The Governing Body

The governing body is a group of individuals, made up of parents, staff and members of the local community. We work on a voluntary basis to support the strategic leadership of the school. Governors typically serve for terms of four years, and will have a variety of responsibilities during this time.

You can see who they are here.

What do we do?

Whilst the governing body carry many legal responsibilities for the school, this only represents part of the overall story. These activities include:

  • Oversight of the effective delivery of the curriculum
  • Monitoring the progress of children throughout their school life
  • Helping to develop and monitor the annual budget and finances
  • Long-term planning for the future development of the school
  • Ensure effective policies covering areas such as child welfare, recruitment, health & safety etc.
  • Prioritising repairs and improvements to the school buildings and grounds

At Holly Park we have a clear expectation about the role of Governors. Please see the attached booklets with our Handbook and our Governor Code of Practice. It would be important to read these documents if you are considering being a governor at this school.

Holly Park Governors come into school and do learning walks and open mornings regularly. In these sessions they look in books, speak with key staff, observe parts of lessons, talk to children, attend assembly and go out in the playgrounds to observe the children.

These visits into school are planned out for the whole year as part of the school calendar of events. The visits are linked to the School Improvement Plan so that governors can focus on specific issues that will feed into the plan. These visits give them opportunity to see the work of the school in action and to ask questions and make suggestions about what they see.

These are the issues relating to the School Improvement Plan that governors MONITORED in 2024-25:

  • September-  The year ahead and the SIP
  • October – Behaviour
  • December- Character Education
  • January –    EAL
  • February – Memory & Retrieval
  • March – Online Safety
  • April – The new library and a love of reading
  • May –  EYFS
  • June – Addressing Misconceptions
  • July – Campaign for change

These are the issues relating to the School Improvement Plan that governors MONITORED in 2023-24:

  • September-  The year ahead and the SIP
  • October – Phonics
  • November-  Working walls
  • December- Consent
  • January –    Reading for pleasure
  • February – Safeguarding
  • April – Working scientifically
  • May –  Resilience
  • June – campaigning for change

Governor Impact 2024/25

 Finance & Premises

  • A Governor was involved in the procurement and contract of a new cleaning company (Aut)
  • Governors were involved in the HT Appraisal and agreeing pay rises for staff
  • The safeguarding governor and the chair of premises completed a premises safeguarding tour with the DSL and site manager in order to support the premises safeguarding audit
  • Safeguarding governor checked SCR Autumn term/ Spring Term/
  • Safeguarding governor was involved with our 3 annual safeguarding audits
  • Governors have looked at benchmarking tools
  • Governors have monitored the sports grant, PP
  • Governor submitted a grant application to Foyles for books for the library
  • Governor submitted a grant application to The Screwfix Foundation for the library 

Teaching and learning

  • Involvement with the Eco Council and campaign for change e.g felt tip recycling

Staff and Pupil Welfare

  • The Safeguarding governor had input on the Safeguarding annual audits
  • The safeguarding governor has made termly visits
  • The safeguarding governor has checked the SCR (Autumn 2024)
  • The safeguarding governor and governor for H&S did a premises safeguarding tour (Nov 2024) as part of the premises audit
  • A governor trained as part of the Barnet Climate Change project

Training, Policies, Communication

  • Prevent Training
  • Complaints training
     

Other

  • Supported School trips
  • Supported and attended school shows
  • Supported Borough wide events the school has been involved in e.g Dance festival
  • Involvement with pupil council groups
  • Accompanying songs and supporting singing for the Y6 show on piano
  • Supported the reading volunteer initiative