South Hams Federation Annual Governance Statement

September 2020

Kingsbridge Community Primary School

Loddiswell Primary School

Malborough with South Huish C of E Primary School

Modbury County Primary School

Stokenham Area Primary School

and

Loddiswell Pre-School

In accordance with the Government’s requirement for all governing bodies, the core strategic functions of the South Hams Federation Board of Governors are:

Establishing the strategic direction, by:

- Setting the vision, values, and objectives for the Federation

- Agreeing the Federation improvement plan with priorities and targets

- Agreeing the Governors’ improvement plan with priorities and targets

- Meeting statutory duties.

Ensuring accountability, by:

- Appointing the Executive Headteacher

- Monitoring progress towards targets

- Performance managing the Executive Headteacher

- Monitoring staff well being

- Engaging with stakeholders

- Contributing to Federation self-evaluation.

Ensuring financial probity, by:

- Setting the budget

- Monitoring spending against the budget

- Ensuring value for money is obtained

Instrument of Government -

The South Hams Federation Board of Governors comprises:

1 Executive Headteacher

2 Parent Governors

1 Staff Governor

1 Local Authority Governor

5 Co-Opted Governors

2 Foundation Governors who are appointed by either the Diocesan Board of Education or the Parochial Church Council of Malborough. One of the Foundation Governor’s is Ex-Officio.

Total 12

The Full Board of Governors usually meet 7 times a year, this year however due to challenging reasons and Covid-19 from March 2020 we met more frequently with our meetings held virtually.

Governors hold School Improvement Plan Meetings at least once a term to challenge and hold

senior leaders to account and report back to the Full Board of Governors. These were put on hold in March 2020 due to Covid -19

The two Standing Committees meet as required.

The Ethos Group meets once a term. Due to Covid -19 they only met twice.

The Executive Committee meets as frequently as required. Due to Covid -19 they met virtually weekly.

All Board meetings are usually held in school time, allowing Governors the opportunity to meet the children and staff, undertake Monitoring Visits, monitor pupils progress, through book scrutinies and see all five schools operating on a day- to-day basis. The Governors are also welcome to enjoy lunch with the children. This was put on hold in March, due to Covid-19

Board of Governors – September 2019

Executive Headteacher Sue Jezard

Chair of Governors/Foundation Jane Greaves

Parent Governor Ed Barker

Co - Opted Governor Kim Stevens

Co - Opted Governor Anne Rossiter

Co - Opted Governor Tina Graham

Parent Governor Justine Grove

Co - Opted Governor Stuart Smith

Co – Opted Governor Vacancy

LA Governor Kirsty Richards

Staff Governor Lucinda Kirkham

Ex-Officio Foundation Governor Vacancy

Clerk Tracey Kidd

Business Manager Penny Amos

Deputy Executive Headteacher Tess Coulthard

Attendance Record of Governors

Governors have excellent attendance at meetings and all meetings are quorate.

Attendance records for individual governors are published on the Federation and Schools’ websites.

Each year Governors are required to complete a Skills Audit to identify the skills, knowledge and experience to identify any additional skills or experience that the Board ideally requires. The outcome of the audit helps formulate opinion as to whether prospective Governors have the skills to contribute to effective governance and the success of the Federation.

The Board has an Improvement Plan and undertakes a Self-Evaluation review.

The Work achieved by the Board of Governors in the Academic Year 2019- 2020

The Board of Governors has had another busy year:

•  The Governors investigated the proposal of joining a Multi Academy Trust, after a thorough consultation, with many meetings and in-depth discussions with all stakeholders the Governors voted to stay as a group of maintained federated schools for the foreseeable future.
• The Board of Governors are committed to ensure they address the double RI Judgement at Kingsbridge Community College, with the support from Babcock.
• The Governors give out Governors Awards every term to those children who work hard, have been kind, considerate and have helped and supported other children within their school setting. This was put on hold in March 2020 due to Covid -19.
• The Federation’s single budget was approved, and we are pleased to report the Federation is in a healthy financial position.
• The Federation went through a success Financial Audit.
• All the school’s Curriculum Maps and new knowledge organisers have been completed.
• The monitoring of our in-house school meals continues to be a priority, with a governor leading on this and making sure all the food standards are in place and sourcing local fresh produce.
• The board continued to make attendance amongst ALL children a high priority. Attendance is monitored on a monthly basis. Obviously, this was put on hold in March 2020 due to Covid-19.
• Governors received safeguarding training. Safeguarding remains a high priority at every Board meeting. Even more important since March 2020.The Chair of Governors received weekly updates from the Federations SENDCo’s, and Heads of School and this information was shared with Governors in a written weekly report.
• The Executive Head Teacher’s Performance Management has been conducted and new targets set for the year.
• The Board of Governors has looked at Subject Leaders’ performance, Pupil Premium outcomes, SEND, children at risk together with the progress and attainment of able children. Continuing to develop Greater Depth in all Foundation subjects ensuring all pupils are receiving and enjoying a broad and balanced curriculum. This was put on hold in March 2020 due to Covid -19, online resources were given to parents via the school website and all teachers accessed an online learning platform called Seesaw and this enable children and parents to engage with their teachers in home learning, all schools supported all of our families so they could access the home learning, either on line or leaving learning packs out for them to collect weekly. All children had weekly well-being phone calls from staff and our disadvantaged and SEND children were supported throughput by the Federation SENDCO’s.
• All of our school settings remained open for key worker children and those children with SEND and disadvantaged, The schools welcomed the Foundation, year 1 and year 6 children back into school in June, each school had undergone a Risk Assessment and all staff who were unable to work in school supported those children and families with online learning.
• The Board has also reviewed the Sports Premium and Pupil Premium funding and evaluated its impact on all groups of pupils. This continues to be a high priority. The Sports Premium and Pupil Premium Strategy and Impact Statements have been updated and are on the school’s websites. Once again this has been put on hold since March 2020 due to Covid-19 and will be made a priority in September 2020.
• Forest School curriculum continues to be a high priority across all the schools within the Federation. Again, this was put on hold in March 2020 due to Covid-19 and will resume in September 2020.
• The Board of Governors has closely monitored all pupil data. Reviewed in detail in the autumn term, key stage 2 SATs, early years and key stage 1 phonics screening results together with cohort outcomes for all children throughout all of the schools. Obviously, there is no data at the end of this academic year due to Covid -19, all pupils will be assessed in September 2020, to identify the gaps in their learning from March 2020. This will be a priority for the Board.
• Target Tracker is used to track pupil progress based on the Learning Journey/Steps devised by the Federation to track children’s progress through the expectations for each year of the National Curriculum.
• Accelerated Reader has been purchased across the Federation.
• Monitoring and observing the quality and consistency of teachers’ CPD and all INSET is based on impacting positively on pupil progress and improving the quality of teaching and learning through identified key priorities for the School Improvement Plan.
• The Governors have remained focused on the data within the Executive Headteacher’s Report of pupils’ performance, attainment and progress across the Federation in EYFS, Key Stage 1 and throughout Key Stage 2, analysing year-on-year data and trends over time. Once again this was put on hold in March 2020 due to Covid -19.
• The School Improvement/Development Plan (SIP/SDP) has been reviewed throughout the year and the new SIP 2020-2021 will be reviewed and adopted at the September Board meeting. During the year the SIP/SDP was put on hold in March due to Covid-19.
• All Governors have their individual roles and responsibilities as part of their universal duties.
• 3 of the schools within the Federation are judged “Good” Stokenham being judged “Outstanding” Kingsbridge is judged “Requires Improvement”.
• One of the roles of Governors is to review and agree policies. During the year Governors have continued to identify and consider a number of key policies on a rolling programme. All the statutory policies are on the School’s website. These Policies have continued to be reviewed during Covid -19 pandemic.
• The Governors receive GDPR Training and Governors received termly updates from the DPO.
• The Data Protection Officer undertook GDPR audits in each school during the year.
• The Federation has signed up for Early Help for Mental Health, all teaching staff received training. Staff, and pupil’s wellbeing continues to be a high priority.
• •For the Academic Year 2019-2020 there has been major staff movement, the Executive Head, retired in July 2020 and several key members of staff have also moved on to fulfill other projects, these have all been positive moves and have enabled the Governors to look to existing staff and to promote internally and to advertise externally for new staff across the Federation. This has been successful. With a new Head of School in place at Modbury, with existing senior members of staff taking on the roles of Acting Executive Head and Acting Deputy Executive Head, the Federation is in a very strong position to secure its future.

A number of building works and improvements were carried out at all five schools: Summer 2019

Stokenham Area Primary School:

New tarmac resurfacing work, new swimming pool fence, new pool cover and roller, new carpets for year 5 and 6 classrooms, new Urinal’s in KS2, new furniture for year 1 and new office furniture ordered.

Malborough with South Huish C of E Primary School:

Replace some new windows, new carpet and redecorated, class 4 and new classroom furniture ordered.

Loddiswell Primary School:

New office furniture ordered

Loddsiwell Preschool:

Overhaul of all the health & safety checks including fire detection, TMVs, fire extinguishers and play equipment checks

Modbury County Primary School:

Boiler room repairs, asbestos Survey carried out, new playground fencing, repairs to some windows, new pool roof, external painting, new carpets in year 4 and emergency lighting repaired.

Kingsbridge Community Primary School:

Improvements to parents waiting area, Year 2 cloakroom painted, replace water tank, new fence around school, outside improvements to buildings and tarmacing and a new carpet for year 2

Church Links: Malborough with South Huish C of E Primary

‘The roots to grow, the wings to fly. All within the love of God’

The Foundation Governors have a particular responsibility towards Malborough with South Huish C of E Primary School to “preserve and develop its religious character in accordance with the ethos of the Church of England and in partnership with the church at parish and diocesan level” as well as to “encourage an understanding of the meaning and significance of faith, and promote Christian values through the experience it offers to all its pupils”. The Ethos Group has worked with the Church and Diocese to implement Christian values throughout the curriculum of the school and the community of Malborough and its surrounding area. The school has weekly assemblies, daily collective worship and once a month the whole school visits the church for their monthly church service, with the children actively taking part and Holy Communion lessons for the Year 6 children in the summer term. Once a week the church organist comes to school to teach the children singing through hymns and reads bible stories to each class. The whole school celebrates important dates in the yearly calendar. The school prayer is said before lunch every day. The children are actively working with the church community. The school was awarded In January 2016 the Gold RE Mark. SIAMS Inspection (November 2016) the school was judged Good. The school also has its own Self-Evaluation Form – Vision Provision Impact and has updated the new RE syllabus inline with a C of E School. The school is also preparing for the new SIAMS (Statutory Inspection Anglican, Methodist Schools) Framework., Governors and staff have attended the new SIAMS training.

Future Plans for the Governors

The Board of Governors looks forward to the challenges the autumn term 2020 will bring. We continue to improve and maintain teaching standards across all five schools and Loddiswell Pre School, to ensure that outcomes for all pupils remain high in all subjects. We are focusing on the ‘Recovery curriculum” our priority is to make sure all of our pupils are returning back to school well and safe, we will Benchmark and assess all pupils and record data from March 2020-September 2020 to ensure that all children within the South Hams Federation are back on track in their subjects and receive the support to access a broad, balanced and cohesive curriculum entitlement; that encourages all of our children to become independent, resilient, resourceful learners for life. We acknowledge that as Stokenham is currently rated ‘Outstanding’ (October 2012) and that the school may well have an inspection/Visit this academic year. The Governors will continue to monitor and build on the Federation’s strengths and weaknesses as outlined in the School Improvement/Development Plan (SIP/D 2020 – 2021).

The Ethos Group along with the Board of Governors will work on the areas to improve after the last SIAMS Inspection (November 2016)

The Governors will continue to develop their skills and update their knowledge, attend governor training courses (internal and external and virtual ) and through visits to each of the schools, conduct Monitoring Visits, book scrutinise, meeting with the children, sampling the school lunches, ensuring best value and maintaining a balanced budget, alongside being strategic, to support and challenge the Acting Executive Head Teacher and the Acting Deputy Head Teacher and the Heads of School, in whatever format that may look like in the coming months.

How You Can Contact the Board of Governors

We always welcome feedback, suggestions and ideas from parents: Please contact the Chair of Governors, Mrs. Jane Greaves, Email: Jgreaves@southhamsfederatiom.org.u