Issue - meetings

To accept information from the report and receive any feedback.

To note and accept the contents of the report.

The report was presented by the Assistant Director of GwE, and the following main points were noted:

-      It was explained that these guidelines had been published following the scrapping of the school categorisation system. It was currently a non-statutory system but was expected to become statutory by September 2024. Despite this, schools were expected to attempt to adopt the guidelines as soon as possible.

-      It was noted that the main aspects of the guidelines were:

o   Governing bodies had to ensure that a summary copy of their school development plan was available through the School Governors' Annual Report. In order to help increase confidence in and commitment to the school and its development plan, the school should publish the summary copy on its website. The summary should be written in language that is easy for parents, carers and learners to understand.

o   A page-long overview of the school's self-evaluation conclusions/findings also had to be provided, conveying the school's main strengths and areas for development. It was expected to include high-level improvement priorities; planned actions to achieve those priorities; and relevant milestones.

o   The governing body needed to show all the external support the school had received in that financial year (including GwE support).

o   The governing bodies would report on progress against the previous year's priorities.

o   GwE and the Local Authority had to maintain a professional dialogue with the governing body in order to discuss self-evaluation processes, the school's strengths and any other issue that the governing body needed to be aware of and monitor.

o   The governing body had to receive a report on how support would be maintained.

In response to observations, the Managing Director noted:

-      That he recognised that these guidelines had been introduced at a very challenging time as schools were still coping with COVID-19 issues as well as all the activity at the end of an academic year. Although schools were concerned that it would not be possible to achieve these guidelines by the end of the academic year, the Managing Director was confident that the schools would be able to act on the guidelines early in the autumn term in order to ensure that, by the end of the next academic year, the schools would have committed to the guidelines efficiently and successfully.

-      This would give schools time to get used to these guidelines before they became statutory and would also provide time to evaluate the work in order to be able to attempt to solve the problems that arose from the guidelines before they became statutory in September 2024.

RESOLVED

To note and accept the contents of the report.