Governance
Gisburn Road, as a community school, is overseen by a Board of Governors
What is the Governing Board?
The Governing Board plays a key role in providing the best possible education for all its pupils. It works in the background, leaving day to day running of the school to the Headteacher and staff, and is accountable to parents and the wider community to ensure that standards are of the highest quality.
The Governing Board decides strategic policy for the school, monitors progress, sets budgets in liaison with the LA, and supports and advises those who carry out specific work. It is made up of a combination of appointed, elected and co-opted individuals.
A Governing Board does not take all decisions but delegates much of that responsibility to its sub-committees. At Gisburn Road Community Primary School these are: Standards and Effectiveness and Resources. Like the full Governing Board, they meet in a termly cycle, and report to the Full Governing Board Meeting. Individual governors accept specific responsibilities, which sometimes involve representing the Governing Board on Boroughwide organisations.
Governors usually serve a term of four years and provide their services in an unpaid capacity. The work requires commitment but is extremely rewarding. Membership is constantly changing through the expiry of terms of office and resignations forced by individual circumstances. Elections for four parent governors take place regularly, as terms of office come to an end.
The LA provides training and support for all governors and governing bodies (including advisers and clerks for full governing board meetings) which always receive praise for high quality.
Chair's welcome
We are firmly committed to our vision statement, enabling pupils to achieve and thrive and helping them to leave our school equipped with skills to be life-long learners, confidence to have a go and values that engender respect in others.
As a school, we are continually looking to develop areas of excellence and good practice. Recent examples of our successes include obtaining the Step into Quality award for our early years provision and School Games Gold Mark for our sports provision. We are currently working towards the Food for Life award and the PQSL science award. In our most recent OFSTED inspection we were found to be a good school.
Rachel Waddington
Chair of Governors
What Governors do
The Governing Board of the school takes decisive action in providing good support for the school but also providing a very good level of challenge.
Our main role is to support the Headteacher and the staff – the phrase often used to describe this role is ‘a critical friend’. We help them to set and reach targets and to strive for excellence across the whole spectrum of school life.
Legal duties include:
- setting strategic direction, policies and objectives
- approving the school budget
- reviewing progress against the school's budget and objectives
- appointing, challenging and supporting the headteacher
Meet the Governors
We have a diverse range of people on the Board, from parents and staff to business people and professionals from the local community. Each brings experience and insight to the group, which oversees the strategic direction of the school. The buck stops with the Governors, who are responsible for how the school is run.
Mr Browne
Local Authority Governor
Miss Caron Longden
Vice Chair of Governors
Mrs Rachel Waddington
Chair of Governors
Mrs Walker
Headteacher
Mrs Heaton
Teacher and Staff Governor
Mrs Holman
Teacher & Governor
Instrument of Government
- The name of the school is Barnoldswick Gisburn Road Community Primary School.
- The school is a community school.
- The name of the governing body is "The Governing Body of Barnoldswick Gisburn Road Community Primary School "
- The governing body shall consist of:
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- 2 parent governors
- 1 authority governor
- 1 staff governor
- 1 headteacher
- 7 co-opted governors
- The total number of governors is: 12
- This instrument of government comes into effect on 4 November 2013
- This instrument was made by order of Lancashire local authority on 4 November 2013
- A copy of the instrument must be supplied to every member of the governing body (and the headteacher if not a governor)
There are several categories of governor: co-opted, local authority, parent and staff governors. All governors have equal status, whatever their category. We are committed to providing an excellent environment for all pupils to enjoy during their time at our school.
Committees
There are various committees that, together with meetings of the full Governing Board, handle business throughout the year.
Meetings
Each term there is at least one meeting to cover each of these topics:
- Full Governing Board
- Resources
- Curriculum
- Standards and Effectiveness
Attendance
See whether Governors attended meetings:
Become a school governor
If you are interested in becoming a governor, please contact the school.
There's also more information about Governance on the Lancashire County Council website:
Monitoring and Evaluation
Our Governing Board is proactive and are involved in monitoring and evaluating the school’s performance.
Gisburn Road Community Primary School has a robust annual programme of governor visits to the school, focused on gathering evidence to support school self-evaluation. The information gathered during these visits enable the Governing board to:
- Fulfil their statutory duties and responsibilities
- Have a deeper understanding of the areas of strength and weakness within the school and observe the impact of school improvement actions
- Monitor the performance of the school. This helps Governors to be better informed at meetings and to support and hold to account senior leaders in order to improve pupil outcomes
- Talk to children and staff about their experiences in school
Aims for the Governor monitoring and evaluation programme
The planning and implementation of this programme will result in:
- Governors will have a detailed focus on improvement strategies as well as information regarding subjects
- Statutory audits – safeguarding and inclusion
- Data analysis – This will establish the impact of school improvement priorities and identify further actions
- Involve meetings between staff and governors – formal and informal
- Learning Walks – with an agreed focus
- Discussions with children on their learning
- Reports completed by governors and shared during meetings
- Ensure that all polices are in place and regularly reviewed