Joint Meeting of Staff and Governors

On Monday evening it was our annual joint meeting of Staff and Governors. This is an important meeting where everyone has the chance to step back from the ‘busy-ness’ of everyday school life, and think about our hopes and aspirations for the school.

Firstly, we reflected on everything that happened in the last year:

-         numerous school trips, many of which were taking place for the first time:

Day trip to Paris; War Horse in the West End; Celtic Harmony; Roald Dahl Museum; Whipsnade Zoo; Chiltern Open Air Museum; Science Museum; Sikh Gurdwara; Gaddesden Estate; Houses of Parliament; Tring Museum; XC Centre

-         accelerated learning throughout the school:

New curriculum for all subjects; new assessment methods for all subjects; Writing Week; Science Day; Able Maths & Writers workshops; rapid progress across the school in our focus area of Writing; Primary Science Quality Mark

-         investment in the school:

a new IT server and email system;  new laptops; a touch screen PC in Early Years; new playground equipment; refurbished conservatory

-         new members of our team:

Mrs Jessop as Senior Teacher and Inclusion leader; Mike Tonge and Carli Wall as Foundation Governors

 

We then worked in small groups to look at Ofsted’s expectations in the areas of Teaching; Pupil Attainment; Behaviour & Safety and Leadership. Gaining insights into what we do well as a school and what we could do better.

 Finally, we worked in small groups to discuss what inspires us both in our personal life, and in our relationship with the school.

Our vision states that we want to ‘achieve excellence’ which is clearly very important, however we also want to ‘inspire one another to be the best that we can be’. We want to make Great Gaddesden School an exciting and inspirational place for pupils, families, staff, governors and the local community. Passions included drama, free-style art, analyzing data, passing on traditional skills & games, helping children grow, awe &wonder school trips, working with the community and science. We all look forward to sharing some of these passions with the children over the coming months.

 

Alison Wilkinson

Chair of Governors