May 2014 Forum
At Hertfordshire’s Association of School Governors Forum in May was in two parts lead by:
- Gillian Cawley, Assistant Director, Commissioner for Education Services and
- Marcus Cooper, Lead Adviser to the Virtual School, and Felicity Evans, Head of Achievement for the Virtual School .
Gillian Cawley
Gillian presented “Governors’ Briefing” & talked on the subject of “Local Authority Protocols with Academies” this included:
- introduction of roles and responsibilities of the Herts Children’s Services Board,
- discussion of the Herts School Improvement Strategy including progress in terms of Ofsted results,
- the roles of governors and parents in delivering improvement,
- what a high quality school looks like,
- news updates including how concerns with Academies can be addressed,
- regional schools commissioners,
- the Labour Party policy review in which ‘Herts for Learning’ is cited as an example of best practice.
Marcus Cooper & Felicity Evans
Marcus & Felicity discussed “The latest developments in Pupil Premium, Pupil Premium+ for Children Looked After and what Ofsted may ask Governors”.
What is the Pupil Premium?
The Pupil Premium is additional funding paid to schools for identified groups of pupils for two purposes:
- Raising the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and closing the gap with their peers; and
- Supporting children and young people with parents in the regular armed force
The aims of the funding are as follows:
- To reduce the attainment gap between the highest and lowest achieving pupils nationally
- To increase social mobility
- To enable more pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to get to the top Universities
- To provide additional resources to schools to do this
- To support looked after children and post -LAC.
The full Executive Summary is available from the download section below and addresses eligibility, amounts available, implementation support, accountability, key questions for Governors and more.