Welcome from the Chair of Governors

CHAIR'S WELCOME

September 2020

Dear Parents and Carers,

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the Governing Board at Lander Road Primary School and tell you about what we do.

The main role of the Governing Board is to ensure the future of the school through a continuous journey of improvement, based upon all our children achieving their potential and ensuring the school spends its budget effectively.

This year has provided a new challenge. Like all schools in England, 2020 has been an extraordinary one due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The governors at Lander Road worked closely with the Headteacher and all staff to ensure we met the government regulations, ensuring the school could re-open to all pupils in September 2020. In the meanwhile, our dedicated staff continued to provide learning activities, support and guidance from March to July 2020 to facilitate home-based learning as well as the school remaining open for key workers and vulnerable children.

From March 2020 governors continued to meet virtually to monitor the school’s response to Covid-19. At the start of this school year the Governing Board set up a Covid-19 Monitoring Group to continue to support and monitor the school’s response to the pandemic. The governors and senior staff remain committed to continue to improve our school, despite Covid-19, so that all our children can succeed. To do this, we have adapted how we work as a Board in 2020/21. We will continue to meet as a Board on at least 7 occasions across the school year. As well as reviewing the school’s progress through Board meetings, we have identified ‘lead governors’ to undertake specific monitoring responsibilities – these are listed below.

This year we will continue to focus on monitoring progress made in relation to the school’s improvement priorities as agreed with the Board at our first meeting of the school year. We will also continue to monitor other aspects of the work of the school such as safeguarding, health and safety, provision for vulnerable children and the school environment. We do such monitoring through designated ‘lead governors’ and the Covid-19 Monitoring Group.

We are particularly proud of the school’s curriculum which is based upon the vision and hard work of all our staff. We believe the curriculum provides both breadth and balance and enriches the learning experiences for all our children. We believe it is excellent preparation for when our children move to their secondary schools and beyond as young adults.

When visiting school, governors undertake a variety of activities to gather evidence of how well the school is doing. This includes talking to pupils and staff, looking at books and visiting classes. Following each visit to school, the governors submit a report to the Board. This enables the Board to monitor the school’s progress using evidence primarily based upon the pupils’ experience. These activities will have to be limited during 2020/21 due to Covid-19.

The Board reviews its own performance each year and from this we agree a Governor Improvement Plan.

In 2020/21, we have two committees – The Governing Board and the Pay and Performance Committee.

The clerk to the Board and Committee is Steve Travis.

Finally, working in partnership with our parents and carers is very important. We will be consulting with parents and carers as well as other stakeholders (pupils and staff) in 2020/21 to help us to review the values and aims of the school. We remain dedicated to making Lander Road Primary school the best school it can be for all our pupils.

Yours sincerely

Paul Davies
(Chair of Governors, Lander Road Primary School)

Lander Road Primary School Governing Body 2020/21

Headteacher: Mr Jeff Taylor

Chair: Mr Paul Davies

Vice-Chair: Ms Andrea Mallaburn

Clerk to the Governors: Mr Steve Travis

Former Governors 2018/20

Committees**

* In attendance 

** Standards & Quality Committee discontinued in 2019/20

*** Inclusion & Safeguarding and Finance & Environment discontinued in 2020/21

Register of Interests

Please note: Any declaration of personal interests between governors and staff of Lander Road Primary School are made to the Chair of Governors and Headteacher.

Record of Attendance 2019/20

Some meetings in April & May cancelled due to Covid-19