Little Horsted Church of England Primary School

Chair of Governors – Matthew Green

Vice Chair of Governors – Ellie Blackford

Your school governing body works in close partnership with staff to guide the strategic direction and ensure the overall effectiveness of the school. Its core purpose is to make sure every child receives a high-quality education in a happy and stimulating environment, while staying true to the school’s values and ethos. 

The Governing Body’ Strategic Role

A governing board has three core functions for its school:

• setting the strategic direction

• holding the head teacher to account for the educational performance of the school

• ensuring financial health of the school.

Every school needs to have a long‐term strategy, based on a shared vision. It is the job of the governing board, working with the head teacher and senior leaders, to agree a strategic plan for the coming three years. It is then down to the senior leaders to turn the strategic plan into a School Development Plan (SDP), updated each year, and to implement this in practice with the support and scrutiny of governors.

Our school governors are drawn from all the stakeholders in our school community, they are appointed for a four year term and all volunteer their time and skills for the benefit of our school. The different categories of governor help to ensure that the Governing Body has sufficient diversity of views, skills and experiences. All governors have equal status and governors act as one single body.

In total we have 12 Governors:

Mrs Daines, our head teacher, represents our school and provides the board with regular and detailed reports on our school.

We have seven Foundation Governors, four of whom represent Isfield and Little Horsted PCC. They are appointed by the diocese and have specific responsibility for overseeing the Christian values we uphold at school.

We have two Parent Governors who can be either parents or carers with responsibility for a child at school. They are nominated by other parents and elected by the current parents at school. Whenever they can, Parent Governors try to represent views of most parents in the school community and inform the Governing Body how matters under discussion may affect parents.

We have one governor nominated by the local authority, they are appointed by the Governing Body with a view to the skills they can contribute to promote effective governance and success of our school.

We have a Staff Governor who is selected by all the staff at school. The Staff Governor is well place to understand staff views and remind the Governing Body how matters being discussed affect staff. They also help the Governing Body communicate effectively with staff through regular feedback at staff meetings.

We meet as a whole four times a year, when we consider the schools direction and our school development plan as well as reflecting on and evaluating our school.

During the academic year we meet in smaller groups and undertake visits to focus in detail on:

Attainment, Achievement and Safeguarding Chair - Emma Lindsay

• Teaching and learning
• Ensuring the curriculum is followed
• Measures are in place to personalise learning to allow all children to make good progress whatever their starting point
• Ensuring attainment
• Staff are trained and supported and objectives and reviews are in place that reflect the school’s aims

Strategic Planning Chair - Ellie Blackford

• Spending budgets, staffing and premises are reviewed by a group of governors.
• Our income is fixed by county and we then have to agree how this is spent.
• Our expenditure must allow our children to progress and learn in a safe and secure environment.
• Our staff must be appropriately rewarded and trained.
• Our premises must be safe and suitable for all those who use it.

Christian values are the focus of our Foundation Governors

• Continuing to deepen the understanding of our Christian Values within our School Vision.
• Governors also take on additional roles to support the schools development plan.
• Specific Governor roles for the current academic year are detailed in our Link Governor document.

Full Governing Body

• We receive and discuss the Head teachers report.
• Receive visit and meeting reports from all members.
• Review safeguarding within the school.
• Discuss amendments and updates to School policies.
• Any other business arising.