Year 5 Assembly

I have heard lots of stories about this now. The children did very well. They had been well rehearsed by their teachers and a lot of effort had gone into the event. Well done all of you! The theme of freedom and responsibility was an interesting one. The only thing that was missing though was a sense of joy, a sense of pride in their presentation, a sense of a class enjoying achieving as a team.

The other children watching were also impressive in their discipline. They filed in and out beautifully and sat in such silence it seemed you could hear a pin drop. One look at their faces however told a different story - they seemed terrified. Apparently some of the staff did too! Not a happy school...


Finally there was Mrs Cleugh's little speech at the end. What was that all about? As usual the thanks expressed to the children was minimal. She mainly seemed concerned though about patting herself on the back. Especially in an environment where no-one could talk back - good use of human shields there, Mrs Cleugh. Oh, and are we expecting an exodus of teachers at the end of this term for her to trumpet that one is staying?


Anyway, that is what I have picked up. Please leave a comment to let me know if I have heard it wrong, or if this was close enough to your impression.

Further changes to commenting...

I really dont understand all this Internet computer stuff! Ok, Anonymous commenting is re-enabled, but Moderation remains in place. This means that all posts will be checked before being published and maybe vetoed...

Please focus on the school and not each other - can be hard admitedly when there are disagreements. Please accept that in many cases a differing view of what is going on could be completely valid.

For those interested in the Diocesan Education Dept you can find all about it here: http://www.rcdow.org.uk/education/. Click on Contact Us and you can even see what they look like.

What about this blog then?

Ok, this blog - what do we do with it? It was created as a 'discussion' area but I think we can all accept that it has become something of a wayward child. Some people are distressed by it, some people consider it cyber-bullying, many are concerned about its negative impact on the school, the church and the community.

The reason this blog started was that many people were distressed by what was going on at the school and felt that they could not get their concerns listened to, never mind addressed. Many people have reflected on the pain expressed by some of the posters here and perhaps it can be compared to the child having a tantrum in the supermarket - a bit embarrasing!

However, I also feel that this blog has been a success in as much as it has been noticed. Many people appear to have posted to it, although it is of course frustrating that it has been so anonymous. Some ex-staff members and some ex-parents have expressed sadness with their experiences at the school and have not had adequate closure, therefore they still hurt.

Following what has been suggested in several posts I therefore appeal to the Governors (and Diocese and LA if appropriate) to set up a credible process / review / whatever whereby people can feel their concerns are really being listened to and acted on as deemed appropriate by the appropriate authority. Once there is a better channel for these discusions / allegations / whatever to be expressed in, there will be no more need for this blog and it can vanish!

In the meantime 'comment moderation' has been activated in this site, meaning the administrator has vetoing powers over any comments submitted before they are visible to everyone. I hope this will go some way at least to reducing some of the unpleasantness that has taken place. It will also mean there will be a time delay between you posting a comment and it appearing.

Thank you Governors

Parents meeting this last week was good by all accounts. The all out war that the Governors feared and perhaps some others wanted did not take place. More on this in a minute. It was great to see our Governors put forward some very sensible thoughts following the survey that had taken place. The presentation was very professional and questions handled well. Content was generally good and a lot of work had gone into preparing for this. Thank you Governors.

There was no apology for the previous silence from the Governing Body, which was a shame, although there was some admission it needed to improve. This activity, though, can at last start laying to rest the idea that the Governors are not communicating. Of course, the proof of the pudding will be, as they say, in the eating.

It was, therefore, reassuring to hear that the Governors are proposing to redo the survey at some point in the future so that they can see if things are improving. This will mean, of course, that the questions on the survey will need to remain the same for the time being. Most of us can live with that.

For people reading this blog and wondering about this school it can be happily said that overall this was a job very well done by the Governing body.

As mentioned above, no wars broke out in the meeting. This is because we all observed an undeclared truce on the subject of the head-teacher. I think this was the right thing to do. The lady was there in the room for one thing. Also, it would have been a shame to derail the progress that was being made. Some people were very frustrated that this area was not raised, but I suspect others were very relieved. Anyway, I will pick this up in my next post...

Maintenance Time

Comments suspended for a while so I can try and get this into some order....

So is there a meeting tomorrow?

Has anyone heard anything? I know there was the note some while ago, but has it been confirmed? Do we know what time it will start? I guess it will be in the school hall, but that is still a guess. Come on Governors - a little publicity will help if you want people to turn up! An agenda would also be nice.

I suppose my ideal meeting would run somethng like this:

• Welcome from the Governors
• Explanation of the Governing Body - who is on it, who they represent, how it works, what they are supposed to do
• Normal communication that will flow from the Governors to parents
• How we raise issues with the Governing Body and how they will handle them
• What has unfolded at the school over the last few years to cause the noise that is rumbling now, including explanations of 'special measures', the survey etc.
• How the body that they are setting up to handle parents concerns relating to all of this will work
• General school action plan they are implementing
• Time for questions on the overall plan
• Proposed date of the next open meeting
• Any other business

I suppose we will have to wait and see...

A little order please....

BLOG RULES: I have taken the step of deleting a number of comments that I feel have been too personal and accusatory. This blog has been set up so that concerns around the school can be discussed, but we do need to be wary of slandering one another. I appreciate that there are people who feel hurt and upset by events at the school, but the purpose of this blog site is not to just 'spread the pain'. Where we want others to be held to account, we also have to be prepared to be held to account as well.

Full Parents Meeting - May 10th

Thanks for all the comments! This is fantastic! There is some good discussion starting up too. As you may have realised the Governors are also aware of this site now and I am sure they are looking at it. Hopefully they are also getting a flavour of the mood of some of us. Lets not be too unpleasant in what we say - we are all supposed to be Christians after all.

As a commenter has pointed out there is a full parents meeting on May 10th. We keep saying we want the Governors to listen - that means we, in our turn, need to at least turn up. If we show no interest, then why should they?

So, what do you want hear? What 3 things would you like the Governors to have in their action plan? Please let us all know.