Roy Bexon,  Chair of Governors,  and Sue Bale, community governor at FGB#2

A huge thank you to all the staff for making us governors feel so welcome on the first St Mark's governor day.
For myself, I started the day by observing the turning circle and the way it was being used for dropping off. There are still many people parking, double parking, and even reversing into pedestrians. I was a bit shocked.
 Assembly featured lovely singing, a fascinating visitor from Trussell Trust and very impressively well-behaved children.
MsPhillips took small groups of Governors on learning walks around all the classrooms. The walk I went on had a special focus of Reading.  We looked at displays and reading corners, and were very impressed by the level of engagement we observed in varied activities.
I spent the afternoon with Mr Williams and yr 5, using green screen technology to place children in 1916 to read soldiers' letters home. Some of these should be going on yr 5 blogs soon, all being well .
Have you checked out your children's year group blogs recently?
Every class I went into made me feel included and welcome. And fab to see so many parents at the open afternoon too.

A week in the life of a Governor

Last week was a particularly busy one in school for me. On the Tuesday I attended a meeting with the staff with Jim Findlay, vice chairman, to talk to the them about well-being. As Governors we are keen to know if there are any issues that are affecting their ability to do their job and if we can do anything to help resolve these issues. The staff were very open with us and we were able to make a few recommendations to the Head about improvements that could be made.

I also attended two Governor sub-Committee meetings in eight days – Curriculum and Resources. I try to attend these (though as Chair of the Full Governing Body I don’t have to) because it’s a great way of meeting a group of governors and of keeping up to date with what’s going on. I am always impressed by the care and attention to detail that these meetings take in ensuring that the children receive the best education we can provide. So my week was a very rewarding one that reminded me yet again how valuable our staff and governors are to this fine school.

Roy Bexon

Chair of Governors

Shelter opening,  with governors and John Glenn

If you've been following this blog you could be forgiven for thinking it's been a quiet term. It hasn't! 
Governors have been in school discussing, among other things, accessibility and Pupil Premium Grant spending. And the big topic in the Full Governing Body meeting was  Academy status. We are all in agreement that it could be damaging to ignore this issue and we are investigating the best course of action,  not just for our school,  but for the three schools, and pre-school,  that together make up the Somerset Road campus.
Working together more in recent years has produced exciting results and created opportunities. Whatever we do here will involve consultation with the many people involved or affected and we will need to look carefully at the best route forward. More to follow on this...
Pupil premium money spending is, likewise,  a hot topic where Governors are challenging the school to not only better celebrate and communicate existing efforts,  but also to  more-effectively narrow the gap in achievement for children who might need a bit of extra support.  Again,  we think more will follow soon...
Happy Easter.






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this governor got the chance to go on a tour of all the classes on Monday afternoon to see writing week in action. And it was truly a privilege! 
I saw children drawing fantastical dragons,  which they were beginning to either label or describe. Chestnut class has a very friendly visitor this week - all made of cardboard (with 2 umbrella wings). One dragon had four heads and would eat anyone his creator didn't like. Another made everyone feel happy when it flew overhead.
I saw other groups solving age-old mysteries with highwaymen on salisbury plains or describing some amazing images .
It was great to see so much excitement and engagement in each class. And the rest of the week's timetable looks fab, building on this start and with the added excitement of visiting authors. 
My thanks to everyone who made me feel so welcome, teachers and children alike,  and especially Mrs Fiddy.

Today a few governors attended training on pupil premium grant analysis.
Pupil premium money is targeted at children who are at risk of being disadvantaged by a known gap in achievement associated with how well-off their parents are (or being in care, or a service family background),  which is even more marked in Wiltshire than nationally.  All schools have to account for how this money is spent. (Our statement is on our website under the parents menu heading.)
We learned some evidence-based actions that can best improve progress in learning and looked at Ofsted tools for analysing our own pupil premium provision.
We will be sharing what we learned with the full governing body.
pupil premium faq

The resources team of Governors met tonight. Among other business we were checking that the school can properly answer the 23 rigorous questions asked in the Schools Financial Value Statement.
We were pleased to be able to answer each question positively.  
We take our responsibilities to the public purse seriously and carefully monitor income and expenditure. We never fail to be impressed by the financial management procedures in place. We are on track to meet our budget. Spending all the money we get for the children on the children, with no predicted over-spend, as things stand now.

 tonight's full governing body meeting included a walkabout to see for ourselves the work towards increasing consistency in approach, fostering great writing, learning questions,  traffic lighting, etc. Fantastic stuff all around and a real buzz from seeing the work in living displays.  This is the St Mark's Way in evidence . We celebrated the shack and future plans for the shelter being developed beside it. We were excited to hear how beneficial the new visualisers are being to class teaching. We challenged ourselves to address change and to plan for the right future for our school.