The governing body of Morley Memorial Primary School has a parent governor vacancy.

Governors are responsible for clarifying the school’s vision, ethos and strategic direction, holding the head to account for the performance of the school and making sure the money is well spent. They help to ensure that our school provides the best education it can for children, parents and our local community.

Governors do not need to be experts in education. They need to have an interest in the school and in the welfare of our children as well as the time to get involved.  All governors need to be willing to learn, able to work effectively as part of a team and committed to building good relationships. At the moment, the governing body is particularly interested in hearing from people who have experience of:

• chairing a board, governing body or committee
• being a member of a board
• performance management or human resources
• law
• education
• safeguarding
• procurement / purchasing

Our governing body expects governors to:

• Attend approximately 6 meetings a year of the full governing body
• Sit on either the learning or resource committee (approximately 5 a year)
• Sit on other committees / panels as required
• Visit the school formally for monitoring purposes at least once a year
• Visit the school informally at least once a year.
• Attend training course, undertake additional research and activities as required and take part in monitoring at least three areas of the school.

The governing body provides an induction program, regular training and on-going mentoring to ensure you are confident and knowledgeable enough to participate fully in all decisions.

All nominations should be sent in to the headteacher via school office by 10am on Friday 24^th March  We need a personal statement of approximately 300 words describing what you think you can bring to the role and why you would like to be a governor.

On Wednesday 29^th March we will inform parents about the details of parent governor nominations. If more than one candidate puts themselves forward, an election is necessary.  All votes must be in by 10am Thursday 20^th April when they will be counted.

Click here for full details of how to apply and for the application form. 

If you would like more information about what being a parent governor involves, please contact the school and we can put you in touch with a member of our governing body for an informal chat.

Four years ago we asked staff, governors and parents about the values they believed should underpin everything we do at Morley. We found that there was a great deal of agreement about what everyone thought was important. After a lot of discussion, we summed up the six values that seemed to best represent our collective view.

These values were: respect, creativity, including everyone, learning, relationships, community.

Since completing this exercise, many new children, parents, governors and members of staff have joined our school. We want to make sure that our values reflect the views of our current school community. Therefore, over the next few months we will be asking pupils, parents, staff and governors what they think about our values and whether they need to be revised.

At parents evening this week, governors will be asking all parents to give their opinion on our school values and pick their “Top 3”. We will also be asking you if you think there are any others that should be included. It shouldn’t take more than 2 or 3 minutes of your time but it will help shape Morley’s future.

We are also looking for parents to take part in a focus group where we can discuss in more detail the kind of values parents think should underpin everything Morley does. It should only take about an hour and we can offer a cup of tea and cake. If you are interested in taking part in these discussions, email the governors at chair@morley.cambs.sch.uk or sign up at the parents evening.

In July 2016, we invited feedback from parents through our annual parent survey.  More parents than ever before completed the survey, with 172 completed surveys.  The survey comprised 21 questions, the majority of which were the same as in 2015 to allow year to year comparisons.  The full results were considered by the Full Governing Body in October.  A summary of the results of the survey are published on the school’s website.

Overall the results were at least as positive or even more so than in 2015, and compared favorably with national benchmarks.  For example, the vast majority of parents (93%) reported that their child was happy at school; there was an increase in the proportion of parents who would recommend the school to family and friends (92%); and parents reported high levels of satisfaction with their child’s progress at school (91%).

As well as providing numbers, the survey gives parents an opportunity to write comments on the questions asked, and on any other issues they want to raise.  We received hundreds and hundreds of comments, which the Governors and the school leadership have reviewed in detail.  Again, these were overwhelmingly positive, but there was also lots of good and challenging feedback for us to work on.

Two specific issues where the survey feedback has been particularly useful are: i) more work to improve how the school communicates with parents, and ii) continuing to improve behaviour generally across the school and improving the way that the school deals with the (thankfully rare) instances of bullying.  Both of these were already priorities for the school, and are areas where the parent survey feedback has been particularly helpful in shaping our plans.

Of course, the parent survey is just one of the ways that we gather feedback on what’s happening at Morley.  The school leadership and Governing Body work hard to make sure that we regularly gather feedback formally and informally from parents, pupils, and staff.  If you have any questions or ideas, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.