Stepgates Community School 2024 - 25

Dear Parents, Staff, and Community Members,

I am pleased to share the Chair of Governors Annual Report for Stepgates Community School for the academic year 2024-2025. This report highlights the continued progress we have made within the school and community to create educational experiences and opportunities for our children to grow and learn.

Governance

The Full Governing Board provides strategic leadership and oversight to ensure the schools vision is achieved. The board is supported by two committees, Resources and Children & Learning. The committees meet on a regular basis and report into the Full Governing Board. Members of the board bring a diverse range of skills, knowledge and experiences and representation at the board includes parent governors, staff governors, co-opted governors, and local authority governors.

During the academic year, a number of changes occurred within the governing board. Firstly, the longstanding Chair of Governors, Mike Pope, said goodbye to Stepgates. We thank Mike for his leadership, support, and service to Stepgates. Alongside this a number of longstanding board members finished lengthy tenures and we thank them for their commitment and support over the years. The governing board therefore had a period of change and transition during the academic year with new governing body members starting roles and a new Chair elected. We were pleased to welcome a handful of new governors bringing different experiences and skills sets to compliment existing board members.

Committee Reports

The new Governing body committee structure introduced in the previous year has now become embedded. This structure allows Governors to deepen their understanding of how to support the school better.

Children & Learning Committee

This committee has continued to review key performance data for Key Stages 1 and 2 with particular focus on Reading Writing and Arithmetic.

Attendance has continued to be a key area of focus and improvements within this area have been reported alongside ensuring the local authority changes to Penalty Policies have been fully implemented and understood.

The committee has focused on our SEND provision (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) and ensuring they receive the right support.

During the academic year, the school had the privilege of opening a new state of the art specialist centre for children with Communication and Interaction Needs (COIN) . Stepgates has a long standing specialist centre which has been boosted through an upgrade to brand new facilities and educational resources. This is a significant development and a wonderful new environment for the children to continue to be supported.

The continued requirement to ensure firm oversight of resources has been central to the resource committee discussions as the school continues to operate within such a challenging financial context and environment. Every effort to maximise resources has been made and the resource committee continues to provide challenge and focus to ensure that risks are managed carefully.

In addition, the new Sensory Garden was also opened during the academic year providing a space to support and engage children through their senses and supporting their emotional well-being.     

School Development Plan

The School Development Plan continued to be an area of focus for staff and governors. We have continued to make considerable progress within key thematic areas and have continued to focus on wellbeing and culture.

Governor training and development

Governors continue to visit the school on a regular basis. These visits provide valuable insight into how strategy is being operationalised across the school. Governors reports and feedback from such visits continue to help shape our strategic development plans. All governors have conducted training during the academic year with particular focus on safeguarding and resource/fiscal management.

Other extracurricular activities and community involvement

We continue to expand the number of extracurricular activities and involvement from our community is embedded at the heart of all Stepgates offer. This year we have conducted a second whole school trip building on the success of the previous year. This is a unique opportunity to bring all students, staff, and volunteers together for an entire day of learning and education offsite and helps build long lasting memories.

In conclusion this has been another successful year at Stepgates Community School, and we look forward to continuing the learning and successes into the coming year. On behalf of all the governors I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mrs Ford and all the staff at Stepgates for their hard work and commitment to the school year.

 

LJeffries

Lisa Jeffries 

Chair of Governors