Three parent governors who are elected by the parent body and must be the parent or carer of a child attending the school at the time of their appointment. They should keep in touch with other parents but make up their own minds on how to vote on any specific issue.
One Staff governor elected by their colleagues.
The Headteacher is a member of the governing body by right.
One Local education authority governor appointed by Kent County Council.
Eight Co-opted governors appointed by the governing body based on their skills and experience.
Associate Members of the Governing Body are appointed by the Governing Body to provide specific skills which may, from time-to-time, be needed to help the governors discharge their responsibilities.
The Governing Body has many different responsibilities, but primarily it must promote high standards of academic achievement and help ensure that the school is a safe and happy place for its pupils.
It helps to do this in many different ways, including setting school budgets, ensuring the National Curriculum is taught to all pupils, setting targets for achievement, monitoring information about the quality of teaching in the school and comparing results with other schools and dealing with parental complaints and concerns and making regular monitoring visits.
It also takes a long-term, strategic look at how the school should develop, and always welcomes the opinions of and representations from, parents, staff, pupils and the local community.
Finance and Property (F&P).
Governor membership of these committees is shown below along with the specific responsibilities of each committee.
The governors can be contacted by email by clicking on the enquiry form link below or in writing via the school office, please address your correspondence to the Chair of Governors.
Please note however than any questions about the day-to-day operation of the school, or any complaints, should first be directed to your child's class teacher, phase leader, or the headteacher.
Please note: This figure reflects extenuating circumstances due to family commitments.
GB – Governing Body, LA – Local Authority.
The 'Date Appointed' is for the current term of office. Several governors have completed more than one term of office, or have been appointed by different appointing bodies during their time serving on the governing body.
Attendance figures are for the Academic Year 2018-2019 and show the percentage of meetings attended out of the total expected. Governors are expected to attend all meetings of the Full Governing Body and two out of the three committees. Some governors have chosen to attend all committees although they are not obliged to do so. In this case their attendance percentage is greater than 100%.
Please note attendance at meetings is not the only indicator of the time committed to the governing body. Governors make monitoring visits to the school, write reports, review documents, attend school events, meet with school leaders and members of staff and attend regular training.
Declaration of Material, Business & Pecuniary Interests.
Treasurer, Phoenix Autism Centre Tonbridge (PACT) attached to Cage Green School.
Partner provides IT services to the school.
Below are more details about the responsibilities of the governing body committees.
Ensuring the governing body is properly constituted to include the correct number of representative governors and that the structure of the governing body meets the necessary statutory and legal requirements.
Appointment of the Chair, Vice-Chair and Clerk to the Governors.
Appointment of the Headteacher and Deputy-Headteacher and to annually review the performance of the Headteacher. If necessary the FGB has the power to suspend the Headteacher.
Approval of the first formal budget plan each year.
Agreeing the delegation of tasks and authority to the Headteacher and the committees described below and to review these annually.
Playing a vital role in agreeing strategy and future plans and reviewing reports from the committees and Headteacher which include monitoring the financial and educational performance of the school to ensure it is meeting its targets.
Reviewing and adopting policies covering the operation of the school or delegating the review and adoption of certain policies to the appropriate committee.
Regularly reviewing the School Improvement Plan to ensure the school is on track to achieve its objectives.
Where necessary, agreeing any actions required where there is a concern educational or financial targets may be missed.
Ensuring the school does not discriminate against pupils, job applicants or staff on the basis of race, religion, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.
Ensuring the school provides teaching of religious education for all pupils in accordance with the agreed syllabus and has informed parents of their right to withdraw their child.
To ensure that the school has a parental complaints procedure.
To hear staff appeals against dismissal, complaints or redundancy.
To approve the school prospectus and ensure the information is up to date.
To ensure the schools compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The FGB regularly receives presentations and case-studies from members of staff to provide insight into the work of the school and the challenges it faces. These may include, for example, details about additional help (or interventions) being given to a particular group of children in the school where the performance data has suggested extra support would be beneficial. Please note the governors only ever see anonymised data and will never be given access to data about individual pupils.
The schools finances are managed according to strict guidelines. It is the role of the F&P Committee to annually review the Finance Policy and levels of financial delegation and to ensure that the ‘Schools Financial Value Standard’ is followed and that an annual return is made to the Local Authority to show there is a robust system of monitoring and internal control in place.
This committee also maintains a balanced three year budget which is used to plan the schools expenditure and ensure that there are clear links to the School Improvement and Staffing plans.
Maintain a strategic overview of the schools financial planning.
Evaluate proposed expenditure following recommendations from the Headteacher.
Benchmark the schools financial performance against similar schools.
Monitor and evaluate spending of the Pupil Premium & Sports Premium.
Ensure all spending provides value for money.
Make regular reports on the work of the committee to the Full Governing Body.
This committee maintains an overview of the state of the school buildings through a regular property survey and is responsible for ensuring that there is a properly funded maintenance plan in place.
This committee also oversees the procurement of certain services through scrutiny of tenders for those services.
The Personnel & Professional Development (P&PD) Committee maintains an overview of the schools staffing structure in consultation with the Headteacher and establishes a pay and reward policy for all categories of staff and ensures this policy is correctly administered and reviewed.
The committee also ensures there are policies in place to handle matters of staff discipline, grievance, capability and redundancy based on guidance from the local authority.
Oversees the appointment procedure for all staff (please note the Governing body are only directly responsible for the appointment of the Headteacher and Deputy Headteacher).
Establishes and keeps under review the performance management policy for all staff.
Keeps under review staff work/life balance, working conditions and well-being, including monitoring of absence.
Will make recommendation on personnel related expenditure to the Finance & Property Committee.
Will consider appeals against pay and grading decisions.
Will consider staff complaints made to the Governing Body under the statutory complaints procedure.
Ensures all Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks are in place and up-to-date.
Maintains an audit of Governor skills and training and recommends the assignment of governors to appropriate committees.
This committee monitors pupil numbers, performance data and oversees curricular issues, focussing in particular on those which may have an impact on finance and personnel decisions.
This committee also coordinates monitoring visits to the school and where necessary provides feedback to the Full Governing Body.
The committee monitors and regularly reviews the Curriculum policy. It also oversees the statutory annual review of the School’s Sex Education Statement, Special Educational Needs Policy and Religious Education Statement.
The committee also monitors progress against the curriculum targets of the School Development Plan and regularly reviews the performance data for the school.
Where necessary meetings will take place with the lead professionals within the school to gain an understanding of the scope of the curriculum targets and the activities the school is conducting to achieve success.
The committee will evaluate the extent of success at the end of the set timescale and review pupil progress and attainment against the agreed targets.
From September 2017 onwards, the agreed public minutes of all Full Governing Body and Committee meetings have been published online. Please use the link below to access these. Minutes from previous years are available upon request from the school office.
