Governors
September 21, 2021
July 11, 2016
IMPORTANT: Federation Consultation Update
The educational world is changing at a rapid rate. The academy agenda is still driving forward and there's decreasing reliance on local authorities for school improvement support. Collaborative school-led improvement is the future and standalone Primary Schools will become a thing of the past.
For our school, we believe building local collaborations is the way forward in this climate and we want to lead the way. We've already forged some excellent external links that have helped us in recent years. Mr Crawford's role has a School Improvement Adviser has bought in a wealth of connections, ideas and up to date information, we've worked closely with cluster schools on joint INSET training and our talented staff team have been in involved in conferences and initiatives across the county.
As part of our shared vision, we've expressed an ambition to federate with another school. A few opportunities have been pursued by governors and earlier this year one opportunity (bought to our attention by the local authority) has emerged as a favourable option and one worth consulting further on.
What is a federation?
A federation is a formal collaboration between two or more schools that involves sharing one governing board and usually one executive headteacher. Under this structure, the board and executive headteacher act in the best interests of pupils across both schools.
Why should we consider federating?
Firstly and mostly importantly to raise educational standards. An Ofsted published report in 2011 demonstrated that federated schools report significant improvements in standards and attainment.
Federation provides wider opportunities for pupils, including shared work and projects across the two schools. It allows schools to share resources, specialist skills and enjoy greater flexibility.
It also provides wider opportunities for staff and contributes to attracting and keeping talented teachers and support staff. A larger school structure means important leadership skills can be developed and leaders for the future can be grown.
It brings financial benefits from greater purchasing power and the opportunity to share resources, along with helping to build strong links between communities.
Why Kilburn Junior School?
From early visits to Kilburn, it is clear that the schools share a similar ethos and both schools are in a strong position. The size and make up of the school is a good fit. Both schools have impressive sites with huge potential for joint projects. Kilburn is local, just a short car journey away.
Finally, both schools are approaching this possibility for the right reasons, to take the sum of the parts and create collaborative working for the betterment of pupils across both schools. Ultimately, the biggest impact on our children comes from the excellent practitioners we retain and develop. This partnership, allows the opportunity for us to become a wider, richer 'hub' for outstanding teaching and learning.
What's happened so far?
There has been a flurry of 'getting to know each other' activity over the last 6 weeks or so. There have been staff visits to each school and a joint whole staff meeting to explore ideas and opportunities alongside concerns and questions about the change.
A working party of governors has been established. This is made up of myself, Louise Rowland (Kilburn Chair of Governors), Nick Barnes and Nicola Hardy from Kilburn and Rachel Watson and John White from the Smalley governing board. This group has liaised closely with the local authority and Senior School Improvement Adviser, Sue Potter, for support and advice.
We also held open parents meetings at Kilburn and Smalley last Thursday, 7 July. We had 33 parents visit the Kilburn meeting and 6 at Smalley. Both meetings were an opportunity to air and share frank views on the changes proposed. The senior leaders across both schools also shared their personal reasons for wanting to pursue a federation. We also answered all the questions that were sent in by parents across both schools.
What next?
We will continue working together as part of informal consultation, prioritising shared opportunities for pupils and staff. The formal consultation will begin in September and last for 6 weeks. For this stage, the working party will produce a proposal for both governing boards to review and decide on. Throughout the formal consultation it is vital that all stakeholders make their views known so that a clear and informed decision can be made. If both governing boards approve the proposal, then one new governing board will be established and we hope the federation to begin in January 2017.
If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about the this significant change for your school, please get in touch. Contact Mr Crawford at school, or myself by email - [email protected].
Many thanks to all those parents, staff, governors and other local authority colleagues who have contributed to discussions so far.
June 06, 2016
CPD - reviewing successes and sharing good practice
We have had a brilliant series of staff meetings this Summer Term so far. I'd like to share two of these with you.
Before half term staff met to review school improvement plan but also at the same time our Shared Vision for 2015/16. I'm pleased to say we are making great progress with both and very soon our chickens will be arriving! Watch this space!
Also, at tonight's meeting staff led a mini Teachmeet to share their best practice with each other. The room was buzzing with ideas and creativity with staff sharing positive,simple ideas that work!
There were a range of topics including; creating exciting hooks, the value of having school trips at the beginning of the term, the power of using music in lessons, using brilliant texts to engage children, learning outdoors, instruments in EYFS and beyond, using your imagination, practical Science, valuable ideas shared from the Education Psychologist, Brain Gym, Differentiation, Grammar and Writing skills and improving children's Reading.
The standard was incredible and I was so proud to be Headteacher of such a talented and committed team who are prepared to share with each other and ensure their teaching becomes even better! We are very lucky here at Smalley.
There are a few pictures below of our shared vision and staff in deep discussion reviewing it.
April 14, 2016
Up on the roof!
I had the pleasure of going on top of our Key Stage 1 roof earlier in the week.
As many of you know we are in the middle of another big project funded by Derbyshire County Council which is costing £100,000!
The scaffolding will be up for another 4/5 weeks at least due to some poor weather but it will all be worth it when we have a beautiful new roof and new soffits and fascias.
The new sky lights are now in as you can see from the pictures.
March 22, 2016
Smalley TeachMeet 2016!
Yesterday the school was host to teachers from 14 different schools across the county for our first ever TeachMeet.
A TeachMeet is basically staff from
Schools sharing good practice and learning with and from each other which we believe is the best way to learn. Each speaker has either 2 or 6 minutes so it is fast moving!
This is the first of its kind in our area so we were very proud to host and ensure it was a success.
We had international speaker and friend of the school Andy Cope to host the event and he quickly had everyone laughing whilst also passing important messages about how we can best use the 4000 weeks that on average a person lives for. We learned about 7 second hugs, the 10:5. Principle used by Ritz Carlton and how high performing teams ensure there are at least 6 positives for every criticism.
Andy also spoke about changing our thinking so we didn't get the same results if we wanted to be World Class for our children. A truly brilliant start to our session.
Our own Chair of Governors Sarah Armitage spoke about National Leaders of governance and their role which was fantastic.
We had a wide range of topics after from Racing to English, Modern Foreign Languages, Class display books, chickens, newspaper in a day, effective times tables, travel smart and lots of other fascinating talks.
Amazing artist and friend of the school Anthony Greentree captured the event and you can see what a fabulous job he did in the picture below.
Our Local Authority was well represented; Paul Livingstone, head of IT was a huge technical support ensuring the evening ran smoothly, Rob Bounds spoke about Travel Smart whilst Senior Advisers Carolyn Brearley and Sue Potter attended too and enjoyed the evening.
The event was kindly sponsored by Teacher Active who supply teachers across the country and wanted to give something back to schools whilst providing training for their staff as well. This positive event was nothing more than we've come to expect from this forward thinking company.
They also provided a fantastic buffet which was enjoyed by all.
We finished on time at 6:00 with a few speakers missing out which means we must now begin to organise Smalley TeachMeet 2!
We couldn't be happier with our first event and huge thanks to everyone involved for their help and support.
Enjoy the pictures below!
November 26, 2015
NLG Life, November 2015: A trip to the NEC
In our role as governors we feel it's very important to be up to speed on the wider developments within education. This mission took myself, Mrs Hudson (our Clerk to Governors), Mr White (Co-opted Governor) and Mr Crawford to the Academies Show at the NEC yesterday. Here we heard from a wide range of leaders in education, including Lord Nash from the government Department for Education, David Cameron (not the PM!), a prominent commentator on education, union leaders, the National Schools Commissioner and Hanif Qadir, a powerful speaker on the threat of radicalisation in our schools. The themes of the day included:
- Collaboration with other schools in the school-led improvement system continues to be vital
- We all face a recruitment and retention crisis so we must 'build from the inside' our own talented teaching staff and school leaders
- Multi-academy trusts are the direction of travel from the governments perspective
- The battle of a 'skills or knowledge' based curriculum is pointless - it's a matter of balance and getting it right for every child
- We've fantastic practice in the UK - there's no need for 'educational tourism'
We also took the chance to speak to suppliers and find out about the latest innovations in education and Mr Crawford, as ever, won the prize for most/best freebies!
All in all, we recognise the need to build from our strong base of collaborative activity to forge closer links with other schools and to secure a successful future for our school in this challenging, yet exciting landscape.
Get in touch if you'd like to discuss further - [email protected]
Learner needs, simply put by David Cameron.
Hanif Qadir on exactly why we need to take radicalisation seriously in schools.
November 13, 2015
Smalley will always remember.
On Wednesday we held our annual Remembrance service which as always was led by our Year 6 children.
Members of our whole community attended the service including parents, grandparents, governors, ptfa, the Church, Parish Council, Smalley Old Boys and neighbours from the village. It was the best attendance we have ever had and lovely to see so many people there.
The children were amazing, especially our year 6 and what stood out was the respect that they displayed as they led the service with such confidence.
Everyone commented on how moving the service was which brought many to tears.
It was completed as is tradition at the memorial in our car park where children laid wreaths kindly with the chairman of Smalley Old Boys kindly donated by them and the Parish Council to remember those who died in the war that attended our school. We were very lucky to have such a talented professional musician, Phil Reckless, join is to play the last post and during some of our hymns.
This is one of our finest traditions here at Smalley and our year 6 children did us proud, set the bar high and have now passed the baton on to our year 5 class ready for next year.
I hope it continues to go from strength to strength for many years and that one day I will be invited back as a Smalley Old Boy!
Thank you children for leading the service so well.
October 13, 2015
NLG Life - October 2015
'National Leader of Governance' is a rather grand-sounding title for a 'helping out' kind of role. There are currently 5 NLGs across Derbyshire and our task is to support other Chairs of Governors and governing bodies to help them improve their performance. NLG time is offered by volunteers and with a supportive, non-judgmental approach. We are here to help and not assess! In the current climate the emphasis is very much on working school-to-school in a collaborative way to learn and develop. It certainly fits with our community-based ethos. It also gives us the chance to share best practice and learn from others.
This past week, my NLG life has involved helping two governing bodies at Derbyshire primary schools feel prepared and ready for an Ofsted visit. This involves looking at the criteria that is applied to the leadership and management of the school and being prepared to talk through the good evidence that the school has to support fulfilling this criteria. In broad terms, Ofsted are looking to ensure that governors:
- Set the vision, ethos and strategy for the school (evidence of ambition and a future focus)
- Hold school leaders accountable for the school's performance (evidence of support and challenge, monitoring activity and performance management)
- Spend the school's finances well (evidence of good budget management and spending linked to learning needs)
In the challenging and often complex role of governance it is helpful to simplify our purpose to these 3 core activities and remember, as governors, this is what we are here to do.
As we showed one local Chair of Governors around our school today for some shared learning, Mrs Mason made us smile by pointing out that our children even quote back our school vision to Mr Crawford in their writing. It's so embedded in our approach, that they comfortably remind him that we 'aim to be an outstanding school in the heart of the community'. It's good to know the message has stuck!
September 15, 2015
Shared Vision Number Five!
It was a real pleasure to run our annual shared vision workshop in our freshly decorated hall last night. It certainly is a lighter, brighter more creatively inspiring space to work in! The creative juices were certainly flowing during this, our 5th shared vision review and refresh, as some brilliant ideas were aired and shared.
As usual, we had the privilege of wide range of school stakeholders in attendance, including the staff team, governors, parents, members of our school council, members of the Parish Council and Reverend Lisa from the church. We believe this wide range of views and experience helps us generate a host of excellent ideas and keep us on track with our vision to be an outstanding school in the heart of the community. The fact that we involve and engage the whole community in this process is part of this vision.
The vision workshop is also a great opportunity to take stock and celebrate the successes of the previous school year. This session saw a bumper crop of 'success bricks' each laying the foundation for another successful year ahead.
Mr Crawford also talked through some big ambitions that may be explored as part of our desire to keep raising the bar as a school and look ahead to future possibilities. These include the possibility of becoming a teaching school or federating with another school and continuing to develop an exceptional learning environment. He also talked about interesting research opportunities and collaborations with other learning establishments.
The teams then created 'ideas clouds' with exciting ideas including developing a library space, a special commemoration of the Queen's 90th birthday, a theatre-style hall with professional lighting, updated PE equipment and fresh playground lines.
There was then the traditional 'sign up' to the new vision map and the chance to declare some actions to be taken straightaway to get things rolling. The sharing of a possible new newsletter format happened even before the workshop ended! This early commitment to action certainly demonstrates the whole team's willingness and enthusiasm to bring the vision to life.
Many thanks to all who took part in this productive, vibrant and innovative session. The new vision map will be up on display in the school hall. This is very much a live and on-going process so if you'd like to make suggestions or contribute in anyway, please do!
September 11, 2015
Governors get set for the year ahead
We enjoyed a full and busy governing body meeting last night with our committed and enthusiastic team. The September meeting is much like an 'Annual General Meeting' and involves getting the administration of governance sorted and also looking ahead to the strategic goals and objectives that will drive the school forward. It's our role to support and challenge the school to help ensure the objectives are met. We had the pleasure of being joined by Mrs Domkowicz last night who will be a key link for governors on some of the teaching and learning goals for the year, it was helpful to discuss plans at this early stage in the school year. We look forward to keeping you updated on governance activity in the coming months.
For more information on governance see www.derbyshire.gov.uk
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