Governors News
As governors, we are keeping abreast of the progress with the new school build and some of us have been fortunate enough to conduct visits, (hard hats and steel-capped boots donned ready) to see for ourselves. The building itself seems huge in comparison to the building we are in now but we forget that DfE classroom sizes and corridor widths are bigger now that they were 75 years ago. We will continue to house the same number of students that we have now.
We still concentrate on the day-to-day issues as you would hope and expect us to do. This term I am feeding back, on behalf of the governing board, on some of the positive results from surveys carried out at parents’ evenings this year so far.
All parents surveyed at each of the four parents’ evenings this year so far were asked to rate the following statements with one of strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree.
- My daughter feels safe at this school
- My daughter is happy at this school
- The school has high expectations for my child
- The school makes sure its pupils are well behaved
- My child does well at this school
- The school is effective led and managed
- Teaching is good
- The school supports my child’s wider personal development
- The school appreciates and promotes involvement in the arts
- Ensuring my daughter attends is a family priority
- The school recognises and supports great attendance
The sample sizes for each parents’ evening varied but were a significant proportion of the year group, for example at Year 10 parents’ evening, there were 60 responses. At the time of writing, only Year 8 have yet to meet so the data is for 4 out of 5 year groups so far this year. Mr Ward has collated the results and compared them to national averages where they exist. In all cases, the school responses are more positive that those nationally for each year group. I have amalgamated the four year group responses and for each question, I have calculated the percentage of respondents who stated either good or very good. Later next term, I will add Year 8 results and report all to governors.
With the existing data, I am happy to report the percentages of positive responses are as follows:
My daughter feels safe at this school 97%
My daughter is happy at this school 95%
The school has high expectations for my child 98%
The school makes sure its pupils are well behaved 94%
My child does well at this school 97%
The school is effective led and managed 97%
Teaching is good 98%
The school supports my child’s wider personal development 94%
The school appreciates and promotes involvement in the arts 92%
Ensuring my daughter attends is a family priority 96%
The school recognises and supports great attendance 97%
I hope you agree that these are indeed very positive results and we greatly value your input in this regard. Of course, when there are less positive comments, we try to make improvements where possible. Thank you to your daughters and yourselves for making Penwortham Girls’ High School a positive place to achieve, belong and thrive. On behalf of governors, I wish you a restful Easter break.
Ms Lorimer-Russell Hayes
Co-Chair of Governors
