About The Governing Body
The governing body has a general responsibility to conduct the school with a view to promoting high standards of educational achievement. In practice this means seeing that the school is run effectively, ensuring that the school provides the best possible education for its pupils.
The Headteacher has the responsibility for the internal organisation, management and control of the school. A governor's period of office is for four years.
They meet formally once per term with additional committee meetings when necessary.
Representation on the governing body is laid down as follows:
- 3 LA representatives
- 5 Parent representatives
- 4 Community representatives
- 1 non-teacher representative
- 1 Teacher representative
- Headteacher
Current Governors
- Erica Greaves - Chair/Communication
- Kirsty Woodhead - Vice-Chair + Safeguarding
- Katherine Davies - SEN
- Kate Charlesworth - Wellbeing
- Victoria Davies - Finance
- Andrew Iles - Health and Safety
- Katie Rose
- Anna De Berg
- Joanne Hague (Assistant Head)
- Simon Tabbner (Head Teacher)
All Governors are part of the School Improvement Group who monitor attainment throughout the year.
Register of Business Interests
Register of business interests and attendance 23-24.pdf
DfE Governance Information
How to contact the Governing Body
You can contact the governing body through the school office.
Write to:
The Chair of Governors
Silkstone Common J&I School
Moorend Lane
Silkstone Common
Barnsley
S75 4QT
Or send an email using the contact form. Your message will be passed directly to the Chair.
Governance and Performance
Our role
Our key role as governors is to hold our school to account to ensure we do the best we possibly can for the children. This means we focus on 4 key areas in our meetings:
- the achievement of pupils at the school, taking into account attainment and progress
- the quality of teaching in the school
- the quality of leadership and management of the school
- the behaviour and safety of pupils at the school – this includes safeguarding as well as normal health and safety considerations.
As you will see from the results overview below our school has an excellent track record for progress and attainment by pupils.
A key contributor to this is the quality of teaching. We work closely with the Head Teacher and staff to ensure that all staff receive appropriate professional development and other support and resources to keep these standards high.
In terms of Leadership and management our role is to challenge and hold senior leaders to account for all aspects of the school's performance and ensure financial stability. To help us do this more effectively we have re-organised our committee structure so that we have one committee focussing on Progress and Attainment while the other focusses on Resources. In addition governors have embarked on a series of training events via the Local Authority, the Barnsley Governors Association and independently arranged events to ensure we have and can use the right skills.
We have a strong focus on behaviour and safety: all previous inspections have commented very favourably on this. Two governors meet with the Head teacher on a termly basis to review and monitor our standards for Health, Safety and Safeguarding. We are fortunate in having very few children where safeguarding issues are a concern but we have an agreed process in place should any concerns arise.
If you have any questions about what we as governors do or suggestions for areas we should look at we are happy to hear from you. Please contact us via the school office.
Overview of our school’s performance
We are very proud of our school’s performance. We were rated as Outstanding in all areas in our last two Ofsted inspections (2005 and 2008).
We have consistently been listed as a high performing school in the national league tables. This is thanks to the hard work and dedication of our staff, the support of our parents and the enthusiasm and positive approach of our children.
In November 2012 the Sunday Times placed Silkstone Common J & I School 41st in their Primary Schools in England League Table. Information for this was based on school results for the three years 2009/10/11. There are currently 16,971 primary schools in England.
We are proud that our children, whatever their background and abilities, consistently achieve above their expected results.
You can see our most recent SATs results on our home page.