LIVERPOOL GOVERNANCE FORUM

Minutes of committee meeting held at 17:30 pm on Tuesday 18th June 2019 at
St Michael in the Hamlet Primary School, Neilson Road, Liverpool L17 7BA

GUEST SPEAKER: 

Cliff Barton, Governor at Sudley Infant School and LGF Committee Member. Following his recent visit to the country, Cliff gave a brief illustrated talk on Education in a rural part of Kenya. (Refer to Appendix A). 

1.0 STANDARD ITEMS:

1.1	Welcome and Apologies

Present: David Blythe (Honorary Secretary), Dave Cadwallader, Dave Owens, Cliff Barton, Pauline Warrington, Cynthia Carmichael, Marlene Taylor, Michael Morris & Howard Harris

Apologies: Kathy Desmond, Frank McFarlane, Maureen McDaid, Avril O’Brien, Barbara Murray & John Thornhill

In the absence of both the Chair and Vice Chair, David Blythe chaired the meeting and welcomed everyone present. 
                                           
1.2	Declaration of Pecuniary Interest
There was no change since the last LGF meeting.

      1.3 Minutes of the April Meeting       
     The minutes of the meeting held on 30th April 2019 had already been agreed by   
     email and posted on the LGF website. 

1.4	 Matter Arising

There was only one item arising from the previous meeting and this was in fact Item 2.6.1 on the evening’s agenda.       

2.0 LGF Matters and Events

2.1 Finance
      DB advised the current financial status was as follows:  

BANK ACCOUNT	£	
Statement  at 1st June 2019	1971:42	
     
An outstanding invoice has now been received from PfL for £606 covering the conference costs. This had now been paid and the effective bank balance was therefore £1,365:42. 

     2.2 Feedback from Events 
The May conference feedback report had been circulated to committee members and has     also been uploaded onto the LGF website. 

It was noted that a total of 51 Governors and Trustees had attended this 7th conference, which is above the average of 42. Furthermore, the delegates attending the conference clearly indicated the key objectives were fully met and that they had benefitted from their attendance. 

There was a brief discussion regarding using alternative venues, particularly as PfL was not easy to access by public transport. However, it was agreed this needed to be balanced with the increased cost of using other venues. It was also agreed we should consider having a mid-morning break for bacon barms (with alternatives) rather than lunch due to the limited number who remained for lunch and also it would be more cost effective.

     2.3 Future Events
The last meeting of the academic year is scheduled for Tuesday 9th July at 10am when we have two speakers: 

(1) Sally Beevers, Careers Hub Lead for the Liverpool City Region will be our guest speaker. Sally will give an overview presentation on the support available for schools and young people in preparing them for the transition from school to the world of work.

(2) Bernie Davies, LA Benefits Office will give an overview of ‘come2gether’ which explains the support and advice that is available to households who may be suffering from hardship or other crisis. 

     2.4 Website
There have been 220 hits since the last meeting making a total of 1335 hits this year to date.

     2.5 Twitter Account
 The account remains very active with an increasing number of followers.   

      2.6 Others  
          2.6.1 Letter to DfE Minister
The proposed letter had been circulated to committee members in advance of the meeting on behalf of MM the group lead. MM explained the background and prime concerns for writing the letter. Committee unanimously approved the issue of the letter to the Minister and the Chair thanked Michael Morris, John Thornhill, Howard Harris and Erini Cheliotis for producing the robust letter. (Refer to Appendix B)

3.0 Feedback from Representatives
			
3.1 Liverpool Schools Forum
 CB advised the next meeting of the LSF is scheduled for 26th June. However, he was pleased to inform committee that the Formula Funding Working Group has been re-established and had held a meeting on 14th June during which specific financial data was requested from the Council Finance Officer present to enable the group to carry out its role effectively. Furthermore, it should ensure the full LSF group do not encounter the difficulties experienced at previous meetings during the academic year due to lack of meaningful data. 

3.2 LLP Executive Board
DC advised the next meeting was due to be held on 19th June. 

3.3 LLP All Learners & 3.4 LLP LWNM
DC highlighted the key points from the meetings:

Summer Schools: Following the success last year, LLP had again offered funding to secondary schools for summer schools for vulnerable Year 6 children transferring in September. However, this year additional support would be available from the Mental Health Support Team.

Reading: The initial plan was to establishing 40 reading clubs for vulnerable children, however, 100 clubs have been established.  1163 children had participated in the clubs, 84% of whom were vulnerable.

Feedback from schools indicated that the clubs had a very positive impact in relation to children’s attendance, wellbeing, and resilience.
Reading Festival: This will take place from 24th June to 12 July.
Mental Health Update: The Trailblazer programme would initially focus on 24 primary schools, split across the consortia and linked to the 3 YPAS mental health hubs. The programme would be rolled out to other primary schools at a later date.
The 12 mental health workers were receiving training in low level intervention, with the aim being enabling them to provide support at an early stage before the mental health issues escalate.
Primary school mental health leads were meeting once a term, it was hoped to replicate this for secondary schools.
The 12 Education Mental Health Practitioners were spending 2 days a week at training in Salford. This would limit the support they could provide initially, until the training had been completed.
CAMHS: The pathway was being re-mapped for schools and different models were to be presented for consultation.

3.5 LLP Maths Group
No meetings held during the report period. However, PW reminded committee that the 3rd Annual maths party was due to take place on Friday 5th July. 

3.6 LLP Employment and Skills Group
    Still no progress in starting this group. 
  
3.7 Liverpool Safeguarding Partnership Forum
As advised by FM at our April meeting, the first meeting of the new safeguarding partnership is scheduled for 19th June 2019. 

3.8 Other:
There were no other LGF feedback items for mention.  
   
4.0 Other Items for Mention

4.1 NGA 
The NGA held a summer conference in London on Saturday 8th June 2019 which was attended by DO. His summary report had been circulated to committee members in advance of the meeting and was noted. DO also provided various brochures he had obtained at the conference for the information of members. The Chair thanked DO for attending on behalf of the LGF. (Refer to Appendix C). 

         4.2 Other
There being no further matters to raise, the Chair thanked everyone for their attendance and contribution. The Chair closed the meeting at 19:00.      

SUMMARY OF ACTIONS FROM TODAY’S MEETING	
No	TOPIC	ACTION BY	
1	There are no follow up actions from this meeting	-	

Next meeting: Tuesday 9th July at 10 am at Archbishop Blanch CE High School, 80 Earle Road, Liverpool L7 6HQ

Guest speakers:

We have two speakers for our next meeting: 

(1)	Sally Beevers, Careers Hub Lead for the Liverpool City Region will give an overview presentation on the support available for schools and young people in preparing them for the transition from school to the world of work.

(2)	Bernie Davies, LA Benefits Office will give an overview of ‘come2gether’ which explains the support and advice that is available to households who may be suffering from hardship or other crisis. 

APPENDIX A

Introduction: 

DB advised that our guest speaker Cliff Barton needed little introduction being both a long standing Governor at Sudley Infant School and LGF committee member.

Presentation:

Cliff gave an illustrated talk on Education in the North Pokot region of rural north western Kenya, which is quite close to the Ugandan boarder.
 
His interest and passion for the country has resulted from a 2 year teaching experience in the 1970’s and his subsequent involvement in a charity which supports educational development in the country.
 
Cliff advised that on arrival in the country capitol Nairobi, it was quite grand, but moving on to the outskirt areas it was considerably less grand. 
 
During his tour, a number of schools were visited in the region. Whilst they were generally built of brick, they were very basic. However, it was noted that most of the schools had solar panels for lighting and other basic requirements, including some access to Wifi. The classrooms are very bare and the seating and desks very basic.  Some children are taught outside because there are insufficient classrooms.
 
With regards to the curriculum, this was mainly based on the British educational system and English becomes the medium of tuition due to our countries' historic links.  
 
Children generally appeared to be happy and content, but clearly it is a challenging environment to live in on a daily basis, including having to travel some distance to access their schools. 
 
The land which families live on is very dry, but nevertheless, there is some very beautiful background scenery. 
 
The Chair thanked Cliff for his interesting and informative presentation. 

APPENDIX B
LETTER FROM CHAIR TO LORD AGNEW, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION 
ONLINE HARASSMENT OF TEACHERS

I am writing on behalf of the Liverpool Governance Forum which is the representative body of all Liverpool governors and trustees. At a recent meeting, a full discussion was held about online harassment of teachers through the social media.
Whilst recognising the rapid advances and educational value of social media, it is felt that its accessibility has created an online protection issue for school-staff. At best, online communications between parents and staff can help home-school-community relationships and develop positive links.  But, they can also be a distraction and take time away from preparation, delivery and assessment of high-quality learning experiences.  At their worst, they result in bullying, harassment and vexatious complaints.  Many of the latter result from unrealistic expectations of parents and guardians regarding the staff’s responsibility for incidents outside of school hours, and staff do not currently have the mechanisms or tools to defend themselves.  Even where complaints are legitimate and properly investigated following agreed policies and procedures, social media allows parents and guardians to express very publicly their dissatisfaction regarding both process and outcome and often in a threatening manner to individual staff.
As the official voice of school governance in Liverpool, the Liverpool Governance Forum is concerned about the impact of stress on staff arising from the above and the consequences in terms of teacher recruitment and retention, particularly in schools in challenging areas. 
We acknowledge the need for parents and guardians to engage with class teachers in the first instance, but there is an increasing imbalance between the time teachers in particular have to address such matters and the time given to matters directly related to the primary function of their post – teaching.  This is due in part to a lack of resources for proper procedures or channels of communication that would enable staff to pass matters onto others more appropriately trained and experienced to deal with them.
We accept that matters arising from the increased use of social media cannot be fully eradicated, but we believe they can be managed, filtered and monitored to reduce the demotivating impact on teacher self-confidence and performance.  We therefore ask what resources you can offer schools, governors, Local Authorities and other relevant bodies such as the police in order to support and train staff, so that we can continue to attract and retain the best teaching and non-teaching staff in all our schools.

APPENDIX C

NGA LONDON CONFERENCE

SATURDAY 8th JUNE 2019

The conference started with a welcome speech by Maggie Bull Chair of Board of Trustees. This was followed by an Address by Amanda Spielman from Ofsted who outlined the approach that Ofsted were now taking. This meant less emphasise on internal data and more on curriculum and how this benefits pupils. She said that Ofsted looked at Quality of Education, Personal Development, Behaviour and the Environment and Leadership and Management. She spoke about governance in leadership, about clarity of vision, holding management to account and overseeing finance. How the curriculum should have good sequence, what is going to help pupils, good understanding of where children are coming from and for special needs a coherent curriculum. That the inspection was to complement performance tables.

Next was Emma Knights Chief Executive NGA talking about the Right People Around the Table about 8 principles of governance.

The workshop I went to was about Resource Management which looked at how to best use assets whether it is staff or money. A strategic plan no more than 2 pages in length should be used, find out what is best for pupils. Need to cut out duplication.  To use the right person for the task, for example a headteacher doing a job that should be done by an administration officer. The headteachers hourly rate is much higher than administration officer therefore this would not be good use of resources. That a Capacity Audit Tool should be used to ascertain skills needed and then to train, outsource or liaise. To use people in areas they are best suited. To consider bench marketing, also whether Business Manager should be at meeting. 

After lunch I went to the second workshop “A Conversation with the DfE” in which there was discussions about how the DfE could help schools and governors more. Clarity of guidance was discussed and about guidance being in several different places. There being a move to put all guidance in one place. An email address dawn.samwell@education.gov.uk was given for queries.

The final session was given by Professor Dame Alison Peacock, Chief Executive, Chartered College of Teaching who spoke about a new college the Charted College of Teaching the aim of which was to support teachers and improve education of children. There would be a membership fee.

Dave Owens
(LGF Committee Member)