OLDHAM’S oldest and smallest school is celebrating after receiving top marks in a national accreditation scheme.
The governing body of Christ Church Primary School at Denshaw has achieved the prestigious Governor Mark award.
The accolade provides external evaluation of the quality of governance in the school.
Chris Church was adjudged ‘good’ at its 2014 full Ofsted inspection and maintained its grading after a short inspection in May 2018.
Headteacher, Sue Callaghan said: “Achieving the Governor Mark award was a long and challenging process but very worthwhile and rewarding.
“It allowed us to evaluate the impact of the work of the governing body on outcomes for children, and highlighted areas where we needed to sharpen practice and improve process’.
One of the gaps highlighted was for the Governing Body to have a clearer understanding of how the children are being supported in respect of health and wellbeing issues:
Graham Smith Scott, Chair of the health and wellbeing governor group said: “We recognise good health and wellbeing is important in helping children to be resilient and be at their best to achieve their full potential.
“Governors have been extremely impressed with the range of initiatives already in place – led by Mrs Keyl.
“This includes the Year 6 young ambassadors, the popular lunch time activity clubs and ‘fresh minds’ sport project.
“There are many more exciting initiatives in the pipeline, which we believe mark Christ Church primary school as setting leading practice in this area.’
Paula Parslow, chair of the governing body said: ‘We have a hard working and supportive governing body that works with school to ensure that our children not only enjoy and get the most out of their time at Christ Church but that they are equipped to meet future learning and life opportunities with confidence and enthusiasm.
“The journey and work we have collectively put in to achieve the Governor Mark will help us continue to achieve the high standards we expect.”
The award was the culmination of two years’ work by the governing body, gathering evidence, and statements of impact against the Governor Mark framework for good school governance.
The final step in the process was a rigorous series of interviews with members of the school’s governing body by an external assessor from the Governor Mark body.
Governor Mark provides evidence of a school’s impact, effectiveness and compliance with statutory responsibilities to support the leadership and management judgement in Ofsted inspections.
Sometimes governors work hard and make a real difference but no proper record is ever made of this.
Mark helps to sharpen practice as well as create the framework through which governor support and challenge can be shown through real evidence.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.