SPRING TERM MEETING:
Wednesday 5th March 2008
VENUE: Parish Church Nursery & Infant School
Warrington Road. Croydon CR0 4BH
Time: 7.30 – 9.30 Refreshments from 7.00 p.m.
Guest Speaker
Councillor Maria Gatland
Cabinet Member for Children's Services & Adult Learning
"The reality is that too many of our young people are not benefiting from a high enough quality of education here in Croydon at the present time …………… And where there is under-performance we must be honest that this is unacceptable and strive to work together to support those schools that are struggling for whatever set of reasons" Cllr M Gatland Jan 25th 2008"
The Association of Croydon Governors are pleased to announce that Cllr Maria Gatland has responded quickly to our invitation to come and talk to governors. Many governors have expressed to us their deep concern with regards to some very damaging publicity for our schools in a series of articles in the Croydon Advertiser. The fact that articles talked about school mergers and closures has been unsettling for our parents and students. We would like to give all governors the opportunity to discuss some of the priorities that Cllr Gatland outlined in her letter to chairs of governors on 25th January .The full letter is available to download as a Word document below. The keys points were:
The ACG are aware that there are many changes ahead for all Croydon Schools and for the governance of those schools. These changes are focused around Building Schools for the Future, The Children’s Plan and the Primary Capital Programme. These initiatives will impact on how we deliver the priorities listed above. More information is available on our website. In The Children’s Plan the government state that they will make governing bodies more effective, beginning by consulting on reducing the size of governing bodies. The DCSF will publish this consultation in the late Spring , the ACG will focus on this when it is available and would like all governors in Croydon to give their views.The Primary Capital Programme: was announced in December. LAs are required to assess their Primary Strategy for Change, to be completed by June 2008. The DCSF will look for evidence that the authority is taking or planning to take decisive action to: ¨ raise standards by bringing new providers into the system and increasing the diversity of primary school provision in the area; ¨ strengthen the governance of schools through Trust partnerships with external partners such as secondary schools and business; ¨ provide for primary schools to work more closely together to raise standards, preferably via federations, consolidated through Trust arrangements ¨ incorporate plans to expand popular and successful primary schools to meet parental demand, or where this is not possible, through extending the influence of such schools via Trusts or federations. I am sure that you will not want to miss this opportunity to put your questions on these issues to Councillor Gatland. As we are expecting a plethora of questions, we ask that you send in your questions to the ACG as soon as possible so that we can ensure that the evening can widely reflect all of the topics that you wish to raise. If you are unable to attend please ensure that another governor from your school can come s that they can feed back to your governing body. Best wishes Lesley Stout Book your place here by email today lesley.stout@blueyonder.co.uk Please give your name and school and if you have a question let us know if you wish to be named or would prefer not.
BSF: The government announced this week that the BSF programme has slipped far behind its expected target which is not good news for Croydon schools, which were not originally to be included in the programme until 2012. Cllr Gatland wrote in her letter: "we must complete the Secondary Schools Review with you to ensure that we have the optimum configuration of secondary schools provision going forward into the Building Schools for the Future process; there are some hard but crucial choices to be made over the next few months and I hope we can face up to those choices and work collaboratively in the best future interests of young people"