Archive for the ‘ERAGB News’ Category
Joint ERAGB / LEA Governors’ Conference 16th March 2013 at Bishop Burton College
Posted by: Sarah Jones in ERAGB News on February 7th, 2013
“Addressing Special Educational Needs and
Disabilities: Provision, Practice and Progress”
The Joint ERYC/ERAGB Annual Conference has now become firmly established in the calendar of events for East Riding governors and this year we are pleased to have extended the invitation to governors in Hull. We look forward to welcoming all governor colleagues to our conference which will be focusing on a topic that is of enormous importance to all governors – how we provide for those of our pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. As usual it will take place in the in the lovely surroundings of Bishop Burton College.
Keynote
We are delighted to welcome Janet Thompson HMI as our keynote speaker. She is the National Adviser for Learning Difficulties and Disabilities and will be presenting her view of national developments and how governors can evaluate and challenge the effectiveness of the SEND provision in schools. This will be complemented by workshops to explore a wide range of issues of interest in the fields of supporting pupils with identified special needs.
We would like all governors to be made aware of the conference, so we ask that you circulate this letter, the programme and the list of workshops to all your governors. We also ask that governors discuss and agree with their headteacher how many can be supported in making applications to attend the conference. Given that this year individual governors will only be able to attend one workshop, there is clearly a benefit to more than one governor from each school attending the conference
Workshops
Please note: once your application has been received you will be sent a reply slip in order to indicate your choice of workshop, with a second choice if your preferred choice is full (first come first served basis). The reply slip will contain some brief detail about each of the workshops to assist your choice.
A. Mind the Gap: what governors should be asking about the progress of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities
B. ‘Achievement for All’
C. Governor Responsibilities for SEN
D. Speech, language and communication difficulties
E. Youth Mental First Aid (secondary)
F. Literacy Difficulties
Please visit: The ERYC website HERE or contact June Whalley on 01482 392425 to reserve your place.
ER Governor – Autumn 2012
Posted by: Sarah Jones in ERAGB News on September 17th, 2012
Our Autumn 2012 ER Governor News is now out, read about the raft of DfE Actions of Concern to Governors, a summary of yet another revision on the new Ofsted framework and a report which states that “one in four teachers nationally would not send their own children to the school at which they teach”.
Click here to read …
… the Autumn 2012 issue of ER Governor, together with all our previous issues
… including ‘Qualified or not?‘ following the government announcement suggesting that Academies can appoint non teachers to teaching posts, contrary to the evidence, which demonstrates that the best schools “train their teachers rigorously at the outset” (White Paper, 2010)
… and new legislation about Careers Guidance in schools, effective from the 1st September 2012
The Need For Better Governance
Posted by: Sarah Jones in ERAGB News on July 6th, 2012
This morning on the TODAY PROGRAMME, (Radio 4) it was announced that Micheal Gove, Secretary of State for Education, had made a speech yesterday regarding the need for faster reform in the area of school governance.
To read his speech, TAKE THIS LINK HERE. About a third of the way down the page you will see a section entitled “The need for better governance”. In this section, he suggests with some authority, that we all know what good and bad governing bodies look like. But actually, I don’t think we do and certainly I disagree with some of his suggestions. More importantly, where is the evidence upon which he bases his ideal? I could not find anything on optimum size, for example (Gove says they should be small. How does he know?).
There may well be a case for reform of school governance, but reform for reforms sake, without basing new models on sound evidence is not the way forward. In my search for evidence regarding Gove’s ideal, I have come across some useful documents which I thought I would share with you (and perhaps Gove might wish to take a look too).
Here is one from the Ofsted website called SCHOOL GOVERNANCE, which is a collection of case studies. You can either download the full report or the summary. It makes for interesting reading and there are some useful ideas to consider. Here is one from the National Foundation of Education Research called GOVERNANCE MODELS IN SCHOOLS commissioned by the Local Government Group and published in April 2011. And here is a SCHOOL GOVERNANCE STUDY from the University of Bath, although it is a little out of date – 2008 – it provides a thorough look and comes to similar conclusions as the preceding report. Here is another from Warwick University and the CfBT Trust called TOWARDS A NEW GOVERNANCE OF SCHOOLS IN THE REMAKING OF CIVIL SOCIETY from 2009.
If you know of, or come across any others, please let us know in the comments field below.
Priority School Building Programme
Posted by: Sarah Jones in ERAGB News on May 25th, 2012
Yesterday saw a ministerial announcement on the School Building Programme. As you may remember, the Building Schools for the Future Programme was scrapped – see HERE and HERE in July 2010. In his statement, Gove informs us:
that 261 schools will be rebuilt, or have their condition needs met through the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP) and a copy of the list has been placed in the House Libraries. Officials have today written to all schools who applied for the programme to confirm whether their application has been successful. Work will begin immediately and the first schools will be open in 2014
The PSBP replaced the BSF in 2011 – becoming a privately funded initiative. Four East Riding Schools have been successful – Wolfreton, Withernsea, Hessle and Goole to read the local news – see HERE
ER Governor – Summer 2012
Posted by: Sarah Jones in ERAGB News on May 9th, 2012
Our Summer 2012 ER Governor News is now out, read about the Fourth Annual ERYC & ERAGB Conference, including a review of the keynote speaker – Baroness Estelle Morris, news on a government proposal on tackling truancy and the latest on school inspections
Click here to read …
… the Summer 2012 issue of ER Governor, together with all our previous issues
… including Sir Michael Wilshaw’s plans for getting more heads involved in school inspection
… and about the Wolfreton Holocaust Memorial Day
