April Governors Report
Dear Parents and Carers,
This week the Governors met for the first time this term, and were delighted to start the meeting by congratulating Mr Raraty on 10 years at Rodings. We discussed the highs and lows of the past decade, and reflected on the hard work that has seen the grow to where it is today. The Board thanks Mr Raraty for his incredible contribution to the school, and we look forward to the next 10 years!
The School Parliament attended the first 20 minutes of the meeting, where we had a Q&A session focussed around money. The Parliamentarians discussed how much they think it costs to run the school, and we talked around the importance of budgeting and how the school’s money is kept safe. Finally, the children informed us that they were very pleased with the newly built toilet block!
The minutes of the previous meeting in March we reviewed, discussed and approved.
Mr Raraty presented his Headteacher’s Report:
- Preparation for SATs is progressing well, with the school hall to be used for the main event.
- The Gosling class size for September has been confirmed at 30 pupils. Emma Beard will remain as Gosling teacher.
- Average attendance has been 95% for the year so far. After a lower spring, it has increased to 97% recently. With this in mind, the attendance target has increased to 97%. Unauthorised absences are largely punctualitydriven, so any arrivals after 9am have to be logged as unauthorised.
There were no Safeguarding concerns raised since the previous meeting. Essex counsel will shortly be conducting a routine safeguarding review, which all schools are subject to.
We then had a Premises update - the swimming pool is getting ready for summer use. Advice has been taken on pool maintenance and new technology has been installed that will auto-feed the required chemicals into the pool. No other Heath & Safety issues were raised.
The Finance Chair confirmed the school has a greater carry-forward in the budget than was originally estimated, which is good news. Staff costs are 88% of the budget which is in line with Essex County requirements. The final budget was approved by the Board.
5 school policies were reviewed and approved.
We reviewed the results of a recently undertaken Governor Self-Evaluation Survey, which got Governor views on topics such as teamwork, leadership, recruitment and training. We are to discuss the results in more detail in the next meeting.
Governor training provisions were reviewed and it was agreed that the same training provider will be used for another year.
Pete Wakeling (Co-opted Governor)
