Governors
The Governors at West Cliff take an active role in the life of the school. They come into school regularly to see what is going on, and often meet with staff and children.
We have a mixture of community governors, local authority governors, staff governors and parent governors.
Minutes of our meetings are always available in the school office should you wish to know what we have been working on.
We are currently reviewing our committee structure - this will be updated shortly.
All of our Governors have no business interests to declare and are not Governors in other schools.
List of Governors
|
Category of Governor |
Name |
Term of Office |
Committee Membership |
Total attended meetings percentage |
|
Chair of Governors/Local Authority Governor |
Diana Jeuda |
Local Authority |
Chair of Governors On all committees |
10/11 - 91% |
|
Vice Chair/Co-opted Governor |
Susan Clough | 01.02.19 | Standards, HR (Chair) | 9/9 - 100% |
| Community Governor |
Matt Brown |
01/02.19 |
Standards, HR, Finance (Chair) |
5/6 - 83% (resigned in the autumn term as his work has taken him away from Whitby) |
| Parent Governor |
Paul Gildroy |
01/09.20 |
Standards, HR, Finance |
3/3 - 100% |
| Parent Governor |
Mark Burnett |
01.12.19 |
Standards, Finance |
7/8 - 88% |
| Parent Governor |
Joanne Shipton |
01.01.18 |
Standards (Co- Chair) |
4/8 - 50% |
| Parent Governor |
Dot Russell |
01.01.18 |
Standards (Co- Chair), Finance |
10/11 - 91% |
| Staff Governor |
Christina Zanelli |
n/a |
Head, all committees | 11/11 - 100% |
|
Teacher Governor |
Ruth Cockerill | 01.09.20 |
Standards, Finance |
3/4 - 75% |
|
Clerk to The Governors |
Peter Geer | n/a |
*******
GOVERNOR RESPONSIBILITIES
Our role is as follows
- We set the aims and objectives for the school
- We set the policies for achieving these aims and objectives
- We set the targets for achieving these aims and objectives
- We monitor and evaluate the progress the school is making towards achieving its goals
The governors role is also to act as a critical friend to the headteacher and to offer skills and experience to the school to assist the school to carry out its work.
It is NOT the governors’ job to interfere with the day to day management of the school - though all the governors are very happy to contribute their expertise if the school requests it!!
All governors are committed to:
- Nolan principles:
- The school's aims and values - (you’ll find these in the Information section of this website)
- Understanding and practice of safeguarding principles
- Understanding and practice of the principles of confidentiality
- Understanding and practice of fair treatment, equal opportunities, inclusivity and transparency
The governors need a wide range of skills, knowledge and experience if they are to do their job properly.
We have carried out an audit of what is needed and then did a skills audit of our governors. We have established that we have people able to cover all the areas required. We currently have two community vacancies and we will be using this list to make appointments that will strengthen the governing body
*******
AN EXAMPLE OF THE WORK WE DO
Report by Diana Jeuda and Mark Burnett of the Governors monitoring visit re ICT.
We went into school on 11 January 2016 with a view to seeing how the school was using iPads and to discuss the school's experience with Mr Grason, our DHT.
We were pleased that Mr Grason produced an agenda beforehand indicating what he thought would be helpful and asking for our comments. We thought this was good practice and in addition were pleased with the programme that he had put together.
Overview
Mr Grason told us about
- the learning benefits of iPads,
- the school's provision (individual iPads in KS2 and shared iPads in KS1 and reception)
- the range of apps used
- how the staff were developing their own skills - including taking responsibility for developing expertise in particular apps
We were particularly interested to learn that the staff had a (smallish) sum allocated to them to buy apps without jumping through hoops. This appeared to be working well.
Classroom visits
We then visited all the classrooms just to see what was happening on a routine Monday afternoon. As we expected, some classes were carrying out activities using iPads and others not.
What we both noticed was that the every class we visited had a quiet and purposeful atmosphere where it was clear that all the children were engaged with what was going on. The excellent behaviour was exactly what we would want to see.
We particularly enjoyed
- Year 3 preparing to work on their Viking project using MindMap.
- Year 4 discussing some kind of adverb (which neither of us knew by the name used!) using the interactive whiteboard
- Year 6 using a maths app (Diana watched the lower ability group and was impressed at the speed at which the young man she was watching tackled division)
Meeting the children
Mr Grason had arranged that three children should be released from each class in order to meet us. He led the discussion (it was clear that we could chip in if we had felt the need to, but as he had a thought-through plan, it wasn't necessary).
He started by asking them what they thought about using iPads. They loved them!! Almost all the children contributed to the discussion.
He then went through the main list of apps and asked who had experience of each of them and what the app was for and whether they liked using them.
The children seemed (to us) to know what was age appropriate for them, but some children had a substantially wider knowledge - perhaps because of a supportive home environment. At the end they talked enthusiastically about how using iPads helped them learn and how they liked how they could find things out.
The children were cheerful, knowledgeable and really well behaved.
Round up discussion
We talked about what we had seen - and told Scott how impressed we were.
We then raised some more strategic questions including the following
- Should we prove personal iPads for KS1?
We thought that if they made sense in KS2, then surely the children's learning journey should be logged from the start of KS1 if the moneycould be found.
- How could we be sure that standards didn't dip as we move away from "pencil and paper" learning.
Mr Grason told us about the "non-negotiables" ie that the same standardswere expected on an iPad as would be expected on a piece of paper. We were pleased to hear this!
- What is the impact on "book" reading?
Mr Grason told us that children were reading books in paper form and online.
Online was popular because children gained rewards which acted as an incentive to reading. We concluded that it was likely that the children were likely to grow up in a world where much of their reading would be via a screen of some sort, so exposing them to books early was helpful.
Frog
Mr Grason then briefed Diana about Frog (Mark already knew about it as a parent)
We look forward to the reports that it will be able to generate.
Our final conclusions
Mr Grason then left us and we reviewed the afternoon. We were delighted by what we saw. We were impressed with how Mr Grason had organised and handled the event and his calm authority.
We thought the shape of the afternoon provided a useful template for governors' visits and Diana agreed to write it up.