Govas -End of another Year

 headersmallDear Colleagues,

Firstly, apologies to secondary governors for interrupting you as you try to bag the best sun bed by the pool in Magaluf, but i forgot that you finished last week!

For primary governors, we're almost there. Not sure if everyone is the same, but we don't finish until next Tuesday, and some fool has scheduled a governing body meeting for Tonight "Monday" night!

I'm sure, like me, you use the summer holidays to catch-up with the latest news in the education world and fine tune your governing body development plan. In that case, there is an updated report on the Ofsted website, http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/pupil-premium-update, on how well schools are using the pupil premium.The report found that there was often an association between a school’s overall grade and the impact of the pupil premium. In ‘outstanding’ and ‘good’ schools, governors carefully monitor the spending of the pupil premium: “The strongest governing bodies take strategic responsibility for ensuring that the funding improves teaching and support for eligible pupils in the school. They know how the funding is being spent, hold leaders to account for expenditure and assess how effectively the funded activities contribute to raising the attainment of eligible pupils.” However, governing bodies in weaker schools have little knowledge about how the pupil premium is spent and do not sufficiently challenge school leaders; consequently, they do not ensure that pupil premium funding is used effectively. In these schools, the attainment of pupils eligible for funding is poor and attainment gaps are too wide. Food for thought!

If however, you are just after some inspiration after a long, hot (mostly) summer term, let me tell you about the Young Entrepreneurs event held at the Town Hall this week. For the past 4 years i have had the privilege of attending this event as a judge. This year, thirteen primaries and one nursery,from across Stockport, took part. The quality of their 'companies' was outstanding and there could have been several worthy winners, but the actual winners, Alexandra Park Primary, fully deserved to take away the trophy. Not only did they have a great idea, but they were passionate about developing the 'brand'. All the children were very enthusiastic about what they had done and they picked up some very important life skills along the way. As governors, our principle aim should be to improve the life chances of the children in our schools, and this competition is a fantastic way of helping to achieve that. If your school took part, hopefully you can find time to congratulate them, as they were all fine ambassadors for Stockport's schools. The press release and photographs of the winners and a couple of the other schools involved can be seen -here if you click this link-

At GOVAS our thoughts will be turning to next year's governor conference. We have provisionally scheduled it for Saturday 28th March, 2015. We will be seeking to build on what was a very successful event this year and if anyone has any suggestions as to what they would like to see included, please contact us through the web-site.

I'm conscious that our secondary colleagues will now have to go and join the queue for breakfast, so it just remains to wish you all the best for the summer holidays and hope that you return refreshed in September.

solo lo mejor

Stu Foster