the high standard of work.
Please note: examples of progress below have been evidenced by the Local Authority School Improvement Partner.
Priority One - Key School Improvement Actions
- Focus on those ‘cusp’ children shown in the FFT data
- Put in additional learning support hours where necessary
- Introduce individualised learning software
Intended Outcomes
- The outcomes at KS2 remain high
- All pupils make good rates of progress
Examples of Progress and Impact
- The quality of support in KS2 is very good. Support provided by 2 HLTAs.
- The school has provided 8 hours’ extra support for identified pupils within KS1 and KS2. The targeted pupils are those that need a boost to their self-esteem and confidence.
- Increased maths support has been provided for both the potential higher attainers and ‘borderline’ pupils.
- The school has purchased extra resources to support this work. Success Maker and MEP maths programme are being used in KS1 & 2.
- Pupils identified as a ‘cusp’ group have received support and intervention programmes. Some of the pupils made accelerated progress and attained Level 4.
- The school is confident that with increased familiarity with APP criteria they will be able to make accurate assessments with increasing confidence.
- The school will continue to ensure that improving maths is school priority.
Priority Two - Key School Improvement Actions
- Raise awareness of expectations with EY staff
Intended Outcomes
- The quality of observational assessment is consistently good
Examples of Progress and Impact
- The school has responded well to this priority and achieved the intended outcomes.
- Foundation Stage profile being used effectively by all staff.
- FS Profile records children’s work and is supported by photographs. These are annotated by staff.
- Profile shared with parents and includes opportunities for the children to ‘have a say’ about their learning.
- Monitoring by Headteacher shows that observations and assessments are becoming more judgmental rather than descriptive.
- There is also a greater consistency in the use of profile by teachers and support staff.
- Following staff training there has been significant improvements in the ability of all staff, 2 teachers and 3 teaching assistants, to make accurate assessments of children’s learning based on observations. This has been particularly marked in the more practical aspects of the children’s learning.
- The staff are confident that they have achieved a greater consistency in how to observe and assess children’s learning.
- The implementation of LA tracking sheets has also improved this practice.
- As a result of this increased understanding of observation and assessment the school has very good evidence of the progress that the children make. This is used well to inform next steps for learning. These are identified within teachers’ planning and observed in monitoring of teaching.
Priority Three - Key School Improvement Actions
- Train all teachers in the use of APP materials
- Trial the use of materials across the school
Intended Outcomes
- Accurate assessments which lead to good information about next steps in learning
Examples of Progress and Impact
- The school has responded positively to this priority and achieved the intended outcomes.
- The school employing APP assessments grids for all pupils.
- APP criteria being used for maths and reading.
- Ros Wilson’s “Big Write’ will continued to be used to assess pupils’ writing.
- The school adopted APP criteria for both reading and mathematics.
- The school are using criteria to assess the progress of all pupils and make judgments about their levels. Appropriate records are kept.
- The school is at present using existing system assessment materials to assess writing. (Ros Wilson).
- “Big Write” is undertaken very regularly to assess pupils’ writing and to identify their next steps for learning.
Curriculum
Linked to our school improvement plan the areas of the curriculum we have been focussing on are:
- Training on the Learning Platform.
- Completing the cluster numeracy project and MEP Maths.
- Receiving training on APP grids for moderation and assessment.
- Reviewing the Maths, English, Science and ICT policies.
- The completion of a refresher EpiPen training course.
- Completing training and implementing APP grid assessments.
- Reviewing the RE policy.
- Observational assessment for the Foundation stage profiles. Formal moderation of these assessments has taken place.
Finance
Last year’s budget totalled £266,970.
£194,460 was formula budget to cover all aspects of running the school. £19,470 standards grant allocation for supporting training,
£53,040 standards fund, some of which is ring fenced to spend on government initiatives, support ICT development and provide funds for improving the building.
We were able to fund all staff costs, with no reduction in personnel, and finished the year with a small carry forward to help us set this year’s budget, with again, no cut backs in staffing or provision.
We were able to provide much needed classroom resources, with the help of £3,000 from the fundraising of the ‘Friends’ committee. This help is essential for maintaining the variety of equipment and activities the children become involved with, throughout the year. Examples include: new play equipment (sand and water) for Class 1, Maths games for Year 2 and music centre equipment so that children can download music for Key Stage 3.
SATs Results and Targets
Pupil results are really positive and provide a good reflection of the teachers’ and Governors’ commitment for improvement.
The tables below show the percentage of year 2 and year 6 children achieving each level at this school in 2009. Parents should be mindful that the pupil cohort is always small and so the results should be used as a guide to the school’s focus of improvement alongside teachers’ own assessments and understanding of individual pupils’ needs.
Key Stage 1 This table shows a summary of the National Curriculum assessment results of pupils in the school (2009) and nationally (2008) at the end of Key Stage 1, as a percentage of those eligible for assessment. The number of eligible children is: 9 Figures may not total 100 per cent because of rounding.
Results of Teacher Assessment
W represents children who are working towards level 1, but have not yet achieved the standards needed for level 1.
U represents children for whom it is not possible to determine a level.
Key Stage 2 - These tables below show a summary of the National Curriculum results of pupils in the school (2009) and nationally (2008) as a percentage of those eligible for assessment. The number of eligible children is: 10 Figures may not total 100 per cent because of rounding.
Results of Teacher Assessment 2009 and National Assessment 2008
Test Results 2009 and National 2008
W represents pupils who are working towards level 1, but have not yet achieved the standards needed for level 1.
* represents pupils who were not entered for the tests because they were working below level 3 in English, mathematics or science; pupils awarded a compensatory level from the tests; and pupils entered for but not achieving a level from the tests.
# represents pupils working at the levels of the tests, but unable to access them, formally referred to as disapplied.
Awards
Congratulations to all the pupils who completed their Music Awards.
Our winning team on Sports Day was Pumas this year.
Congratulations to James H who won the Tennis Tournament.
The following children were presented with awards at our presentation afternoon:
Ryan S Community
John L Science
Ciara M Maths
Danielle D English
Alice K Perseverance and Determination
Harry B Perseverance and Determination
James G Singing
Olivia C Drama
Amy S Bravery and Courage at Facing New Challenges
Billy H Great Improvement in Writing
Congratulations to all Brington Pupils for their enthusiasm and hard work, working towards achieving their individual targets!