From the Interim Governing Body, Marsh Baldon School

 

Dear Pupils, Staff, Parents, Carers and members of the wider community,

 

As some of you may know, during the summer holidays the Department for Education (DfE) approved the formation of the Interim Executive Board (IEB). This was proposed to the DfE by the Local Authority in order to provide a temporary substitute to a Governing Body, with a future aim to reinstate normal governance arrangements. On the 16th September 2015 the IEB held their first formal meeting of the term. This meeting had three core areas of focus:

 

1. Ensuring that all statutory requirements are in place (including governance)

• Governors are pleased to confirm that all statutory requirements are now firmly in place, this will provide the foundation for effective governance of the school now and in the longer term.

2. Learning and Teaching

• At the meeting the governors were keen to thank Mrs Herring and her staff for their positive attitude to the changes which are needed in school and their hard work during the holidays in preparing for the new term - especially Mrs Herring who spent a large amount of the summer working in school.
• Governors agreed the school improvement plan, the need for rapid improvement and offered full support to Mrs Herring in implementing this quickly.
• Governors felt that we are prepared for our OFSTED visit - which could happen any time now.

3. Community engagement

It was confirmed to all governors that Mrs Herring and Mr Moyes recently met with Mrs Tonge - Chair of the Parish Council, in order to start an ongoing positive relationship which will enable us to work together on school and wider community issues.

Mrs Herring also confirmed to governors that she has recently met with the Vicar and Team from St Peter’s church with the same aim as above.

It was also confirmed at the meeting that a new school website is under development with a planned launch date of next week. The new site will be much clearer, easier to use and will include all key information such as school policies, IEB minutes, and other documents linked to governance.

At the meeting we discussed ways in which we can strengthen the links formally between the IEB and the parent/carer community - more will follow on this shortly.

We also, of course, had the community session next week on 21st September 2015 and we were pleased to see many of you there. This was a great opportunity to receive further updates, to discuss any matters with us and to enable you to play an active part in the review/development of our school aims, vision and ethos.

 

I will continue to provide a written update after each IEB meeting as above and will where needed, submit additional entries to the school and parish newsletters. However, your main point of information on governance should be the school website.  

 

As mentioned in my previous communications, if you would like to contact me you can do so by e-mailing: kprm1982@hotmail.com or by calling the school on 01865 343249.

 

Best wishes,

Kevin Moyes