Termly Report from Chair of Governors
Christ Church Governing Board Termly Impact Report
Summer Term 2019
What a hugely busy and important term it has been for the school.
The Recruitment Panel have been busy since January selecting and interviewing for our new Headteacher and we are very excited about Anne-Marie Bahlol joining us in January.
We also last month had our annual Governor’s Study Day where we as governors take a day out of our busy schedules to talk about the next year ahead. Anne-Marie joined us to talk about some of her plans for the school.
We have been working hard to ensure that we continue to improve and effectively self-evaluate to keep moving forwards. To this end we had 2 external audits – on both safeguarding and teaching and learning this term, which were both very successful.
As you will now also now be aware, last week had our 4-yearly SIAMS Inspection, which for want of a better explanation is the Ofsted for church schools. We would like to take this opportunity to thank every person involved for their outstanding contribution. The inspector was bowled over by our vision, our values, the teaching and learning and Christian ethos – and we are delighted to announce that we maintained our current rating of Excellent, the highest there is.
It’s important to give the context of this – that of the 350 outstanding schools inspected recently that only 13% maintained their grade so this is a wonderful achievement and an incredibly fitting end to Mr Leccacorvi’s time at Christ Church. The school has flourished under his leadership and I know we are all sad to see him go. Thank you, Luigi for everything you have done for us.
In particular, we’d like to highlight the following snippets from the report:
“Leaders and governors share an ambitious Christian vision…this vision is rooted in love and expressed in action”
“This vision inspires the broad, rich curriculum and the exceptional support given to pupils so that they embrace it with enthusiasm”
“As a result they make outstanding progress, whatever their starting points, and achieve standards that far exceed those expected nationally”
“Pupils become fierce advocates of change with a deep commitment to social justice and a willingness to give of themselves to support good causes”
An incredible achievement. This is testament to our wonderful staff and Senior Leadership Team and we would like to make a special mention to Luigi for his years of service that have built such a strong base for the future. We would also like to acknowledge Claire Laver who in her first year with us has made an incredible impact as a Deputy Head but also as our RE Subject Lead.
In other areas we have just achieved an outstanding set of results as a school, way above national.
After the dip in the results in writing last academic year, it has been incredibly pleasing to see how the Talk for Writing approach has been embedded across the school this year and this has had a great impact with writing standards back up and above national.
Regularly we question the school leadership team about the learning taking place, the financial management of the school and steps to keep our children happy, safe and secure.
Specifically, we have just signed off our three-year budget plan and are happy to say that we continue to deliver a balanced budget in an extremely tough educational landscape. No mean feat, but all of course helped by the incredible contribution of our community and our dedicated PaFA. Thanks to Claire, Lesley and the whole team for everything you do for our school, and thanks to everyone who baked, ran, made candy floss, carted tables, organized and cajoled for our children. It is very much appreciated.
To this end we are delighted that we will be improving our playground over the Summer break. Huge thanks go to everyone who contributed to this becoming a reality: Greenwich Sports Department, Greenwich Local Fund, Elliott James for his marathon run, Valentina Mirea and the Lendlease team, Beaumont Gibbs and everyone who contributed to our first Fun Run. We have Danny Thorpe coming to open the playground officially on Wednesday 18th September at 2pm.
As usual, several governors visited the school to look at different areas of school life. These visits are important as it gives governors the chance to spend time looking at specific areas of school life, talk to staff, members of the leadership team and pupils to get their views and to report back to governors.
Some of the visits which took place over the Summer term looked at;
- The financial management of the school
- The impact of RE across the school
- Safeguarding
We continue to train to improve our skills.
- In order to prepare ourselves for the Headteachers’s appointment a number of the Board attended Safer Recruitment training
- Our newest Governor Elliott James attended Induction Training at the SDBE
To all of our team - thank you and we salute you. From the office staff, to the TAs, to the teachers, to the midday supervisors, the cleaners, and our resident crooner and hard-working caretaker Colin. Thank you. This school is very lucky to have you. We are incredibly excited about the next phase of our journey together.
Have a wonderful Summer break and we look forward to seeing you in September for another great year at Christ Church.
Deborah Dumville
Vice Chair of Governors