Chair’s Letter

As the summer term closes, it’s a time to reflect on our school’s achievements and successes over the academic year. I for one can’t believe how quickly the year has gone!
The number of pupils on roll exactly matched the number of pupils the school is funded for and this looks set to continue into next year, despite a large number of leavers from Year 6. We believe the school is ideally suited to be a four class school. A combination of the hard work of staff and pupils, our idyllic location and outstanding caring ethos is ensuring our school’s good reputation continues to grow. It is our hope that numbers will continue to rise and can be sustained, leading to a fourth class teacher being required. The installation of the ‘Community Room’ last academic year is a key enabler to this possibility.

The introduction of hot lunches on a limited basis has been a success and governors have been exploring avenues to make this popular option more widely available.
The teaching of a modern foreign language will soon become a requirement for primary schools. We started fulfilling this requirement during the year and this will continue into next year.

We believe the school is soon to receive a visit from the schools inspectorate, OFSTED. We are happy that the issues raised during the previous inspection have been addressed and we look forward to demonstrating the good work which is going on, largely due to the hard work and dedication of staff. With this in mind, we would also like to hear the views of parents and have included a parental questionnaire in this issue of governors’ news. The questions are the same as the ones which will be asked by OFSTED. We have always enjoyed a high number of responses to questionnaires and we hope this will continue. Please take a few moments to provide your feedback – it is very important to us and all responses are in strictest confidence. The questionnaire can also be filled in on our website at: churchstantonprimary.co.uk/questionnaire

I do hope you enjoy the summer break – please take the time to thank your class teacher and encourage your children to say thank you too!
Dave Bleloch – Chair of Governors

Governor Changes

Goodbye
Sandra Kirby has left the governing body and Sandra Aldworth is stepping down at the end of term. We are very grateful for their past efforts and wish them luck in their future endeavours.

New Governors
We were very pleased to welcome Richard Badman to the governing body.

Governor Vacancies
We currently have vacancies for a community governor and a Local Authority governor. When these posts are filled, we will let you know.

Open Afternoon Report

The Headteacher, staff and children (including 1st Hemyock Cubs) had worked extremely hard getting the school ready and their efforts certainly paid off; on a lovely afternoon the school looked gleaming and welcoming both inside and out.

My first visit was to the French Café where I was served delicious French cheeses and bread by French speaking girls and boys – only French was heard!! My next was to the IT room where I was meant to be in charge, to everyone’s amusement. Very instructive is was. The children were doing a presentation on their outing to Plymouth which they all seemed to have enjoyed. Here I remained for the rest of the afternoon, so no chance to see and hear any of the other displays that were put on.

I was a great pity that the event was so poorly supported after all the effort that was put into it; a chance to visit our community school sadly missed.

Chris Hopcraft – Community Governor

Action Against Poverty - Child Sponsorship In The Developing World

We have been working with ActionAid, a charity based in Chard and dedicated to fighting poverty and injustice. We selected ActionAid from a shortlist to help us realise a desire that the school sponsor a child in a developing country. Apart from the obvious benefit to the child being sponsored, our own school community will also profit. By raising awareness of the plight of children who live in poverty, our children will see it is possible to make a difference by taking positive steps. The children will be able to exchange messages with the sponsored child and this will enrich the knowledge of all who are involved.

ActionAid’s method of operation is to use the income from child sponsorship to benefit the whole community where a sponsored child lives. By arranging the sponsoring of many children from the same community, ActionAid can be more effective in helping communities with long term support they need to help break the cycle of poverty.

It is our hope that we can sponsor a child of similar age to our Class One children, starting in September 2010 and continuing until those children leave at the end of Year Six. As the children of the same age move up to a new class, ‘taking’ the sponsored child with them, we hope that a new child can be sponsored by Class One. The school will cease to sponsor after the original children from Class One become Year Six leavers but it is our hope that a family of a Year Six leaver could take over the sponsorship (if it is still required).

Each sponsored child will require a monthly commitment of £15 and it is our intention that this money be raised by the children, individually or as a class. With 90 children, if each child can raise just 20p a month, we have exceeded the commitment needed to sponsor one child. If any parents would like to help with the raising of money or by entering into an agreement to help meet the cost we would like to hear from you. Our contact details can be found at the end of the newsletter.

We do hope you can see the benefits for all and can support this initiative. We request that you at least take the time to reinforce the message of hope that involvement like this can bring to impoverished children. Your child will be bringing home more detailed information early next term.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about ActionAid, their website address is: http://www.actionaid.org.uk

Dave Bleloch – Local Authority Appointed Governor

Library

The Governors have great plans for improving and extending the school library to encourage all our pupils to read more and to understand how books can add to their knowledge base, as well as introducing the children to the pleasures of reading.

Our long term goal is to convert one of the existing outhouses, which is currently being used as a store, into the new school library. However as you can imagine this will not be cheap, probably costing around £40,000 and it will take some time to raise the funds. With the current constraints on the overall budget placed on us by the Local Education Authority, and we can expect increases in budgets in the next few years to be kept to a minimum (if in fact there are any increases), most of this money will need to come from grants. This is a time consuming task and there is no guarantee that we will be successful, but we will certainly give it our best efforts.

In the short term it is intended that the existing library, which is really smaller than we would like, will be redecorated, have new shelving installed and new books purchased. This will make it a much more attractive room for the children. The funds for redecorating the existing room and new shelving will come out of the current school budget, cost will be in the region of £1,000, and we are approaching a number of organisations for grants to purchase the new books. We have already been promised £500, which is a very good start. These books will then be transferred to the new extended library, if we can get the funds for that project.

Richard Badman – Community Governor

SATS

Earlier this year, in April, two of the national teachers’ unions balloted members on whether Head teachers should administer the end of year tests for Year 6. The result nationally was in favour of boycotting the SATs but the decisions were to be left to individuals on whether they would proceed. I gave the outcome a lot of consideration as although I do not object to testing, I do object strongly as to how the data is manipulated by outside agencies such as OFSTED, since the results are only a snapshot of the journey a pupil experiences through their primary education. And everybody can have an ‘off-day’!

But because the decision was so late in their academic year and all had put a lot of effort into trying to reach their potential, I felt it would have been unfair to the children if suddenly the tests were not going to take place. This may also have given the message that we do not value them as much as previous year groups, especially when some have had older brother and sisters who did the tests.

Churchstanton therefore took the decision to proceed with SATs in the hope that the use of data and league tables will be reviewed in the near future.

Simon Mills– Head Teacher

Disability Equality Scheme

Governors are currently reviewing the school’s equality policy documents and we are seeking feedback from the school community. We want to ensure that we are providing equality of opportunity for disabled people: pupils, staff, parents, carers and other people who use the school or may wish to.

The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) defines a disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

If you consider yourself to be disabled and are willing to help governors with this important task we would very much like to hear from you. Our contact details are at the foot of the last page.

Website Forums

The school website has a new forum area for parents to share ideas and thoughts. To take part you will need to register and log in. Currently there are a few users raising points for discussion, but it would be greatly improved if more people joined in and offered ideas that the school or Friends could follow up. The two main areas are:

• Parent Talk – topics for discussion with other parents
• Friends of Churchstanton School – ideas for fundraising activities

By registering with the website you can access other areas of the website which are normally hidden – namely governor policies, full governing body meeting agendas and minutes, questionnaires and the ability to register your mobile phone number to receive school announcements via text message.

Questionnaire

We would be grateful if you could complete this short questionnaire, and return it to the school office. The questionnaire can be completed online at churchstantonprimary.co.uk/questionnaire.

Contacting the Governing Body

Governors are regularly in and around the school and can also be contacted through the school office (01823 601354) or via the website (churchstantonprimary.co.uk/contact/the_governors).