GOVERNORS NEWSLETTER Summer Term 2016 Dear Parents and ...

GOVERNORS NEWSLETTER Summer Term 2016 Dear Parents and Carers The Summer term is now is its second half and we have a packed agenda of activity at school ahead of us and although we have no more formal Governing Body meetings planned in this term Governors will still be working hard behind the scenes to support the school and the pupils in a variety of ways. Over the last half term Governors have once again been into school for a variety of reasons – invigilating the recent KS2 SATS tests, meeting staff to talk about literacy, and talking to pupils about maths in particular. Rev Steve continues to support the whole school in a variety of ways including opening our Governors meeting with a prayer and we are very grateful. I visited James Bateman Junior High in Biddulph with the Headteacher in April to talk to them about the Accelerated Reader programme and we were welcomed by their Headteacher and Chair of Governors and had a very interesting afternoon hearing about the impact of Accelerated Reader on pupils and how much they were now enjoying reading. It was therefore a real pleasure to present some Million Word certificates at the last Literacy Award Assembly and I am looking forward to presenting even more certificates this term. It was also fabulous to see pupils (mostly the boys) sitting under the trees in the quad reading on the day we hosted our Eramus+ visitors for the marketplace activity so keen were they to keep up the word counts! On June 11th we held yet another successful summer fair and it was lovely to see so many Governors there – playing the saxophone, helping on the gate, on stalls both inside and out - thank you. I would also like to thank on behalf of the Governors, Mrs Higton’s father who set up in Class 3 the most wonderful scale model of the Trooping of the Colour – it took him hours to do and it really was the most amazing sight. The pictures many of us took of it did not do it justice. The PTA did another great job raising money for the pupils. Governor Membership As you may recall last term one of our long standing Governors (Mrs Hirst) resigned from the Governing Body after more than 20 years and this week another long standing Governor, Mrs Brocklehurst stepped down after 12 years. Mrs Brocklehurst was a Foundation Governor appointed by the church and we look forward to welcoming her replacement in the very near future. Mrs Brocklehurst has very kindly offered to continue to support the school in any way she can and I would like to accept her offer! On June 6th we welcomed a new Co-opted Governor to our Governing Body and although Miss Pickford was not at the meeting on the 6th she was helping me out on the tombola at the fair and I am very grateful to her for her support. The tombola is most definitely a two person job! We still have two vacancies on the Governing Body and if you are interested in joining us and helping support the pupils - being a governor is a very rewarding and fulfilling role – please speak to Mrs Higton or myself and we will happily talk to you about the role entails (it is not just about going to meetings and reading paperwork!) We are looking for people with an interest in finance, school business management, maybe knowledge of the academy agenda, HR, Health and Safety, and safeguarding in particular. Even if you haven’t got this knowledge we would still love to talk to you. I will be sending more information out at the beginning of the Autumn Term but please take a moment or two to think about whether you would be interested over the coming weeks. I will be at many of the school events up to the end of term so please come and find me and we’ll talk.

The Department for Education require that schools publish lots of information about governors on the school website and we try to keep this as up to date as possible. The website is also an excellent way, together with the app, for finding out what is going on at school and I know that this is the way I find out all about the ongoing wonderful successes in sport throughout the school. I am continually impressed at our pupils’ sporting prowess! I look forward to talking to you soon. Fiona Stagg – Chair of Governors