governing body annual report 2019-2020 our vision:...

GOVERNORS’ REPORT JULY 2020

GOVERNING BODY ANNUAL REPORT

2019-2020

OUR VISION:

Quality of life for all

AN UNUSUAL YEAR

What an unpredictable year this has been in the life of our school! This time last year I wrote to you all about the transition year we had just completed as we recruited our new Principal, and to several senior posts within the school, with a focus on putting in place policies to support the sustained progress and wellbeing of our students. At the end of this year, led by a new senior team, we find ourselves having learnt many new skills as we have adjusted to living with a pandemic whilst continuing to support our students and their families through school to home outreach and a limited on-site offer. So, this annual report will inevitably be a bit different to usual.

Governors have continued to meet on-line, and are becoming increasingly skilled at on-line conference calls, while we understand that many of you


are skilling up on home tuition with the support of our You Tube sessions! Meanwhile our staff have spent time adjusting to what living with this virus means for them and working out how they can maximise their contribution to the team effort from their homes, or on rota, on site. The Senior Leadership Team have been in discussions with everyone to ensure that our risk assessments reflect our staff’s real-life circumstances, in the same way as they have developed an individual risk assessment for each student to be worked through with every family. In our own expression that Black Lives Matter we have carefully assessed the health risks for all our staff and removed those who are particularly vulnerable to the virus from the “front line” wherever possible, as well as supporting those who are shielded, or live with a shielded person, to remain at home. I believe our response is an example of a cooperative service operating within the boundaries of new guidance. I hope you’d agree. And we are gradually extending the number of students on-site as our staffing levels and health and safety standards allow, and where our calls to you indicate would meet a need.

In Anna’s first term as Principal we had an inspection by Ofsted of our residential provision and were delighted that we retained our “Good” rating, with some very positive comments about our service embedded in the report. We have continued to improve the fixtures and fittings in our boarding houses, benefitting from the input of our young people. In addition, we have appointed Diane Thackrah, who has enormous experience and expertise in children’s residential care, to visit our provision each half term, to speak with our residents if they wish, and to advise us on any issues she picks up. This reflects our continuing determination to give a voice to all our students about their views on life at Parkwood Hall.

We have also just received some more good news to share as we look towards September re-opening. Focussing on our vision of Quality of life for all the Academy Business Manager, Jo Nyland-Fink has been


concentrating on putting in a bid to modernise our radiators and plumbing so that we can eventually switch from an ancient oil-fired heating system to ground source heating. Just as I started writing this report she heard that the bid has been successful and that we now have £600,000 of Government support for this work that is certainly going to improve the quality of life and warmth of everyone at Parkwood. This is really excellent news and supports us in our aim to make better use of resources and to improve the school estate. Congratulations go to Anna, Jo and her team on this achievement.

I re-read the mission statement we developed last year as I prepared this report – and can see that we have held it in the forefront of our minds even under the most challenging circumstances in this year.

OUR MISSION:

• Growth through personal and social learning • Creation of learning, expertise, skills and fun, on and off site for our

students and their families • Co-operation with partners and our neighbours for educational and

social impact • The opening of our doors to share our resources and site

Governors are enormously grateful to all in our fantastic staff team for the skilful and humane way they have continued to work throughout the


pandemic to support the learning and wellbeing of all our students, and to keep our doors open.

STAFF CHANGES

I’m sure you will have noticed a number of new faces and names on our permanent team during the course of this year, as new staff are recruited to our team to fill vacancies and others move from temporary to permanent. We are delighted that almost all posts are now permanently filled, as we know that the stability this provides is important to you and your children.

I know that you have been receiving weekly calls from the Senior Leadership Team and Claire Hollick during the period when school was closed, or partially open. It’s hard to believe that Anna Mansaray, Andy Smith, Jas Kaur, Laura Parker, Jenna Freeman and David MacFadyen have only been in their posts a year! We are also very pleased to have increased the capacity of our school nursing team with the addition of Laxmi Dahal who joined us in May this year and works alongside Ro. We have increased the number of our Teaching Assistants who are on permanent contracts by 16 new staff (too many to name but welcome to you all!). We were also joined in year by Leanne Evans (Domestic Assistant), Celia Dongwe and Elise San Kebe (Education Support Assistants), James Burley (Site Assistant) and Precious Moyo (Key Worker). We are delighted that they have all chosen to join our team.

At the end of the School year we say goodbye to Chris Allan who is retiring after a teaching career which spanned decades, and was spent entirely at Parkwood Hall. Chris is a familiar face to most of you, and will be sadly missed. I have personally much appreciated her wholehearted commitment to the well-being of boarding students, and her willingness to delay her retirement to ensure that she handed over her knowledge of this area fully to Deputy Principal, Andy Smith, who replaces her. I know Anna has also benefitted from Chris’ knowledge of the school across many areas, as she began her tenure as Principal at Parkwood Hall. So, we send Chris on her way with all our very good wishes for a long and happy retirement.

Two other longstanding teachers at the school have also retired this year, and our thanks go to Linda Doughty and to Janine Sofocleous for their


contribution to the school. Simon Sandhu leaves us after 8 years as an Education Support Assistant with us, and Melody Dalligan and Jenny Bacon both longstanding from the Speech and Language Team both moved on this year. Amy Lynch and Amanda Smith both worked at our school as Teaching Assistants for 10 years or more. We thank them all for their service to Parkwood Hall.

And congratulations to Emma Elliott and Oliver Holme for their promotions to Unqualified Teacher and Senior Teaching Assistant respectively this year.

ABOUT THE STUDENT ROLL

Student Numbers start of year

2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21

Total 103 107 114 113 Day 87 89 92 95 Boarding 16 18 22 18

This year we have drawn our students from 16 different areas as far away as Oxfordshire, Medway, Essex and Kent, as well as 12 different London Boroughs. The majority of our students come from Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Kent. We maintain our aim to serve London and the South East, and our new Senior Team has really focussed on getting our admissions right to ensure that we can confidently meet the needs of all new students who join our school. This involves visiting prospective


students in their schools, and getting to know about them thoroughly prior to admission.

Although many of our students have not been in school for a while now every one has had personal attention from someone at school, and the school day has continued for those who did make it in. Governors have received detailed weekly briefings from Anna on the excellent work that has been continuing during the year.

Our flexible boarding offer continued to prove popular with families and Local Authorities over the first term and a half of the year mainly as a way of providing respite, and we will continue to provide this offer as space allows in addition to our full-time boarding places. The Treetops service will also run for three weeks again during the Summer Holiday due to popular demand!

During the course of the year there has been investment in ensuring that all classrooms have the same high-quality white board technology, and equally that all classrooms are brought up to the same standard of décor and furniture in order to create the calm environment that was trialled successfully in the previous year. I visited the classrooms in February and the improvement in the learning environment was already very noticeable to me.

Financially we remain in a secure position through continued demand for places and so in this year took the decision to return the 1% increase in fees pro rata to each Council because we know the financial difficulties many Councils are facing, and we had sufficient surplus to share. Again, this is an example of our cooperative ethos in action. We have not increased our fees for the coming year, and expect there to be a continued demand for our places.

Although the plans for the Annex that I reported last year did not turn out to be a sensible investment we have continued to improve our Boarding


facilities in the Main Building with new carpeting and furniture. This summer we are renovating a further eight bathrooms so that each boarder can access modern high-quality facilities, and we are creating an additional set of more independent bedrooms in the main building for older students who are residential. We are also re-developing a significant area dedicated to the Sixth Form where all their activities are brought together in one place. During the course of the year Anna and her team have been dividing the school building into different zones to make it easier to navigate for our students, and the Sixth Form and refreshed Library will materialise over the Summer to complete that work.

We very much look forward to receiving our students back in September, and hope that the progress of the pandemic allows this – there has been so much hopeful planning for that moment of seeing everyone again.

STUDENT ASSESSMENT, PROGRESS AND SIXTH FORM

One of the few benefits of the Coronavirus has been the time that it has provided Deputy Principal, Jas Kaur and the Assistant Principals Laura, Jenna and David to really drill down into the nuts and bolts of developing a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum. The therapy Team have been part of this effort and are developing new techniques for supporting the

learning that is going on in the classroom as well as in residential activities. The results have been phenomenal: a comprehensive set of standards, quality assurance forms, class plans, literacy and numeracy plans, on-line training courses for staff and Governors – and the achievement of a platinum literacy

mark! In addition the school has purchased some software called Evidence for Learning that will allow us to chart the individual progress


each of our students makes against their targets and will give us an overview of how all our students are progressing at school, and in the boarding houses.

I hope you will notice the increased focus on reading that has won us our Literacy Mark, and will enjoy the opportunity of reading at home with your child when the new year begins and book bags begin to appear! We have invested in our Library to support this aim to develop a love of reading amongst our students.

In February, Claire Hollick, our Student Liaison Officer, organised a Transitions event for our Leavers with Post 16 and 19 providers, Local Authorities and Charities on hand to advise. It was a great success and will become an annual event, to be

held again in October we hope. We are also grateful to Claire for starting up the Parents Forum again. Please get in touch with her if you’d like to join in!

This year amongst so many stars I want to pay a special tribute to our cleaners, Anne Marie, Sue, Leanne, Susan, Tina, Susan, Michelle and Sue and their leader Lynn who have had such a key role to play in keeping our school open and functioning safely. They have done a really great job for us and are fantastic and valued members of our team.

Although it has been a most unusual year for our students I have heard repeatedly of the real partnership between home and school that has kept our students learning and given them reassurance in such difficult times.

STUDENT LEAVERS

This year we have already said goodbye to Irial and Alicia, and at the end of the week bid farewell to Kehinde, Taiwo, Enitan, Josh, Osaze, Albert, George, Libby, Sarah and Katie. In the chart below you can see where


they move onto, and we send them on their way with our appreciation of them all and their contribution to the family that is Parkwood Hall.

Onward destination Numbers 52 week boarding provision 1 Home tuition pending LA decision 1 St Piers College 2 St John’s College 1 West Kent College 2 Nash College 1 East Kent College 1 Not yet notified 3

KEEPING ACTIVE IN A PANDEMIC YEAR

We have been sad to miss many of our planned activities this year, including, of course the trip to Disneyland Paris. We hope that our YouTube site has been keeping your child busy for some of the time.

Before lockdown we enjoyed a Christmas performance again, where we saw many talents in action, and we look forward to more from our new performing arts team in the new year.

On 6th March we celebrated World Book Day as everyone dressed up as a character from a book – including our staff, and students enjoyed an

interactive storytelling session from Bag Books. On 25th March we managed just in time to squeeze in a visit from Wonderdome – providing a fun and interactive space related session.

As I write this I look forward to our on-line sports event, and hope that you are all able to participate in some of the activities if not all. It has been great to see the creativity of our staff group in filling the gaps left by lockdown, and I hope it

provides both fun and exercise for you all at home.


YOUR GOVERNING BODY

Since our onset as an Academy there have been places for five Parent Governor representatives on our Governing Body. However, we recognise how difficult it is for parents - many of whom do not live close to the school, and all of whom lead busy lives - to be an active member of the Board. For several years now when we have advertised we have not filled them, and it is exceptional when a parent puts themselves forward. We had no candidates for the most recent election. We also recognise that the school has been in a period of transition, and are very pleased to note that the new Senior Leadership Team have placed a strong emphasis on listening to parents since the beginning of this school year. So, in recognition of the reality, Governors took the decision to reduce the established number of Parent Governors to two at their last meeting. We continue to hope to recruit Parents to our Board and we are particularly interested in hearing from you if you have teaching or safeguarding experience that you would like to contribute to our Curriculum Committee.

Governors currently on our Board are:

Name Governor Role Committees Joseph Osunde Parent Chair of Curriculum and

Strategy Committee (C&S), and Full Governors Board (FGB)

Simon Blackburn Parent Member of Finance and General Purposes Committee (F&GP)

Steve Finch Parent FGB Elisa Valdez Staff C&S and FGB Annette Thompson Staff C&S and FGB Anna Mansaray Co-opted All Committees Libby Blake Community Chair FGB, All

Committees Katherine Priestley Community Vice Chair FGB and

F&GP Abi Agidee Adekunle Community C&S and FGB John Paschoud Co-operative

Governor F&GP and FGB


Name Governor Role Committees Philip Osman Community Chair F&GP and FGB Vacancy Community Vacancy Community Vacancy Community

In this year we have just said goodbye and thank you to a number of Governors. Barbara McBrien, a Community Governor chaired our Finance Committee, and has been a Governor for four years. Isa Ros Lopez, Community Governor, also stepped down due to her work commitments. We said goodbye and paid tribute to Bob Walkington, Community Governor, who has been a part of our Governing Board longer than he cared to remember, as variously Chair of Governors, Chair of Finance and Vice Chair of Governors. Bob oversaw the transfer from Local Authority oversight to Academy status, and his commitment to the school has been phenomenal. Richard Allalouf, Parent Governor stepped down when his son left Parkwood Hall in the New Year. We are delighted that Bob, his wife Brenda, and Richard are all continuing their support of the School as Members of our Trust.

We are also delighted to have recruited two new Governors in Philip Osman and John Paschoud, who have already proved worth their weight in gold – Philip as he has stepped into the role of chairing our Finance and General Purposes Committee bringing with him huge experience as a Company Secretary and also of the Care Home sector, and John for the expertise he brings on IT, procurement and the Co-operative Movement which he represents for us. I also owe Joseph Osunde a vote of thanks for taking on the role of Chair for the Curriculum and Strategy Committee, and for his quiet wisdom and expertise on curriculum and IT matters. Thank you too to Katherine Priestley for stepping into Bob’s shoes as Vice Chair, for all her support to me this year, and for being willing to take on chairing our Pay Committee in the New Year. Katherine’s expertise is in employment law, compliance and ethics.

If you are interested in exploring what is involved in becoming a Parent Governor and how you could contribute please get in touch with me at [email protected] , or leave me a message with Linda Marsella. I will be really delighted to hear from you!

mailto:[email protected]


So I close this report with my congratulations to Anna Mansaray and her team for what has been an exceptional year in so many ways, and for the calm and considered way in which they have successfully responded to the crisis, and the leadership they have shown in keeping our school open to those in priority need.

We wish you all an enjoyable summer, wish our leavers well, and look forward to welcoming new and old students back at the start of the Autumn Term.

Libby Blake

Chair of Governors

On behalf of the Governing Board

Parkwood Hall Co-operative Special Needs Academy

governing body annual report 2019-2020 our vision:...

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