Report from the Governing Board
On Monday evening the Governors gathered for their March meeting. Sadly, one of our first agenda items was the resignation of Mrs Sarah Stevenson who had been part of our Board for almost eight years. We passed on our thanks for her dedication and support, especially in her role as a SEND Governor, and wish her all the very best for the future. Looking at the structure of Board it was agreed that I would move to a Partnership Governor role which means we will be looking for another Parent Governor to join us after Easter. If you are interested in being part of our team, please do look out for details in the newsletter. We also have co-opted vacancies and will be advertising these externally. Mrs Karen Whitehouse was appointed as a new SEND Governor and together with Mrs Lauren Dearsley will join the Pay and Personnel Committee.
We have recently completed a skills audit to see if there are gaps in our overall knowledge not only for training purposes, but this can also feed into our recruitment for new co-opted governors. We were pleased with the results showing that we had good knowledge and skills spanning our existing Board members.
Mr Raraty then presented his termly Headteacher’s Report updating us on the effects of Covid absence and attendance levels which are currently 94.5% overall. We were delighted with the school’s Bronze Rights Respecting School status which fits perfectly with our curriculum plan and thanked the staff for their work in achieving this. Mr Crawley told us he was now looking to work towards the silver award and is forming a steering group. As part of this Mrs Leeann Goddard was appointed as the Governor for Rights and will join the group meeting with the children on a regular basis. As part of the SEND report we were told that schools are now being expected to undertake more specialist SEN support. Miss George had also been very busy with her online accreditation for safeguarding including updating parents with her online safety newsletter.
March is the end of the school’s financial year. Following a recent meeting of the Finance Committee I presented the meeting with a report on our current position together with a draft budget for approval. Whilst the school is in a good financial position at the present time our projections for the next few years are not quite as satisfactory. During the summer term the Committee will be considering the impact of our current economic climate on our financial situation. Our catering costs are increasing and we will therefore be considering an uplift to the cost of a school meal. We know that other schools in the local area are in similar discussions and it has been several years since our last rise. Should we decide an increase is appropriate this will take effect from September. The Board have now also completed and filed with ECC our own financial standard report where we assess the procedures, checks and processes we have in place to ensure compliance and financial security in school.
We are pleased that essential works to the upstairs toilets and kitchen to satisfy some health and safety issues are being carried out over the Easter break.
Most of the Board have now completed their GDPR training and have conducted a couple of visits to school during this term with a range of focus points. We look forward to a few more visits next term. Several policies were approved.
Finally, we wished Mr Raraty all the very best in his role at Flitch Green and are already looking forward to his return to our meetings in September. We know the school is in very good hands in the meantime.
We wish everyone a happy, healthy, Easter break.
Andrea Beard
Chair of Finance, Premises and Health and Safety Committee
