Governors

Welcome to our Governors’ section. 

Please find below details of how our Governing body is structured, including the names, categories, responsibilities and terms of appointment for each Governor. If you would like to contact any of the Governors, please do so via the Clerk to the Governing Body, at clerk@drydrayton.cambs.sch.uk

The governing board of Dry Drayton CE(C) Primary School provides strategic leadership and accountability in school. It has three key functions:

• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent
• Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils
• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction

The governing board has constituted two committees to assist in this work: “Resources”, and “Curriculum & Learning”. The Terms of Reference for each committee set out the particular areas of responsibility and delegated functions. Briefly, these are finance, personnel, premises, and health and safety for the Resources committee, and ensuring high standards of educational achievement for the Curriculum & Learning committee. Committee membership is shown below:

Individual governors may also have one or more portfolios, which allow focus on specific areas of governance. The current portfolio areas are: safeguarding; staff and pupil wellbeing; SEND, Pupil Premium and Looked After Children; SIAMS and RE; maths; English; and the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Portfolio governors are responsible for monitoring their specific area of governance, for example by visiting the school; meeting and questioning school leaders; talking to teachers, pupils and parents; meeting with Local Authority advisers; and reporting back to the relevant committee or full governing board.

Governor portfolios and committee membership are reviewed at the start of each academic year to ensure that governor work is focussed on key priorities for the school, and that we are meeting our responsibility to ensure legal and regulatory compliance. For the 2023/24 academic year, the key priorities for school are:

• Key priority 1: Develop further the continuous and extended provision for all Reception children, utilising the indoor and outdoor spaces to provide stimulating and challenging experiences to developem independent learning skills in preparation for year 1.
• Key priority 2: Writing expectations are maintained throughout the school and across all subjects.
• Key priority 3: Focus on developing knowledge and confidence in fluency and use of key facts in maths.
• Key priority 4: The whole school continues to engage in improving reading and in reading for pleasure. 
• Key priority 5: The curriculum is fit for purpose, well planned with progression across the whole school and an emphasis on sticky knowledge.

Key priority 1 will be monitored by the link governor for the Early Years Foundation Stage, key priorities 2 and 4 will be monitored by the link governor for English and key priority 3 will be monitored by the link governor for maths. Key priority 5 will be overseen by the Curriculum and Learning committee, with monitoring activities shared between governors. Progress against all the key priorities will be recorded in the School Development Plan and reviewed by governors every half term.