Fosse Way Governors

  On Monday 9 th November, the school governors held our latest Zoom meeting.   The first hour of the meeting was the annual audit review meeting with the school’s external auditors.   Following the successful conclusion of the audit review, we started our full governing body meeting.   As always, the minutes of the previous meeting were reviewed and approved before any matters arising were dealt with. Whilst sharing key news, Mr Cowling discussed the procedures in place to minimise the risk posed by Covid-19.   This included the changes made in light of the current second lockdown.   It was reassuring to hear that there has been no in-school transmission of the virus at all since the return to school of pupils. We discussed Mr Cowling’s Headteacher’s report which included updates regarding staffing, behaviour, welfare, personal development, leadership, safeguarding, finance, policies and health and safety.   Mr Cowling explained that the school...

On 18 th May, the Fosse Way governors met for their first Zoom meeting. Mrs Cotton opened the meeting by shared a report about the Year 1 and 2 curriculum as well as standards across the year groups.   The report included lots of detail and the positive impact of the recently introduced Read Write Inc. Phonics approach was very clear.   Mrs Cotton also explained how this had been introduced across Early Years, Key Stage One and Key Stage Two. After reviewing and agreeing the minutes of the previous meeting, Mr Cowling’s headteacher report was discussed.    An outline of the support currently being offered to children and their families was given by Mr Cowling.   As well as the school being open to key worker families and vulnerable children, support included regular contact with and support from Mrs Brook (family support worker) and Mrs Lee (SENDCo); food vouchers and parcels;   home learning projects; phone, email and video contact with te...

On 20th January, the governing body met for the first meeting of 2020.  As always, previous meeting minutes and the action tracker were reviewed and agreed. Discussion turned to last term's Christmas performances.  Members of the governing body were in attendance at all performances and feedback was very positive.  Feedback from parents and families was equally positive again this year.   Mrs Bingham, Early Years Team Leader, joined the meeting and presented a report to governors regarding the Early Years classes in school.  This included current standards and priorities within the team; current and past topics; the purpose and importance of the class floor books; the implementation of Read Write Inc into the team and the vital role played by teaching assistants in the team.  Time was also spent discussing the planned national changes to the Early Years curriculum and how the teachers are preparing for the implementation of these changes b...

Following a budget review meeting with our accountants, the full governing body met for another busy but productive evening. As always, minutes from the previous meeting were agreed and the action tracker was reviewed.   Following this, we discussed Mr Cowling's headteacher report which gave an overview of key news, quality of education, behaviour and pupil welfare, personal development, leadership and management, the school development plan, the school's self-evaluation, safeguarding, finance, health and safety and policies.  It was pleasing to hear about some of the exciting opportunities and responsibilities available to our children.  This included sporting competitions with other schools for children in Y1 to 6; new School Councillors being appointed and an opportunity for Year 5 pupils to apply to complete the Young Leader Award, too.   Next, Catherine Caldwell gave an overview of the English consultancy work she has been carrying out ...

We started our last Full Governing Body meeting of the year with a Governor-Staff 'Meet and Greet' social event, with plenty of cake and conversation on offer, and a chance for Governors and Staff to get to know each other alongside professional and informal school discussion. The homemade flapjack went down a treat! Cake! The flapjack was fantastic Mrs Deakin joined the first part of our meeting tonight to give the Governors a presentation which included behaviour updates, Checkpoint 3 data, progress this year, curriculum highlights/issues and staff professional development projects. Our thanks to Mrs Deakin for her time and the comprehensive report. We heard the reports from the latest Finance & Premises and Standards sub committees respectively, and Mr Coupland updated us with a summary of recent Checkpoint 3 data for the school. Mr Cowling gave us a demonstration of the safeguarding software that school uses and how it is used for recording inciden...

Tonight we welcomed Mrs Sowersby to the meeting as new staff representative on the Governing Body. Mrs Sowersby will no doubt offer lots to our discussions from a staff perspective. We discussed staffing arrangements for next year and the numbers of children that we will be welcoming to our Early Years - we can't wait to meet all our new pupils in September! Mr Cowling gave his usual very detailed Head Teacher's report which highlighted the latest news from school, including all of the wonderful wider-curriculum activities that have taken place in school recently, and the recent building work on the new kitchen and PE cupboards. New PE equipment cupboards look great! The previous PE storeroom is now a kitchen area for our wraparound provision Our Sub-Committee Chairpersons reported back to the group the minutes from the last round of Finance and Standards Sub-Committees, including Mrs Lee's comprehensive SEND provision presentation. Mr O'Halloran detai...

In between busy Sub Committee meetings tonight we had an additional meeting to discuss Fosse Way's potential Holiday Club. Although there is lots to think about, arrange and organise to ensure high calibre, safe and rewarding provision for our children, we were in agreement that October 2019 will be the first school holiday that we aim to start providing a holiday club.  Staff at Fosse Way are currently working hard behind the scenes looking into this, and starting to make arrangements - so if you have any thoughts, comments or questions then please get in touch. Watch this space for more information: exciting times ahead!  Additionally tonight we had a presentation from school's SENDCo, Mrs Lee, updating us with a very comprehensive review as to how school 's SEND practices work, and the processes involved in identifying needs and providing for our children. Thanks to Mrs Lee for the in depth presentation. With the holidays fast approaching, we ho...