BASG Executive Minutes 19th April 2021

Peter Lerner, Bernadette Allison, Jo Pearce, Martin Baxter, Andrew Brown, Gwyneth Langley (Secretary)

Agenda Item

Action

There were no apologies for absence.

There were no items tabled for discussion under Any Other Business

Gwyneth Langley – BEP

The minutes of the meeting held on 1 March 2021 were approved.

BASG Bank Account (Minute 4) – All outstanding payments from the BASG bank account had now been arranged.   The ongoing issue relating to correspondence was being resolved with the bank.

 JP / PR

The Aylesbury Group had met on 23 March 2021.

There were a number of topics for discussion including an update on a recent Ofsted Inspection.   It was noted that there had been a strong focus on safeguarding during the inspection. Governing Board meeting minutes had been scrutinised to establish how well governors were challenging the leadership team in this area.

The next meeting would be on 4 May 2021. It was confirmed that the meeting was open to all governors.

Jordans Group

The Jordans group had met on 27 March 2021.  There had been a number of topics for discussion including:

–       Well-being

–       Review of the return to school

–       Managing allegations

–       Safeguarding

–       Policies

It was considered that the meeting had been more upbeat than the previous session.

The next meeting would be on 12 June 2021.

The Chesham, Great Missenden, Amersham and Wendover Group would meet on 24 May 2021 at 7pm.

PR would signpost future meeting dates at the LA Executive Directors Briefings w/c 19 April 2021

 PR

GL highlighted that there had been a number of recent discussions with current Chairs regarding succession planning for their roles.  BEP were advising on potential options, including Co-Chairing.

It was agreed that the LA should be encouraged to extend invitations to events to Vice-Chairs and other Governors to support succession planning and development of potential future Chairs.

PR, AS and PL had met with Simon James and Gareth Drawmer regarding BASG and its current / future role.   There had been two meetings and they had both been positive.

Historical issues with HR support for governors had been discussed at the second meeting and Simon James would be meeting with the Bucks HR team to discuss this.  AS was encouraged that there had been engagement on this issue following the paper that had been written.

There had been a number of other topics for discussion during the meetings including:

–       Learning Link

–       Governor training

–       Networking Meetings

A pro-forma will be developed to facilitate feedback to the LA from local networking groups.   This would be anonymised but ensure that there was a mechanism for raising issues or areas of concern.

It was noted that the Marlow Networking Group had not met since June 2019.   There had been some interest in reviving this.  GL would contact Sally Brooks to establish whether there had been any progress with this.

JP had been elected to Schools Forum and gave an update on the meeting held on 23 March 2021.   There had been discussion and updates on a number of areas including:

–       Budgets

–       Contingency Funding

–       High Needs Funding

–       Special School funding

–       Sparsity funding

It was noted that contingency funding was still available and schools should apply if relevant.

Post-16 requirements were currently putting pressure on High Needs Funding.

JP would forward a copy of the Schools Forum Constitution along with current membership.    The next meeting would take place on 29 June 2021 and JP would feedback on this.

GL

JP

Future plans for newsletters would be considered at a later date.

MB gave an update on the Buckinghamshire Challenge Group (formerly the Disadvantaged and Vulnerable Reference Group).

The group had met on 19 April 2021.

MB considered the meeting to have been more positive than previous meetings.  Gareth Drawmer had attended and listened to suggestions from group members.

It was noted that only 1 of the original 9 Headteachers had attended the meeting.

It was highlighted that many schools now had more pupils eligible for Pupil Premium funding as a result of job losses during the Covid crisis.

A workshop  Does it make a difference: evaluating the impact of your disadvantage strategy on learners, led by Marc Rowland, would take place on Thursday 22 April 2021 and governors had been invited to this.

MB had written a paper proposing options for governor training in this area.  Georgina Masefield was currently reviewing this.

JP highlighted that Gareth Drawmer had suggested that BEP would be approached to deliver Pupil Premium training to governors in the Consultative Board meeting on 17 March 2021.    It was unclear whether this had been agreed. GL confirmed that BEP had not been contacted on this as yet.

MB would forward a report on the meeting on 19 April to the committee.

MB

Approximately 80 governors had registered for the event to date.  This was scheduled to take place via MS Teams.  AS was exploring other platforms should numbers grow to a level where MS Teams may be unstable.

AS

PL gave an update on the meeting that had taken place on 17 March 2021.    It was felt that the meeting had gone well.  It had been very helpful that written input from board members had been circulated in advance.

 12.2

PR informed the group that Joanne Marchant had decided to step down from the committee. She had also resigned from her governor role at Heritage House School.       The committee acknowledged the significant work that Joanne had done for BASG and thanks would be passed on to her on behalf of the group.

Ofsted Inspections

MB highlighted that John Hampden Grammar School had not been inspected since 2008.    Members were aware of number of other schools in Bucks who were in a similar position.

Dates and times for future meetings were agreed as follows:

Monday 10 May  2021 5pm