Joint Meeting of Staff and Governors

This week we held a joint meeting of Staff and Governors.

We started the evening with a celebration of everything that has been achieved over the last three years; to reflect on what has changed and what remarkable improvements have been made in so many areas of school life.  I made a brief speech to celebrate the contributions of staff and governors, and then we watched a slide show which highlighted some of the school’s recent achievements. These are too numerous to detail here but include:

·         introducing Whole School Values;

·         rigorous assessment of pupil progress;

·         playing competitive sport;

·         new website, class blogs, iPads, interactive whiteboards and visualisers;  

·         refurbishing the Early Years’ Classroom;

·         Collective Worship in Church every Friday;

·         teaching French across the school;

·         doing residential trips for all Key Stage 2 pupils;

·         whole school focus on maths (2012/13) and writing (2013/14) showing real impact on pupils’ progress;

·         setting up of Breakfast Club;

·         many enrichment opportunities like singing at the Royal Albert Hall, visiting museums, learning musical instruments;

·         a huge range of extra-curricular clubs (Art, Knitting, Tennis, Creative Writing etc)

 

However, the main focus of our meeting was to look forward:  to think about how we can make the school even better over the next three years and achieve our shared Vision.

A lot of change is about improving on what you are already doing, but some change is about doing things in a different way, or doing something new. Our meeting was not about ten more things on our 'to do' list but some thinking time about changes we could make that would really help us to TRANSFORM to an outstanding school.

So our question to ourselves was:

 

How do we ensure that Great Gaddesden School is special and outstanding in a unique way?

 

Having looked at research from other schools, we concentrated on two areas:

·         School Climate:  what does the school feel like? Striking the balance between nurturing and challenging. Broadening the pupils’ experiences.

·         Parental involvement and Community Outreach

We worked in small groups to try and think creatively about what we would like to do differently. There was a lot of positive, creative discussion and many good ideas. Miss Worsley and the staff will be looking at these ideas and seeing how they can be a part of the future of Great Gaddesden School.

I feel that we are very fortunate to have an enthusiastic, professional and supportive team of Staff and Governors. The meeting was very positive and productive, and follows a similar meeting in March 2013 when the same group developed the School’s Vision. I would like to particularly thank Kerry Jones, one of our Foundation Governors, who has been instrumental in helping the leadership team to think about the longer term challenges and opportunities for our school.

 Post by Alison Wilkinson