Governors

As the Chair of Governor’s, I am delighted to welcome you to the Governors’ section of the Nursery Hill Primary School website.

Our Role at Nursery Hill Primary School:

The purpose of governance is to provide confident and strong overall strategic leadership, which leads to robust accountability, oversight and assurance for educational and financial performance.

All governance boards have three core functions: 

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
• Holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils; and
• Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.

The professional working relationship between the headteacher and governors is a collaborative partnership, firmly embedded across the board, which is based on mutual respect and trust.

We have high aspirations for our pupils and staff, therefore meeting regularly and working cohesively to ensure that school improvement priorities are appropriate to enable further development.

Our strong partnership will enable the school to achieve the highest standards of teaching and learning for the benefit of all pupils and staff.

Furthermore, we work to strengthen the leadership; effectively acting as a source of challenge and support to the headteacher as well as the school’s performance, with the wider scope of being a critical friend, having shared value and purpose.

Together, we are the body responsible for setting the school vision, and that of the headteacher, to compellingly communicate the school’s vision and drive the strategic leadership, empowering all pupils and staff to excel, therefore ensuring the delivery of that vision.

Nursery Hill has a clear vision of what we as a school are trying to achieve.

‘We work best when we work together!’

Our vision is to develop well-rounded, confident, and responsible individuals who aspire to achieve their full potential. We will do this by providing a welcoming, happy, safe, and supportive learning environment in which everyone is known and valued, and all achievements are celebrated.

Our role as governors is to support that vision as we aim to continuously improve and to make the experience of the school the very best it can be for pupils, parents and staff.

Governors are also responsible for the values of the school, which are built upon the vision and sit at the heart within our school, acting as a reference point for all decisions. Nursery Hill’s values underpin our culture, strategy, policies, and procedures.

  Respect    Kindness    Perseverance    Tolerance    Co-operation    Positivity    Empathy   Resilience

The board set the aims and objectives for the school, which sit alongside the school vision and values and in turn set the policies and targets for achieving those aims and objectives. Our role is to monitor and evaluate the progress the school is making, ensuring accurate self-evaluation takes place at all levels.

The board is collectively responsible for thinking strategically about the future direction of the organisation and identifies the steps needed to achieve goals, ensuring the school provides a good quality of education for all pupils. Raising educational standards in school is a key priority, which we do with the headteacher who is responsible for the day-to-day management of the school.

To achieve this and to be as effective as we can, the Governing Board develops a strategy document for each new academic year, which centres around challenging the schools work in key areas.

The core areas are:

• Effective Governance (including CPD)
• Performance management
• Measuring Pupil performance, Teaching and Learning (challenging the use of the Sports Grant and Pupil Premium Grant)
• Finance
• Communications (including parental and pupil engagement)
• Health and Safety
• Safeguarding, Child Protection, SEND and Attendance
• Nursery / EYFS
• Pupil Wellbeing and Spiritual / Cultural Development

To ensure we can provide the school with the best possible opportunities we work to a strategic framework, which sets clear goals and objectives. This focus is driven from several key documents and all are designed to correlate with one another to ensure a co-ordinated and effective approach.

Ethical Governance:

Our governors have high ethical standards, which not only correspond to the values of our school, but also the seven Nolan principles; Selflessness, Integrity, Objectivity, Accountability, Openness, Honesty and Leadership.

The board has set and safeguards an ethos of high expectations of everyone in the school community. This includes high expectations for the behaviour, progress and attainment of all pupils and for the conduct and professionalism of both staff and the board themselves. The board fosters a common culture, values and ethos across the whole organisation, ensuring it is reflected consistently in both its policies and its practices.

Effective Governance:                                                                                                                            

We have an extremely active and dedicated Governing Board at Nursery Hill, who work effectively and dynamically as part of a team, towards a common purpose.

Our governing board consists of 11 members, which includes parents, members of the local community and those with vast experience in education.

Parent Governors (elected by the parents)

• Headteacher (ex officio)
• Staff Governor (elected by the staff)
• Local Authority Governors (nominated by the board and approved by the LA)
• Co-Opted Governor (people from our community that can bring skills to the governing board to contribute to the school)
• Associate Members (appointed by the board as members of committees who they feel can contribute to its work, however, are not governors and not included in the schools Instrument of Government)

Meetings of the governing board:

To ensure we have robust oversight over the school, the board and its committees will meet regularly enough to discharge our responsibilities. The Full Governing Board will meet 3 times annually; once every term.

Our meeting dates are published under the ‘Forthcoming meetings subheading 2022/23.’

Committees:

Much of our work is devolved to two committee structures within the line of accountability, the membership and proceedings of each committee are determined by the governing board.

Each committee will meet a minimum of once per term and report to the full governing board accompanied by any supporting papers ahead of each full governing body meeting.

 Resources Committee:

Covers finance, premises, personnel and has oversight of organisational functions, including financial monitoring, the annual budget process, and health and safety.

• Curriculum and Standards Committee:

This can also be known as progress and attainment, outcomes for pupils or simply education; it monitors and analyses all the information relating to pupil outcomes.

These two committees are complimented with the skillsets of individual governors assigned as Link Governors.

Visits to the school:

In order to fulfil our role, governors need to become familiar with the school, which can be accomplished by visiting the school and talking to the staff and pupils.

Visits will include:

• Attendance to formal meetings and functions
• Governor’s school monitoring visits and learning walks, which will be conducted with the relevant staff member and the appropriate governor dependent on the agreed focus and/or relevant school objective or priority.
• Assemblies
• Inspire Events
• Open Days/Evenings
• Parents Evening
• Christmas/Summer Fair
• Concerts/School Productions

Training:

Training courses for governors are provided from a variety of sources and are highly recommended to aid continuous professional development as well as succession planning. This enhances and develops knowledge and skills, which leads to active and valuable contributions at meetings.

National Governance Association

• Warwickshire County Council
• WCC Governor Services Professional Development Programme.

Becoming a Governor:

Becoming a school governor is an extremely rewarding way of making a vital contribution to society and the development of young people.

When appointing governors, careful consideration is given to the skills and experience required by the governing board to enable it to carry out its duties effectively.

If you would like to be considered for the role of a school governor and believe you possess the necessary skills’, please contact me on the below email address for an application form:

Lexie Gardner – Email: admin2001@welearn365.com 

The governors at Nursery Hill are incredibly passionate and dedicated to serving our children and school to the level of excellence it deserves. We are proud of our contribution to the education system and shine a light on the difference good governance makes to the success of our school, further improving the outcomes for children and communities – a goal which we know will be important to you too.

We look forward to seeing you in and around school during forth coming weeks and months ahead.

Kind regards,

Lexie Gardner                                                                                                                                                     

Chair of Governors – Nursery Hill Primary School