Meeting Action and Decision Register

HOLBETON PRIMARY SCHOOL
GOVERNING BODY 2014-15
Minutes of Meeting of the FULL GOVERNING BODY
Date/Time: Wednesday 28 January 2015 at 6.15pm
Attendees
Initials
Location: Holbeton School
Attendees
Initials
Denise Bailey
DBy
Jean Betts
JB
Di Baumer
DB
Shona Godefroy
SG
Lisa Green
LG
Carys Sanders
CS
Peter Hearn (part-time)
PH
Martin Eyre
ME
In Attendance
Initials
Sue Price
SP
Clerk
Trish Smith
TS
School Administrator
Suzanne Moiser
SM
Acting Headteacher
Amy Garstang (part-time)
AG
Parent
Apologies
Initials
Reason
Kathryn Garnett
KG
Unwell
Llew Sellick
LS
Working away
Pete Stevens
PS
Work commitments
The Meeting commenced with short outline talk on Academies by Janine Waring, a Director and CEO of St
Christopher’s Multi Academy Trust, Diocese of Exeter.
JW outlined what it means for a school to become an Academy. Academies can be stand-alone or form part of a
Multi Academy Trust (MAT). Holbeton would probably be too small to stand alone. The process takes 6 – 8
months from the first expression of interest. The school received a £25K grant to cover conversion expenses and
on conversion, closes, loses its DfE number and all its history and re-opens as a new school with a new DfE
number. The financial year is Sept – Aug and funding is received direct from the DfE in twelve monthly payments.
Converting to academy status does not mean more funding is received. There are certain freedoms, such as
curriculum, but as a good to outstanding school, Holbeton would need to judge whether they wanted to change the
curriculum or stay with the national curriculum (which most schools do).
Under St Christopher’s MAT, there is a Board of Directors, but each school retains a Local Governing Body. There
are two levels of delegations: level 1, where a school is good to outstanding and retains most of its delegations,
and level 2, where a school requires improvement and the MAT takes back their delegated power. The school
retains its own ethos, policies and staffing/spending decisions, although some areas, such as HR and legal support
are centralised. The MAT takes a 4% top slice of the budget for central services, but this is usually covered by the
Education Services Grant, which currently is paid direct to the LA before the school receives its budget.
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HOLBETON PRIMARY SCHOOL
GOVERNING BODY 2014-15
A big advantage of joining with other schools is School Improvement, where support and leadership is grown from
within the school. St Christopher’s buys into a school improvement provider who carry out a two-day base-line
assessment of any new schools joining the MAT.
The risks to becoming an academy are land and property issues, which have to be transferred and the fact that
academies cannot run a deficit budget. Staff are transferred by means of TUPE (Transfer of Undertaking of
Pensionable Employment) which protects their rights. Teachers’ Pensions and Local Government Pensions
remain the same.
JW said that Holbeton needed first to think about what it wanted from joining with other schools, either as a
Federation of part of an academy trust.
This was followed by an update on the progress of the Totnes Federation of Village Schools by Tony
Calcutt, Executive Headteacher.
TC is Exec Headteacher of four out of the five schools in the Federation. Those four schools have a Head of
School each. He originally felt he was no longer able to run his small primary school in isolation due to the
pressure of falling roll, finance issues and Head’s teaching time and contacted other schools who felt the same.
The benefits of federating with other schools have been in shared expertise across the staff, shared resources and
increased opportunities for the children, e.g. joint choir, orchestra and residential experiences. This also helps their
transition to secondary schools. The schools help each other in times of crisis, e.g. staffing shortage, caretaking
absence etc. There has been a reduction in duplication of effort which has meant that more energy goes into the
teaching and learning of the children. The schools are more sustainable, but they still retain their unique
characters.
There is one governing body for the Federation, with parent and staff representatives from all schools. Each
school has a local school committee to help with the day to day running of the school, but with no statutory powers.
The schools are now aiming to run on one single budget, with all staff on a federation contract, which will give
much more flexibility in the future. There is joint training (which enables the Federation to spend more money on
quality trainers and better career progression for staff) and joint fundraising events.
TC finished by recommending that Holbeton looks at what its vision for the future is and how far it is willing to go in
terms of changing its structure, its governance, budgeting and planning. He recommended the school chooses its
partners carefully, and takes plenty of advice.
The main FGB commenced at 7.50pm
Ref
F14/15:25
Action or Decision
The Chair commenced the meeting by thanking Suzanne Moiser for her
excellent work in standing in as Acting Head. It was agreed to continue to
update parents on the on-going situation as far as it was known.
Minutes :
The minutes of the meeting of 4 December 2014 were agreed and signed
as a true record.
Matters arising:
F14/15:16 Additional spending in current financial year:
 Ten laptops had been purchased, which with setting up costs would
amount to approx. £3.5K.
 A student has been appointed until March to undertake interventions
with years 5/6.
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Owner
Due date
HOLBETON PRIMARY SCHOOL
GOVERNING BODY 2014-15
Ref
Action or Decision
 Other small items of expenditure such as subscriptions. Also looking
at some outside furniture.
Owner
Due date
School
asap
Clerk
T&L
F14/15:18 Anthony Mildmay-White had agreed to the wall being painted.
F14/15:26
Governing Body Vacancy
No suitable member of the community has stepped forward. As there is
already a parent in one of the co-opted roles, it is not recommended by
Governor Support to have another parent on the GB, as this would lead to
a lack of cross-community balance.
F14/15:27
Update on Current Staffing/Leadership
KG’s absence is currently on-going. A EYFS teacher on a temporary
contract is covering, together with a student on interventions for three
mornings a week.
The Head of Brixton is acting as a Mentor to SM and she is receiving
support from Stowford as well.
F14/15:28
Extended Services:
Breakfast/After School club:
A parent has taken on the finance. The GB asked that the clubs be
reminded that they were not covered under the school insurance. The GB
also asked that both these clubs and the Youth Club were given a clear
lettings policy and contract urgently.
Pre School:
There is a lot of support from the village for the Pre-School and it will
continue at least to the end of the academic year. The new Chair and
Trustees are working very hard to find a permanent solution. The school
will continue to work with County to look at partnership working.
F14/15:29
Reports from Lead Governors:
 CS has looked at Raise Online with SM. This will be reported on at
T&L Committee.
 Governor rota working very well. Agreed that governors could be
available some afternoons instead of morning, for more opportunities
to speak to parents.
 DB carried out Safeguarding update for staff on 5 January. SM now in
the process of completing the Safeguarding and SEN audit.
F14/15:30
Policy Review:
 Attendance (updated with current legal framework) – policy adopted.
 Mobile Phones (new policy) – policy adopted
 Safeguarding – being reviewed by DB and will be circulated and readopted out of committee.
F14/15:31
Marketing Update
PS continues to work with SM on issuing press releases on Raise and
league table results. He is still working on cross-organisational
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HOLBETON PRIMARY SCHOOL
GOVERNING BODY 2014-15
Ref
F14/15:32
Action or Decision
collaboration. More open days will be arranged in the summer term and
all agreed that access to the beach, partnership with Bodilis and
residential to Grenville House needed to be promoted as a USP.
Owner
Correspondence
The Chair read out a letter from DCC Dept of Education and Learning
congratulating the school on a good Ofsted.
The meeting closed at 9pm
Detail of next meetings
All meetings at 6.15pm
Thurs 26 February 2015
Tues 10 March 2015
Wed 25 March 2015
Date/Time
Wed 29 April 2015
Wed 20 May 2015
Wed 17 June 2015
Wed 8 July 2015
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Committee
Teaching & Learning
Resources
Full GB
Full GB (fix final budget)
Teaching & Learning
Resources
Full GB
Due date