Annual Governance Statement

Mosaic Federation- Hedworthfield Primary School

For the breakdown of attendance at meetings and organisation of committees please see governance arrangements.

Purpose

This governance statement has been prepared and published by the Governing Body of Mosaic Federation in compliance with our duty to report on the ways in which we have fulfilled our obligations and responsibilities relating to Hedworthfield Primary School during the academic year 2020-21.

Role of the Governing Body

    The three core functions of the governing body are:

Setting the strategic direction:

  •  The board are key strategic decision makers in our school
  •  Developing and overseeing the school’s aims and objectives around how the school will develop and improve.
  • Developing policies, formulating plans and agreeing targets to help the school achieve these objectives, as well as regularly reviewing their strategic framework in light of that progress.

Creating robust accountability:

  • Supporting and challenging the school’s senior leadership team and in holding the Head Teacher to account for securing the best possible outcomes for pupils.
  •  Challenging key decisions and asking pertinent questions about the school’s performance data, governors aim to guarantee high standards in education.

Ensuring financial probit:

  • Through a strategic role in the financial management of school including setting financial priorities through the school development plan, 3 year financial plan and the annual budget
  • Deciding how the school’s delegated budget should be spent in accordance with the school improvement plan and statutory curriculum requirement.

Key challenges of 2020-21:

In 2020-21 the challenges which faced our school were once again overshadowed by those challenges relating to COVID 19. 

Setting the strategic direction:

  • Governors were faced with the prospect of ensuring the school development plans once again supported the children to catch up and aimed for high standards of attainment and progression for all children.
  • Adapting and realigning the focus of the governing board as the school was placed into yet another lockdown and restrictions prevented face to face working.
  • Ensuring the ethos and aims of the school were maintained during challenging times.

 

Creating robust accountability:

  • Supporting the school to implement remote education and manage the uncertainty of another lockdown whilst maintaining high levels of accountability for the welfare, safeguarding and education of children.
  • Balancing accountability and high expectations with staff wellbeing and workload on return to school when both home learning and in class teaching were required.
  • Ensuring opportunities to support and still challenge leaders were possible through different ways of working.

Ensuring financial probit:

  •  Ensuring effective spend of catch up funding
  •  Monitoring the financial impact of Covid 19 due to staff absence, need for additional resources required for the delivery of home learning and the needs of pupils returning to the classroom.

Effectiveness and impact of the board:

Governors adapted quickly to the ever-changing face of the pandemic and the impact on school during 2020-21. Governors met virtually regularly across the Autumn and Spring terms to ensure the executive head teacher and senior leaders were fully supported throughout the pandemic.

 Governors recognised the strain Covid 19 could and was having on staff and ensured a regular focus on staff wellbeing and supported decisions made by the school to provide additional planning time to ensure teachers were prepared for any bubble closures. Initiatives such as well-being packages in the staffroom, freeing up staff to attend vaccine appointments and the ‘forgot your lunch’ cupboard in the staffroom were embraced which had a positive impact on staff morale and wellbeing.

All governing board meetings were held in full including the standards committee meetings which switched its focus to the quality of home education, how engagement was tracked and encouraged and what was being done to support vulnerable pupils, those with SEND and pupil premium pupils academically and in terms of wider support.  Governors ensured statutory duties were carried out by the school.

Governors worked with the executive head teacher to evaluate the impact of lockdown and respond to the needs of school, reviewing and agreeing the catchup funding and responding to future plans to support those pupils in Reception and Year 1 who had been most affected by lockdown and bubble closures over the two year Covid period.  

Wellbeing of staff and pupils was a significant focus of discussions and actions by the school regularly reviewed. The Governing board supported the risk assessment to allow key agencies (NHS services, speech and language services and the healthy minds team who provided mental health and wellbeing support) into school and ensure children received the support they required.

The impact of the actions of the governing board is reflected in the hard work of the school to ensure the curriculum was covered and the needs of pupils addressed quickly. This is evident in the high numbers of vulnerable pupils who attended throughout the pandemic, low rates of staff absence with no absences related to stress, the positive feedback of staff and the rapid gains pupils made as a result of targeted input in the summer term.

As restrictions were lifted and it was safe to do so following public health England advice, governors attended for short face to face sessions to review the standard of work being produced and observe from a distance how children and staff had returned to school. 

Governors support the schools future focus on:

  • Accelerating progress of pupils to secure standards at ARE and HS to pre Covid % in reading writing and maths. SDP
  • Ensuring the learning gap for boys and pupil premium pupils is closed quickly. SDP
  • Maintaining a focus on wellbeing and mental health support. 
  • Maintaining a focus on the practical aspects of the curriculum missed due to Lockdown.