January 07 Stogursey School Governors.

Before we finally say goodbye to Christmas06, we would like to thank the school staff and the children for making the village Christmas very special. All at school work hard at a range of Christmas presentations. They love to perform them to the village, and it excellent that you show such good appreciation. There is a lot of hard work involved and we wish to record our thanks. Each year leaves a priceless memory. For me this time it was the Angel`s Halo that just would not stay up, and the fantastic percussion performance. A village Christmas would not be the same without a school.
The school year is relentless. It is back to the new term with a new set of needs to fulfil. Our Headteacher has obtained a grant that allows us to employ coaches to run two extra after-school clubs. We now provide recorders, netball, art, table tennis, football, country dancing and gymnastics. The normal curriculum is naturally of greatest importance, but provision of extra-curricula activities broadens the life-styles of young people and, in my own experience, can produce wide ranging results.

There is a lot of newspaper debate on schools at the moment. It mostly applies to secondary schools, but it is important to clarify the position of our school. We are the wrong age-group for GCSE, but our children are assessed for what are called Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. For several years our children have done extremely well in numeracy and in science. Our literacy results have been good and we are giving certain aspects of literacy priority treatment in order to achieve higher standards. We are a feeder to Haygrove School which achieves excellent GCSE results, including English and Mathematics. Teachers generally work very hard, they could do without the moral-sapping efforts of newspapers.

We recently reported that our Basic Skills Quality Mark has been renewed. This actually means that the following criteria have to be met:
1. A whole strategy and action plan to improve performance.
2. An assessment of pupil performance.
3. A target for the improvement of the school`s performance.
4. Improvement plans for pupils receiving help.
5. Regular assessment of the progress made by these pupils.
6. Access to national accreditation for these pupils.
7. Access to training for staff involved.
8. Use of a range of teaching styles and materials.
9. Parent involvement in developing their children`s basic skills.
10. An effective way to monitor the action plan and to assess performance improvement.
This is full of jargon but is an attempt to show that awards actually make worthwhile things happen. They are not just a badge that we pin on the wall.

School is recycling Christmas Cards so if you have not done anything with them yet, please put them in the Christmas letter-box in the school lobby. For your information, half term is from 17to 25 February (incl) and the Easter holidays are from 31 March to 15 April (incl).


Peter Farmery for the School Governors.