The School Governors

The School Governors play a very active role in our school. The governing body consists of twelve governors, including parents, staff, Local Authority (LA) and community representatives.

The Full Governing Board meets once a term. Its core responsibilities are:

1. Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction for the school
2. Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the effective and efficient performance management of staff; and
3. Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.

We have three sub-committees that each focus on delivering against one of the core responsibilities. These committees each meet once a term:

1. The Strategy and Planning (S&P) committee includes all governors and is concerned with the management of annual and long term planning processes.
2. The Teaching, Learning and Community (TL&C) committee focuses on pupils’ learning and behaviour and the school’s links with the wider community.
3. The Finance and Resources (F&R) committee oversees the finances and premises (including health and safety) of the school.

Additionally, there is a separate Pay Sub-committee to ensure we meet our statutory responsibility to consider and approve the Pay Policy annually.

Self-evaluation is a vital part of our culture here at Juniper Hill. We have a formal process of constantly reviewing all aspects of the school and we listen to everyone involved for their ideas. We have a “School Plan” of priority actions that each sub-committee of the governing body decides are necessary to address areas where we want to develop further, focusing mainly in curriculum areas and the development of the school premises. In the last ten years we have built new classrooms and a new library, refurbished all the toilets and the kitchen, and created the splendid adventure playground. Funding for these projects has been raised using our annual capital grants and extensive support from the Juniper Hill PTA.

Minutes of the meetings of the Governing Body are available in school. Key policies can be found on the 'Policies' page on the 'Parents' tab. If you would like to know any more about the school governors or are interested in getting involved, please contact any of the following governors or ask in the school office.

Juniper Hill Governing Body – Additional Roles and Responsibilities

A group of Governors may be required to form the Complaints Panel, Staff Dismissal, Staff Dismissal Appeals, Employee Grievance, Pay Review Appeals or Pupil Discipline Committees.   The Chairman of Governors has the authority to form such committees from the Governor’s pool, should they be required to meet, and a Chairman of such a committee would be elected at such a meeting.  No Governor can sit on a committee if they have prior knowledge of a staff dismissal incident, an employee grievance, an exclusion issue or staff (with regard to pay related issues).  Any Governor who sits on the Staff Dismissal committee cannot sit on the Staff Dismissal Appeals committee

Governing Body Documents

Many of our Policies are available online as pdf documents – please click on the 'Policies' page under the 'Parents' section of the web site.

Other documents are available on request from the school office. There is a file readily available in the school reception area of the Minutes of the termly Full Governing Body Meetings, and other committee minutes and documents are filed by the office. Single copies of most items are free. If your request means that we have to do a lot of photocopying or printing, or pay a large postage charge, or is for a priced item such as some printed publications or videos we will let you know the cost before fulfilling your request.

Declaration of Interests

• There are no declarations of business or pecuniary interests to declare. These are checked annually in November and held in the school office.
• None of our governors currently hold governance roles in other educational institutions. This is confirmed annually in November.
• There are no material interests arising from relations between governors or relationships between governors and school staff (including spouses, partners and close relatives). These are checked annually in November.