Governance At St. Peter's

What do Governors do?

Governors are involved in every aspect of school life and usually take on specific roles according to their experience. We play a strategic role, concentrating on the underlying principles of how the school is run. Day-to-day management issues remain the responsibility of the head teacher and his staff.

Overall, governors have 3 key roles:

1. We take general responsibility for the school. We appoint the head teacher and together set the strategic direction of the school. 

2. We agree the school development plan and monitor progress against the targets set, holding the head teacher and senior leaders to account. 

3. We authorise the school budget each year, approve spending and monitor progress against the budget.

How do Governors work?

We meet as a full governing body 4 times a year. We have two committees – Finance & Premises – Curriculum, Community, students and staff which also meet before a full governing body meeting to deal with matters of specific interest. Those committees report back to the full governing body. 

In between the meetings, governors undertake work according to their responsibilities.  They visit school regularly to meet with staff and see how the children are doing. The Governors attend regular training. 

How are Governors appointed?

We are required to have a designated number of governors from a number of categories. We can also adopt additional governors, known as associate governors, who can advise but not vote. 

Our current body consists of :

• 2 Parent governors
• 1 Staff governor
• 1 Foundation Ex-Officio
• 4 Foundation Parochial Governors 
• 4 Foundation Diocesan Governors
• 1 Local Authority Governor
• 1 Co Opted Governor
• The head teacher

The term of office for a governor is four years. The Chair and Vice Chair are elected annually at the first meeting of the academic year. The Chair of Governors is Laurence McCall who can be contacted, laurencem@spmillend.herts.sch.uk 

Governor Blog 1.02.2024

Welcome to the first Governors’ blog.  

We wanted to share with you regularly post our meetings what we discuss and how we are supporting the school in our role as Governors. If you are unsure what we do as governors, put simply, we help oversea and hold to account school management from its vision, to budgets and its policy. We, along with all the staff at St Peter's aim to provide the best possible education for the children of Rickmansworth and Mill End. 

Last night we met as a full governing body and welcomed a new parent governor Grace Simpson, who with her experience as a teacher will support our Curriculum committee. Our main topics for discussion were: 

• Attendance: we celebrated the fact that St Peter's attendance is currently above national average and stands out from many other schools in the area. We talked about how to maintain this but also sadly the issues about persistent absenteeism and the impact that has on children's education. Mr Conley gave us an overview on the schools activities to maintain our numbers, which the governing body fully endorsed 

• Results and curriculum: Again, another area to be celebrated - the results show that in reading, writing and maths we are one of the top schools in Hertfordshire. We discussed areas for improvement and how the school was especially trying to close the gap between boys and girls, with promising results. It was good to hear that St Peter's regularly met with other schools in the area to share best practice. We also planned our next Governor Day where we meet with subject leaders to get more understanding on how the children are being taught and can see for ourselves how teaching is being applied 

• Safeguarding, SEND and behaviour: A key part of our role as governors is to ensure robust safeguarding measures are in place at St Peter's. Our Safeguarding Governor took us through the most recent visit from Anne Peck, who reviewed our practices and we also discussed SEND provision and signed off the schools updated behaviour policy 

• Staffing: Mr Conley reported on the latest staffing levels amongst teachers and teaching assistants and the challenging recruitment market - currently there are eleven teaching vacancies in Hertfordshire alone, this is not during the recruitment windows that schools follow. This led us onto a conversation about staff wellbeing and Mr Conley took us through how senior leaders were supporting staff to make sure they were getting sufficient time for non-teaching activities and time for their own development - It was positive to hear about the number of staff attending courses.  

• Ofsted: Finally we discussed the likelihood of an inspection soon and reviewed the plans in place once the school gets the call. We talked about how we as governors can support the school and its staff during this time and ensure wellbeing is kept front and centre.  

If you have questions about our role as Governors or want to give us some feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us: malcolmw@spmillend.herts.sch.uk or tarao@spmillend.herts.sch.uk.

Reflections for 01.02.2024

For this full governing body meeting, we covered a range of topics and scrutinised the paperwork that was produced for the meeting. Below is a summary of the themes we explored:

1. Mr Conley produced a headteachers report on a range of topics including:

• safeguarding
• current assessment data and predictions across the school
• pupil attendance 
• recovery premium and focus 
• staffing update 
• staff and pupil well being
• SEND/disadvantaged update
• Self evaluation and school development plan 

2. Mr Conley produced reports on our current financial position, H&S and premises. 

3. Chairs of each committee fed back to the whole Governing Body with tasks being organised 

4. We discussed the health & Safety audit recently carried out.

5. We discussed our child protection policy, behaviour, anti-bullying and de-delegation 

School Governors:

The Chair of Governors, David Haygarth, can be contacted by email: davidh@spmillend.herts.sch.uk 

Register of Interests:

Attendance 2024 - 2025

Attendance

2022 to 2023

Governors Meetings 2021/2022