'You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less' Matthew 5:5 (The Message) St. Peter’s CE Primary School & Nursery

Annual Statement of the Governing Body 2024 - 2025

Welcome to the St. Peter’s Governing Body report to parents for the school year 2024-25. The staff and children have settled into the new school year and we extend a warm welcome to our new families who have joined us this year in Nursery, Reception and other year groups.  We hope your school days at St. Peter’s follow our vision of learning;

‘You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are - no more, no less.’

Matthew 5:5

The Governing body were pleased to be able to support a number of residential visits for the children last year. Year 6 enjoyed their long – awaited activity week to Plas Menai, Year 4 had an enjoyable trip to Arthog and Year 2 experienced their first overnight stay with school at Kingswood. All were a great success, and we are very appreciative of the staff who enabled these trips to take place.

St. Peter’s were very lucky to offer and support these opportunities given the challenges for additional spending seen by our families currently. We look forward to supporting more residential trips for the children this coming year. Additional school trips have been difficult to offer recently due to rising costs of transport. We are grateful the PTA for their support with this, and to our families and carers who are able to support with contributions to trips to enable them to happen.

This year has seen a review of our school Vision and Values led by the Senior leadership team, Governors, staff, children and the local community. The full text can be read on our website. The new motto of

‘Let your light shine’ Matthew 5:16

is embraced throughout the whole school.

The governors have been involved in overseeing the strategic direction of the school, staff recruitment and supporting Mrs Medhurst and her staff in their exceptional work for the school. Last year we welcomed Mrs J Price to the teaching assistant team.

The Governing Body has a vacancy for the position of local authority governor and continues to advertise locally to fill this post. 

The Governing Body and the Head Teacher share responsibility for the strategic management of the school, acting within the framework set by national legislation and by policies of the Local Authority (LA). While the LA is the employer of staff, the Governing Body and Head Teacher have separate and particular responsibilities for the selection and management of staff. The internal management of the school is the responsibility of the Head Teacher, the role of the Governors is not to run the school but to support, challenge and be a critical friend. 

The Governing Body holds a full meeting each term with further meetings held to discuss specific issues. These sub-committees cover the areas of curriculum, learning, finance and resources. Each governor also acts as a link for specific subject areas such as English or STEM.

The school, with support from our BSAT (Behaviour Support Advisory Team) has updated and implemented a new Behaviour & Relationships policy this year and introduced new school rules. This has been very successful, and all children embody and demonstrate the new rules of Ready, Respectful and Safe.

I had the privilege of being re-elected as Chair of Governors for this year and would like to thank my fellow Governors, our school staff and our parents / carers who support the school so well and contribute towards making our school so successful.

Ruth MacMullen

Chair of Governors

Future Plans for 2024/25:

In line with the School Development Plan (SDP), the focus for the strategic development of the school involves the following areas for development:

Quality of Education:

• To improve writing assessment and moderation using the Ready, Steady, Write approach. 
• To further embed our use of the Number Sense and White Rose Maths programmes.
• To embed our approach to assessment in the foundation subjects.

Behaviour and Attitudes:

• To embed our Behaviour and Relationships Policy.
• To continue to proactively monitor, evaluate and manage attendance across the whole school.

Personal Development:

• To ensure that the wealth of planned personal development opportunities offered to all our children are clearly documented.
• To further develop meaningful opportunities in preparing children for their next stage of learning and adult lives.
• To ensure we meet our statutory duties regarding RSE and Health Education.

Leadership and Management:

• To fully embed our updated school vision and values.
• To enhance our parental engagement programme.
• To continue to ensure that Governors carry out their role effectively.

Early Years Education:

• To ensure that our outdoor environment and resources support our ambitious curriculum intent.
• To improve the percentage of children achieving GLD at the end of Reception.

The Governing Body consists of 9 members:

Celebrating School successes

St. Peter's Primary School is a school we can be proud of. The school is a vibrant, positive place to be. Our children become responsible citizens who enjoy a great deal of success in a wide variety of experiences; academic, sporting and creative. They enjoy coming to school and are motivated by their successes. They are secure in the knowledge that this school supports and safeguards them and welcomes their whole family - we work together as a team, with the welfare and education of each child being our focus. We aim to take every child on a journey throughout their time at St. Peter's. We strive to ensure that the journey encompasses opportunities for awe, wonder and success at every level: academic, spiritual, creative and social. Pivotal to the experience is the development of the school environment to inspire, nurture and celebrate each individual's potential. We foster a "can do" attitude in all of our pupils.

There have been very many successes this last year – for pupils, staff and the whole school. The Governors are delighted to acknowledge these and congratulate the school on another fantastic year. We encourage individual success for each child and strive to follow our vision and motto to let each child’s light shine. Staff focus on helping the children to keep up not catch up and have received training on cognitive load and retrieval strategies.

The children are encouraged to participate in a wide range of sporting activities and regularly represent the school at team events within the wider locality.  There were of course excellent achievements by the children individually outside of the school and the Governors are immensely proud to see the children representing their school so admirably and having their efforts recognised by the wider community, especially in fundraising for local and national causes. The weekly Friday Flyer publication celebrates these achievements and is shared with the whole school community.

How did the Governors contribute towards this?

The Governing Body monitored school improvement through:

• regular reports from Link governors who met with school and curriculum leaders, and effective training,
• scrutiny of documentation,
• drop-in visits to lessons and lunch times,
• rigorous appraisal systems and interviews with staff,
• informal visits to join in with activities and trips.

The Governors have worked in four main ways to achieve these successes:

1. Setting the vision for the school and strategic direction of the school.

Three governors were part of the Head Teacher performance management review alongside an external adviser. Key targets were set with a focus on leadership and management, quality of education and behaviour and attitudes. This enables the governors to plan for and focus on key improvement issues for school via the Head Teacher targets with those of the rest of the school workforce linked to these.

The Head Teacher targets relate to the SDP; governors share in developing the SDP, with it being reviewed and challenged at each Governor meeting.

The governors have undertaken an annual Skills audit that enabled the appointment of governors to key roles within the governing body and greater understanding of their roles and responsibilities within their specific remit.  This is considered when recruiting for new governors, currently a Local Authority governor.

The Governors have been involved in the recruitment of new staff to ensure that we appoint the right calibre of staff to contribute towards the excellent performance of the school and continued development of the children.

Governors hold meetings each term one of which is the full Governing Body meeting.

Governors, throughout the year, have attended training courses to improve their skills in order to support the development of the school and ensure that we fulfil our role effectively.

     2. Holding the Head Teacher to account.

The governors are aware of the key strengths and weaknesses of the school identified through the various data sources, e.g. data dashboard and ASP. The Head teacher is called upon to account for school performance during the termly governor meetings.

In conducting the annual performance review of the Head Teacher the Governors assess the overall school performance and hold the Head Teacher to account.

Governors consider any recommendations by the Head Teacher for pay awards to teaching staff and ratify when appropriate.

The Head Teacher writes a termly report to the Governing Body, which includes attainment and achievement of pupils, quality of teaching and the curriculum offer. Governors have tabled strategic questions to the Head Teacher regarding the reports to ensure that the impact of Teaching and Learning in our school is resulting in positive outcomes for all our pupils.

Governors questioned the underlying reasons for resignations and long term illness to better understand the challenge of securing effective/motivated teaching staff

     3. Ensuring financial resources are well spent.

Budget Monitoring is overseen by the Governing Board who have a sound understanding of the financial position of the school. Two governors are identified as lead governors for finance who ensure that spending is in line with the ‘best value’ ethos. Areas for spending are linked to the priorities on the School Development Plan and any other ‘emergency’ spending.

The Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS) form was completed and submitted. This ensures that the budget is spent wisely and properly, allowing the school to optimise resources, and so raise standards and attainment for all pupils.

The Certificate of Presentation of Audited School Funds was submitted and approved. Audited School Funds are presented at the Full Governing Body meeting on an annual basis.

Governors also identify the use and impact of spending the Pupil premium grant with a strong focus on the impact on pupil outcomes.

     4. Ensuring statutory duties are met and priorities approved.

All governors plan ahead for attendance at meetings and managing workload.

Statutory policies are reviewed annually and updated.

A Health and Safety audit has been completed.

Governors have given particular regard to the new statutory guidance and updates on ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ and are conversant with key points.

The Chair of Governors attends the termly briefing for Heads and Chairs and shares key updates re KCSIE.

All governors are aware of their safeguarding responsibilities.

Additional governors are trained in ‘Safer Recruitment’.

We continue to ensure Governors understand their role well and carry it out effectively.

We revisit our school vision and values and explicitly communicate these to all stakeholders.

We focus on improving teachers’ subject, pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge in order to enhance teaching of the curriculum and use of assessment.

How to contact the Governing Body

We would love to hear your views and opinions on our school. The school sends out an annual questionnaire and you can complete the same questionnaire online at Parent View on the OfSTED website. If you would like to discuss something in particular, please contact the Chair of Governors at office@stpetersedgmond.co.uk or leave correspondence at the school office marked ‘for the attention of the Chair of Governors’.

We look forward to another amazing year in 2024-2025 where we can look towards a great time of learning and enjoyment of all that the school life of St. Peter’s can offer.