ST. JOHN’S C.E.

PRIMARY SCHOOL
MINUTES OF FULL GOVERNING BOARD MEETING 10th OCTOBER2018
Present: Mark Bowring, (Chair) Matthew Ewens, Colin Kemp, Michaela Luckett,
Alison McLaren, Jo Miller, Guy Moss, David Robson, Vanessa Russell, Rob
Stanton, Jenny Stiff (DHT), Paul Tanner, Dan Turvey (Head Teacher), Giles
Walter
Clerk: Jan Davies

1. Opening Prayer - GW opened the meeting with a prayer

2. Apologies for absence – Received and approved from Roy Bullock for health
reasons.
3. Membership – Guy Moss was welcomed to the meeting as the newly
appointed PCC Foundation Governor to replace Lucinda Curtis. David
Robson the School’s new School Business Manager was unanimously elected
as an Associate Governor to replace Sally King.
4. Administrative – The terms of reference and standing orders for the Circle
Model of Governance had been circulated to governors prior to the meeting,
together with the updated NGA Code of Conduct 2018. Subject to an
amendment on P10 relating to the delegation of functions to the HT,
governors approved the Circle Model TOR and SO and the Code of Conduct
and duly signed the document.
Governing Body Delegation Planner – This document had been reviewed
again by the Strategy Team who were recommending it to the GB for
approval. The Planner was duly approved by governors.
Business Interests – Business interests were duly updated by all governors
present and will be placed on the school website in accordance with
statutory requirements.
Governing Board Annual Planner – As well as statutory and key tasks
throughout the year the Planner now included monitoring priorities for
terms 1 and 2 so that governors could be pro-active in managing their
monitoring visits. Governors were reminded that monitoring pairs should be
carrying out 3 monitoring visits a year but that it was acceptable that one of
these visits could be done by email if necessary. Monitoring priorities would
be added for each term as they become known.
5. Combined SIP/SEF – The newly combined SIP/SEF was presented to
governors with page 2 setting out the key improvements for 2018-2019. The
HT made the following comments:-

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- The school is involved in two maths projects – Altius SSIF KS2 maths
project, funded by the DfE, alongside other local primary schools, and
TRG Maths Hub project to improve mastery techniques.
- Staff are using a new online system for tracking and recording
safeguarding and behaviour which is working well.
- To aid governor monitoring governor initials have been placed against
each monitoring action.
- No GLD predictions as yet as children have only been in school a very
short time. These will be available at the end of Term 2.
Should governors be monitoring the specific key improvement priorities
outlined on page 2 of the SIP/SEF? This was agreed as follows:-
- Improve the content of the curriculum in all year groups and implement
changes to ensure progression, breadth, and balance.- MB/JS
- Ensure additional support for pupils is highly effective, embedding a
“keep up not catch up” approach – JM
- Further develop assessment and moderation to ensure rigorous and
consistent judgements across the whole school – MB/GM
- Accelerate pupils’ progress in maths so that all pupils make consistently
good or better progress and a greater number of pupils achieve greater
depth – VR/RS
- Refine and improve the processes and systems for tracking and recording
safeguarding and behaviour concerns/incidents – CK/PT
- Improve the progress of boys and diminish the attainment gap between
girls and boys – JM
- To ensure the quality of teaching and learning improves and that 100% of
teaching is good or better – MB/GM
Why was year 4 writing lower? – The school has worked hard over the past
year to make writing assessment more robust. The assessment criteria at
end of year 2 and 6 are very specific and include a list of non-negotiable
skills which have to be in place for a child to achieve the expected
standard. The criteria in years 3,4 and 5 are determined by individual
schools and we changed our criteria for these year groups last year. This,
combined with far more rigorous moderation, meant a large group of
children narrowly missed out on achieving the expected standard, mostly
because they were missing only one key skill. Now that the teachers are
fully aware of these criteria they can address these gaps quickly, so this
group of pupils should achieve the expected standard without difficulty this
year.
In answer to a query relating to the Year 6 writing target, the HT confirmed
that the year 5 July 18 figure should read – July 18 72%, July 19 83%.
Therefore these targets were aspirational.
GW left the meeting at 6.55pm

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 Presentation by DHT on new curriculum – The School was aware that
certain groups of pupils e.g. disadvantaged pupils, boys and more able were
not excelling. Some pupils found it difficult to work independently or were
not resilient enough when faced with work that was challenging to them.
The curriculum would need to be a mixture of:-
•Core skills (English, Maths, Science, Computing)
•Foundation Subjects
•School values e.g. British Values, SMSC, Christian Distinctiveness
•Trips, visits, enriching opportunities
•Life Skills e.g. independence, resilience, inquiry etc.

It would need to be broad and balanced with clear progression in subject

knowledge and skills, be flexible, dependent on individual needs and
interests and be vibrant with meaningful links across the curriculum. More
outdoor learning and enrichment experiences such as school trips would be
features of the School’s vision for their new curriculum.

Having developed long term plans, staff, during an INSET day, had broken
the plans down into medium term plans for terms 1 and 2. Plans would be
monitored and reviewed throughout the year to ensure they were fulfilling
the School’s vision.

Having moved away from topics what sort of child-led ideas were they
looking at? The thread for Year 5s was on 70s/80s/90s pop music whilst
Year 6 were fully engaged in their work on WW2.

The PowerPoint presentation would be uploaded to Dropbox for governors’

information.

6. Monitoring Reports – The written report for the IT monitoring visit would be
provided to governors after this meeting but verbal feedback had been
shared with governors at the July FGB meeting.
7. Monitoring Group priorities – These were outlined in the SIP for terms 1 and
2 and also on the annual governor planner to enable governors to be pro-
active in arranging their visits.
8. Six-month monitoring return – The six-month monitoring report showed an
in-year deficit of £67,882, a variance of £15,160 from when the budget was
set, with an overall surplus to be carried forward at year end of £48,959.
The Capital budget predicted a year end deficit of £23,884 due to the loan
the school had taken out for building works to the Kitchen. Governors
approved the 6-month monitoring return.
A finance monitoring report had been carried out and made available to
governors prior to the meeting, which outlined the main variances in
revenue income and expenditure.
9. Teachers Pay – The Pay Committee had met in accordance with the Pay
Policy and made decisions with regard to Teachers’ salaries. The HTPM
Panel had met to consider the HT’s performance over the last year and to
set new objectives. A mid-year review was planned for March 19.
10. Strategy Team update – The ST had met on the 3rd October and draft
minutes of that meeting had been made available to governors prior to the
FGB meeting. One of the actions on the Long-Term School Strategic Plan
was to investigate the provision of a Nursery on the School Site. The HT had
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 met with a KCC representative with responsibility for nursery provision in
the local area. In principle the KCC were keen for schools to provide a
nursery on their sites given that many independent nurseries were closing as
the could not fund the statutory 30 hours provision. However there was no
funding attached as this was being used to provide additional secondary
school places due to the bulge years in primary education moving through
into the secondary sector. In view of the school’s budgetary position and
the planned use of funds with regard to the asset development plan it was
the recommendation of the Strategy Team that no further action be taken.
Governors unanimously agreed.
Could this decision be up for review at a later date? Yes, if KCC were
prepared to fund it.
11. Chairs and Vice-Chairs actions – the V-C advised governors that in order to
raise the profile of the school governors there would be a governor photo
board in the School’s front entrance. Governors were asked to attend at
either 8.30am or 3.30pm on the 31st October.
12. Policies – The Pay Policy and Managing absence & Ill Health Policies had
been reviewed by lead governors prior to the meeting and were duly
approved by the FGB. The Pupil Premium and GDPR Data Protection
policies, together with the GDPR Staff Privacy Notice, had been approved
internally but shared with governors for their information. The following
non-statutory policies would be reviewed and shared with governors at the
December FGB meeting:-
- Debt Recovery Policy – Lead govs SBM/Finance monitoring group
- Governor Induction Policy - Chair
- Teaching & Learning Policy- HT/Chair
As a Chair’s action, and in accordance with Keeping Children Safe in
Education guidance, he had approved the updated Child Protection
Exemplar Policy. CK/PT/ML will subsequently look at the Policy and
personalise it for St John’s.
CK will send a link to the KCSIE document as all staff and governors are
expected to read parts 1 and 2 and sign to say they have read it.
13 Approve minutes of last FGB meeting – Subject to a minor amendment
under apologies these were approved and signed by the Chair.
14 Matters arising therefrom – Actions arising from the last FGB had been
completed with the exception of the following:-
Action point 9 – Governors to re-visit suggested wording in updated Finance
Policy regarding setting an amount at which 3 quotes are required for day to
day transactions.
15. Update on academy status – It was agreed that this annual review item on
the FGB agenda be removed and dealt with by the Strategy Team.
16. Governor Training – AMcL had agreed to be the new Training &
Development Governor. CK had attended a recent District Governor Briefing
and will provide a written report at the next FGB meeting. He reminded
governors that they needed to register with The Education People to gain
access to the CPD online portal where governors could book themselves on
training courses. The Governors’ Conference will take place on the 13th
November. CK to attend.
TWPSCT AGM – The HT had attended on the 8th October. 17 local Primary
Schools are members of the Trust. Annual reports were presented from the
various project groups which included Governance, Teaching & Learning,
Finance, Personal Development, behaviour and welfare and Clerking. The

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 AGM voted to allow The Wells Free School to join the TWPSCT as they had
regularly attended the various project group meetings over the last year.
New Directors were elected – 4 Head Teachers and 4 Governors – and DT had
stepped down after 4 years.
17. AOB – None
18. Confidential items – None
19. Date of next meeting – Wednesday 12th December 2018 @ 6.15pm

Governor Actions:
Agenda No Action Lead
Governor
12 The following policies to be taken to
the December FGB for information
only
- Debt Recovery Policy – Lead SBM/Finance
govs Mon Group
- Governor Induction Policy - Chair
- Teaching & Learning Policy- HT/Chair

14 Outstanding action from July SBM/Finance

FGB meeting Mon Group
Governors to re-visit suggested
wording in updated Finance
Policy regarding setting an
amount at which 3 quotes are
required for orders

15 Remove Annual Review of Clerk.

Academy status from main FGB
agenda as this will be dealt with
by the Strategy team

Signed: Mark Bowring Date: 12th December 2018

Chair of Governors

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