St Margaret’s C of E Primary School
15 - 19 North Street 
Barking,
Essex IG11 8AS 
☎: 020 8594 4003
✉: st-margarets-school@genesistrust.net

Governors’ Annual Statement to Parents 2021-22

As a Governing Body, we pride ourselves on being a critical friend of our schools, questioning and supporting the school leadership in their mission to provide an even better education for the benefit of all of our pupils. We are chosen for the Governing Body by our Directors and via election by you, the parents and carers of the children of St Margaret’s. We are predominantly parents of children at one of the schools and we are sure you’ll join us on St. Margaret’s journey to excellence.

We’d like to welcome you to St. Margaret’s Church of England Primary School (part of Genesis Education Trust) and communicate key information about the school and its Governance.  You will see our photos up on boards at the school, so please do say hello when you see us in the playground.

We are a church school, located in Barking that serves the local community, Church and non-church goers alike. We believe that every adult and child is precious no matter what race, sex, creed, religion, social background, physical or intellectual achievement. 

Ofsted graded St Margaret’s as a Good school in 2019 under the most recent OFSTED framework.  The school has received an ‘excellent’ grading for its SIAMS church inspection which is carried out by the Diocese of Chelmsford; this is a statutory inspection that all church schools undergo in addition to Ofsted inspections.
Governance Arrangements
The Governing Body is made up of 9 positions as follows:
•	One Parent Governor appointed by a ballot of parents 
•	One Staff Governor appointed by a ballot of staff 
•	The Head Teacher
•	Six Foundation Governors appointed by the Directors
Our annual meeting planner helps us to ensure all the topics we are required to discuss each year are covered. 

Attendance Record and Skills Analysis 

A copy of the Governing Body’s annual attendance record is available on the school website.  This details who attended each type of meeting.  In the autumn term of each academic year, the Governing body also completes an annual skills analysis; we use this to inform us of our training and development needs and to help to identify gaps that we can fill when recruiting for our vacancies.   This report has been anonymised and is also available on the school website for your reference. 

Effectiveness and Impact of the Governing Body

Following the positive Ofsted and Diocese SIAMS inspection, the school remains highly ambitious and continues its upward trajectory towards outstanding. Guiding us to achieve our targets and objectives for improved provision across the school, is the School Development Plan (SDP). It is a key part of monitoring and promoting the highest quality in our delivery, ensuring the highest possible quality of teaching and learning for our pupils.  

The integrated curriculum is fully embedded and children are enjoying the raised expectations that the curriculum provides.  Staff are working tirelessly to ensure lessons are engaging, pacey and challenging for all pupils.  

The School Evaluation Form (SEF) highlights the provision and achievements within the school along with areas for development.  Observations and monitoring activities take place on a regular basis.  These evaluations of teachers’ practice and the support put in place to bring about change ensures that there is a drive for all teachers - as a minimum - to be a graded good practitioner.  Some members of staff exceed this and are outstanding. 

During the pandemic, the school has taken enormous pride in the fact that all our pupils were offered full days learning as per our usual timetable and high-quality teaching throughout. We were able to educate our children remotely as well as on site for our key worker pupils. We worked closely together with those parents and carers who preferred to work with their child on learning at home and ensured that they had the correct resources, activities and tasks. Our vision to offer every child the opportunity to become an independent learner with an enquiring mind has meant that we have continued to provide our pupils with an outstanding educational offer.

School Performance Data

With the global outbreak of Covid-19, this academic year has been severely affected as it has for all schools and businesses. We have been incredibly fortunate to work with our dedicated staff to keep our schools open for key workers and our most vulnerable pupils during both lockdowns.  As governors, we have seen first-hand the exceptional work that has been planned and executed to ensure children continue to learn in school as well as at home.
Even though statutory end of year data is not being collected this summer for 2020-21, in recent years our school has continued to produce attainment and progress ahead or in line with national averages by the end of our children’s primary school career. There are several sources for you to examine historical data:
Please see our website www.st-margarets-barking.org.uk and under the ‘Parents’ drop-down menu you will see ‘Reports’, where current and past data and Ofsted/Diocese reports are available, and also ‘School Performance Table’ which links to the Department for Education’s page of data on the school. You can also visit the Ofsted Dashboard at http://dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk/ and search for St Margaret’s by typing in the postcode IG11 8AS.

And finally...

Whilst rigorously ensuring that staff and pupils are kept safe in line with DFE Covid-19 guidance for schools, key priorities for our school this year will be to continue to build and improve on what we have achieved to date and ensure the school achieves well and beyond national averages.  We strive to continue to improve on quality of teaching alongside the implementation of the new curriculum and assessment methods attached to this.  

In conclusion, we would like to congratulate staff and pupils for their determination and drive to improve and look forward to seeing the results of all the hard work that has taken place at St. Margaret’s.

On behalf of the Governing Body:
Rev Canon Ade Ademola FSJ (Chair of Governing Body)