LIVERPOOL GOVERNANCE FORUM

Minutes of committee meeting held at 10:00 pm on Tuesday 9th July 2019 at
Archbishop Blanch CE High School, 80 Earle Road, Liverpool L7 6HQ

GUEST SPEAKERS:

Sally Beevers, the Careers Hub Lead for the Liverpool City Region, gave an overview on the support which is available for schools and young people as they prepare for the transition from school to the world of work. (Refer to Appendix A).

1.0 STANDARD ITEMS:

1.1	Welcome and Apologies

Present: Kathy Desmond (Chair), Frank McFarlane (Vice Chair), David Blythe (Honorary Secretary), Dave Cadwallader, Dave Owens, Cliff Barton, Pauline Warrington, Cynthia Carmichael, Marlene Taylor, Howard Harris, Amanda Patmore, Avril O’Brian, Mary Donohue  

Apologies: Michael Morris, Andy Chadwick, Barbara Murray, John Thornhill 

Visitor: KD welcomed to the meeting Martin Reynolds, Chair of Governors, Monksdown Primary
                                       
1.2	Declaration of Pecuniary Interest
There was no change since the last LGF meeting in June. 

      1.3 Minutes of the June Meeting       
 The minutes of the meeting held on 18th June 2019 had already been agreed by email and     posted on the LGF website. 

1.4	 Matter Arising

There were no matters arising from the June meeting.     

2.0 LGF Matters and Events

2.1 Finance
      DB had emailed to members the finance information prior to today’s meeting as follows:  

BANK ACCOUNT	£	
Statement  at 1st July 2019
Less cheque still to be cashed by PfL for conference 
Therefore effective balance	1910.42
-606.00
1304.42	
     
However, DB advised the annual subscription for £2,775: 00 from LPHA had been received in the post this morning, but still awaited payment from LASH. 

 2.2 Feedback from Events 
No events had taken place since the last meeting. However, DB had circulated to members an updated summary of the attendances and costings for the 7 conferences delivered by LGF over the last few years which committee noted. 

     2.3 Future Events
The first issue of the 2019/20 academic year meeting schedule was circulated to committee members in advance. There are still some ‘gaps’ but the Secretary will update the document and re-issue when the information is advised to him. 

It was noted that the first committee meeting would be at Notre Dame Catholic College on Tuesday 24th September 2019. 

KD reminded members of the importance of obtaining speakers for our meetings and conferences. After some discussion, it was agreed we should further consider “staff wellbeing” as a suitable topic for conference. 
  
     2.4 Website
 There have been 53 hits since the last meeting making a total of 1388 hits for this year to date.

      2.5 Twitter Account
 AO’B advised the account remains very active and we have increased our followers to 489. There appears to be a growing interest from Headteachers. 

      2.6 Others  
 The first draft of the 2018/19 Annual Review was circulated in advance of the meeting for   scrutiny and comment. It was noted the final finance data would not be available until the year- end on the 31st August 2019. DB advised he would re-circulate the document with the year- end finance information in early September and then formally release the document to school governors and our partners. The document was approved by committee and the proposed distribution plan. 

LGF board members thanked DB for his care in preparing the review which consistently raises the profile and professionalism of the Forum.  It shows where and how we spend the schools’ subscriptions.     

3.0 Feedback from Representatives
			
3.1 Liverpool Schools Forum
The last meeting of the year had taken place on 26th June, which CB, MT, DO, MMcD & DB had attended. After some of the difficulties experienced at earlier meetings, it was generally noted that the quality of information to make decisions had improved. However, it was difficult to forward plan with confidence due to the lack of meaningful information from the DfE. School budgets would remain challenging and there would be much greater scrutiny of individual school budgets which were in surplus. 

It was agreed KD would once again write to Sandra Tai and Peter Fay confirming the LGF governors on the LSF. 

3.2 LLP Executive Board
KD had attended the last meeting and provided an overview of the proposed plans for the new academic year starting in September.    

3.3 LLP All Learners & 3.4 LLP LWNM
No meetings had taken place since the last committee meeting.

3.5 LLP Maths Group
PW advised feedback was now awaited following the recent ‘Maths Party’ held on 5th July and the ‘Dragons Den’ event (Year of the environment) held on 8th July. However, it was noted that the 3 category winners were: St Charles Primary school, North Liverpool Academy Secondary school and Archbishop Beck the overall. 
	
3.6 LLP Employment and Skills Group
      There is still nothing to report from this group.
    
3.7 Liverpool Safeguarding Partnership Forum
FM confirmed he had attended the first meeting which was held on 19th June, but it was primarily an introductory meeting with little information to report back. The next meeting is scheduled for 25th September 2019. 

3.8 Other:
No other items were raised.   
   
4.0 Other Items for Mention

4.1 NGA 
               There was nothing to report. 

         4.2 Other

4.2.1 Letter to the Minister:
KD advised that to date she had not received an acknowledgment or response to her     letter of 19th June regarding the harassment of staff through social media. 
	
4.2.2 The Key: 
KD, MT and DB attended the conference held on 4th July at the Lowry Centre, Salford. The theme for the conference was “The knowledge to act: Workload and Wellbeing”. The event covered a range of topics; carrying out a whole school workload review, networking for peer to peer support, coaching practice to support staff resilience and wellbeing through to wellbeing ideas from a HR prospective, including having a robust and supportive staff absence policy in place and carrying out staff surveys occasionally. 

It was a well organised event with about 65 governors present from across the North West and was well received from the delegates present. It provided some meaningful information together with a number of thought- provoking ideas. 

4.2.3 NEBULA Attendance Project
DB attended a recent update presentation on this project at the Town Hall, which was chaired by BM.

BM mentioned a while ago that a small project team was being set up with a commercial supply to develop some suitable software to monitor school attendance / headteacher dashboard. Initial funding for this project has been secured from ‘Liverpool Educational Grants Trust’. 

Liverpool lags behind other core cities when it comes to school attendance. Indeed, it has a profound impact on children’s learning and progression. The key aims therefore are to produce a system which will provide information to address attendance issues and ultimately improve attendance, attainment and reduce staff time chasing up children who are absent from school. 

The schools involved are: 

Archbishop Blanch, Abbots Lea, Alsop High, De la Sal and St Nicholas Academy. Holly Lodge will be joining the group in September

The schools have worked hard testing the software, identify teething issues and inputting data to enable comparisons to be made when the system becomes live. 

Some challenges remain and although public health has had an important input, it is recognised getting NHS to input data may be difficult. For example, children may get authorised absence to attend morning hospital clinics only for delays to roll over into the afternoon and thus cause an unauthorised absence! 

However, the pilot will take place between September and December with the aim of evaluation and feedback taking place in January 2020. 

The Chair closed the meeting at 11:40 am.
      
SUMMARY OF ACTIONS FROM TODAY’S MEETING	
No	TOPIC	ACTION BY	
1	Circulate to the 2018/19 annual review when the year end financial data is available: (1) committee members and (2) formally release to partners	DB	
2	Confirm to Sandra Tai and Peter Fay the LGF governors who are members of the LSF committee	KD	
3	Consider ‘Staff wellbeing’ as a conference topic  	All 

Next meeting: Notre Dame Catholic College on Tuesday 24th September 2019 when Jonathon Dickson will be the guest speaker and provide an update on Resonate Liverpool Music Hub / developing the music curriculum. 

APPENDIX A

KD introduced our guest speaker: Sally Beevers, the Careers Hub Lead for the Liverpool City Region, who provided an overview of the support which is now available for schools and young people in preparing them for the transition from school to the world of work. 

Sally explained that after 33 years in secondary education, including 8 years as head teacher, she was now specialising in Careers Education and had become involved in this exciting new initiative which was funded through the DfE to improve careers education for the young people of the Liverpool City Region.

20 career hubs have been established across the country with the key task of improving careers education and to help prepare young people for the world of work.

It is encouraging that the government now recognises there is a ‘gap’ from school to work, particularly around having suitable transferable skills, resilience and innovation.

Key to addressing the issues are a clear careers strategy and encouraging schools to meet the Gatsby Benchmarks, which are frameworks of 8 guidelines that define the best careers provision: 

1.	A stable careers programme
2.	Learning from career and labour market information
3.	Addressing the needs of each pupil
4.	Linking curriculum learning to careers
5.	Encounters with employers and employees
6.	Experiences of workplaces
7.	Encounters with further and higher education
8.	Personal guidance

Sally advised she is currently supporting 34 schools in achieving this standard and this will increase to 80 in September. 

The project is aimed at maintained secondary schools, including specials, but it is also hoped to provide some limited support to primary schools.

The overall aim is to ensure that more of our young people are leaving education better prepared for the world of work.

Further information can be obtained from the Liverpool City Regional Local Enterprise Partnership website: 

www.liverpoollep.org 

APPENDIX B

Bernie Davies from the LA Benefits Team was scheduled to be our second guest speaker and provide an overview of ‘come2gether’ which explains the support and advice that is available to households who may be suffering from hardship or other crisis. Unfortunately he did not attend or advise on his absence.