Broadgate Primary School

The Governing Body have welcomed two new parent governor members, Amy Milik and Malcolm Rogers.  The existing Governors Skills Audit is now in the process of being updated.  This Skills Audit is the appendix to the Governing Body Effectiveness Action Plan, a self-assessment carried out against the industry standard measures required to demonstrate our effectiveness as a Governing Body and where we can improve through identified actions.  This is reviewed regularly by Governors throughout the year to ensure action has been taken and that the plan remains relevant.  This will continue into the 2024–2025 academic year, particularly as new staff governor will be elected.  Debby Gibson, who had taken over as interim safeguarding Governor, has now taken the role on permanently.

Governors are involved in the recruitment and selection of key staff and use the appointment process to ensure that high quality staff are appointed who share the school’s mission statement, aims and continual strive for improvement.  This year the Governors worked with the Local Authority to appoint a new headteacher in preparation for the retirement of the current headteacher in December 2024.  They successfully recruited Sarah Qualtrough as the new headteacher and she will take up the post in January 2025. 

Governor expertise – the Governors bring a wide variety of expertise to the school and this helps to ensure the school is moving forward.  Recent new appointments to the Governing Body have strengthened existing skills in areas such as project management, procurement, leadership, early years development, legal and compliance and HR – and Governor involvement in sub-committee work allows the school to draw upon these skills.  Governors continue to build on their expertise by attending external training courses regularly.  In the past year governors have undertaken Online Safety training.  The Headteacher and Chair of Governors (Stacey Lalande) continue to have an effective working relationship.

Governors are closely involved with the monitoring of all areas of the School Development Plan and Key Priorities, and in order to make this monitoring more effective, members of the teaching and learning sub-committee each hold responsibility for one aspect of the school development plan so that they are able to focus attention on the key actions linked to the plan.  They have invited key staff to present at teaching and learning sub-committee meetings and have been able to provide both support and challenge to school and subject leaders.  Governors have subject links in order to be able to monitor the quality of the school’s curriculum more effectively.  There are governors linked to English, Maths, Humanities, Arts, STEM, PE and PSHE/RSE.  This has been highly effective and lead to Ofsted (May 2024) recognising governance as a key strength of the school.  Each time a governor visits the school a report is written that is then shared with the full governing body.

Governors continue to be involved with the community as a whole, forming strong links, and representatives of the Governing Body attend board meetings for Horsforth Children’s Services and Horsforth, Headingley and Ireland Wood Children’s centre.