|
Gloucestershire Governors
Association Newsletter
Issue 23 - Term 4, March 2009
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:
All meetings on Monday evenings at Shire Hall, 7-9pm
Please use the back entrance.
27th April –Developing a whole school ICT strategy
– see below
8th June – Whose Curriculum is it anyway? Mick
Waters, QCA Director of Curriculum plus GGA
AGM
|
|
Happy Easter
Nearly two thirds of the way through the school year already! By now
your thoughts should be on next year’s budget and school improvement
plan, staffing changes for September as well as starting to evaluate
what has been achieved so far. In spite of all this and more, please
ensure you have a good break over the holidays to experience Easter
and eat those eggs!
Open meeting, 2nd March – Building Schools
for the Future (BSF) and Primary Strategy
Thank you to everyone who attended and to Joanna Penman and Neil
Corbett for speaking. Their comprehensive slides are available
here. It was a very informative and interesting
evening – good news that Gloucestershire is going to be able to
access BSF funding earlier than expected – best of luck to the
schools which will benefit.
GGA Executive
The AGM looms on the 8th June and we would be delighted to hear from
anyone who is interested in putting themselves forward for the
executive. There will definitely be some vacancies to fill and it is
always great to bring in fresh blood and new ideas. Formal papers
will be issued in May, but please give it serious thought, there are
issues to be tackled! We only meet 4 times/year as an exec (in the
evening). Beyond that you can volunteer to represent GGA at a range
of events, but not everyone has the time to do so. The rest of our
business is done by email.
Children & Young People’s Plan 2009-11
This will shortly be published. It does impact on all schools so
please take it into account when developing your School Improvement
Plan.
|
Leadership Succession workshops
These workshops revolved around the new National College of School
Leadership’s (NCSL) toolbox called ‘Tomorrow’s leaders today’. It
includes useful reading materials, self assessment tools and
checklists that will help you decide what should be on your
particular agenda and how to go about it. You can view a huge range
of materials at
www.ncsl.org.uk/tomorrowsleaderstoday. You might also be
interested to look at the materials used at the recent DCSF
conferences on federations. You can access them at
livegroup.co.uk/federationsconference. The short video in the
materials listed is particularly thought provoking. If you look at
the case studies presented at the Bristol event it is clear that
there is a growing body of evidence, from Devon in particular,
showing that hard federations can bring many benefits. Take a look!
|
Monday,
27th April
2009, 7-9pm,
Shire Hall, Gloucester
(NB – use back entrance)
Please come along and support your Association
‘Developing a
whole school ICT strategy’
Speakers: Liz Hadley, ICT Manager, GCC
Noel Fowles, Becta.
Come along and hear about:
- The national and county background
- What will a 21st century classroom look like?
- Why do you need an ICT strategy?
- What should it cover – hardware, software, training,
safety, home links, school admin??
- How can we afford it?
- What role should governors play?
You will also have the opportunity to ask
questions and raise concerns. All Governors, and that includes Heads,
are very, very welcome.
|
|
|
Our targets for 2008-9
As an Executive, we have set ourselves 3 goals for the next year
to focus our effort. Our progress so far is:
1. To clarify and improve the working relationships and processes
between the LA and GGA as partners: the LA and individual Governing
bodies and the LA and Chairs of Governors. Devon Governors
association have recently agreed a memorandum of Understanding with
their LA. You can find out more about Devon at
www.dag.gb.com . While we feel
much of what Devon have included is already in place informally in
Gloucestershire, maybe after the AGM, the new executive will take a
look at this and devise a draft to ensure we are moving with the
times. One useful thing I picked up from the Devon site is a
national model job spec for a Clerk. While I do not know its source,
it is quite detailed and therefore may be more value as a
briefing/training tool than the very broad version available on GCC
Clerk’s corner. You can find it at
www.dag.gb.com/documents/dag-clerks-modeljobdescription.pdf
2. To work with Governor Services on their Mission and
Business Plan in order to support improved services for our members.
As the resources available for the governor services team
continue to reduce, it is probably time to look more proactively for
other means to meet our needs. We have identified two suppliers of
e-based governor training so far and will be talking to the LA about
licensing as this may be more accessible for many governors than
‘classroom’ based activities. Meanwhile, having recently asked
about the take up of GCC Induction training for new governors, we
were told that only 21% of new governors have accessed training it
in the last year (134 out of 639 appointments). This is frankly very
poor and GGA would urge all new governors to sign themselves up asap!
We would regard induction training as essential given our myriad
duties and responsibilities. Finally, there are currently 537
vacancies for governors across the County including 69 LEA governor
posts. If this affects you, have you thought about tasters,
shadowing, links with community groups, PTAs etc etc as sources of
new recruits?
3. To ensure Gloucestershire Governors are informed and
involved in the forthcoming national consultation on the future role
and form of Governing Bodies. The NGA are pressing for the final
meeting of the working group to take place in order to resolve what,
if anything, goes out for consultation. Don’t hold your breath!
|
|
National funding review
PriceWaterhouseCoopers are now carrying out the detailed research
for the current review. All secondary schools and a sample of
primaries should have received a questionnaire on AEN and SEN.
Please, please respond as the feedback will influence any changes.
At the recent f40 conference, Ed Balls spoke to us with passion
about the review and what he hopes to achieve. You can view
conference notes and (hopefully!) a video of Mr Balls at
www.f40.org.uk.
Good news! (Extract from NGA newsletter) Results published last week
by the DCSF show that the national gap in performance in KS2 tests
between children on free school meals (FSM) and not on FSM narrowed
by 2%age points in English, Maths and Science in 2008, compared to a
one percentage point narrowing in 2007.Children with SEN made a
3%age point improvement from 2007 and that most ethnic groups also
improved on previous year. As this is clearly good news you may not
have read it elsewhere.
|
This newsletter was
produced by Gillian Hayward on behalf of GGA. She can be contacted on
01453 842952 or
by Email
All constructive
comments welcome! |
|
NGA Survey
The results of the first NGA national survey have now been published
– you can find a summary at
www.nga.org.uk and go to News section.
SATs boycott
The NGA is currently taking advice on the position of governing
bodies should Headteachers agree to support a boycott in 2010, as
SATs are currently a statutory duty.
Current National Consultations
- Safeguarding from gangs
- New SENCO training
- Designated teachers for LAC
- EYFS profile data arrangements
Details at
www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations
Useful sources of information and help
|
Back to Top |
