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Vacancies | Tibberton Community Primary School (secure-primarysite.net)
January 2024
Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season with your families. Last term, the team seemed to pack in even more than normal, and I know many of you enjoyed attending the extra events during December. These started with the younger ones in Nativity, followed by opportunities for you to visit classes, the school play, the whole school going off to see the pantomime in Cheltenham and many other events too. I think part of what makes Tibberton special is the effort that the team put into these events, and it is great to see the delight on the children’s faces when taking part or watching.
Our PTFA also had, what I think, their best term ever for fundraising, raising over £9,000 towards the school playground improvements. You will start to see some of those improvements being implemented this term. We are very fortunate to have such a committed and creative team raising money for us.
The Governors have been busy too, with meetings to review progress with the curriculum, our finances and with general governance. The full Board have also been reviewing, as I mentioned in September, the potential benefits of joining a multi academy trust (MAT). We have now concluded our due diligence both on the various options for joining a MAT, and more detailed due diligence on two local MATs that fit with our selection criteria.
In order to maximise synergies, we have concluded that the school would get the most benefit from joining a primary focused MAT (where teaching best practice can be shared); one that isn’t too large; where we can retain independence of what and how we teach and one that is geographically local to us. We have concluded there are benefits both operational and financial to joining a MAT, and that Primary QuEST, which is based in Hartpury, is our preferred option. It currently comprises of Hartpury, Highnam, Ann Cam, Redmarley and Staunton & Course primary schools. These schools are mostly of a similar size to us, are in similar catchments to us, and have all recently been inspected and graded ‘good’, as have we by Ofsted.
The next stage in the process is for us to apply to the Department of Education to join Primary QuEST. There is more checking and due diligence to do during that process, including Primary QuEST having to do their due diligence on us too. Stephen Dean, the CEO of Primary QuEST, and an experienced primary school head teacher himself, has offered to visit Tibberton to meet with parents and carers. Stephen, along with Mrs Wilson and myself, will answer any questions any of you may have and we can explain some more about Primary QuEST. We have reserved a slot on Thursday 18th January @ 2.45pm just before pick up which we hope will make it easy for parents who are interested to attend. If you would like to attend this session, then please let the office know so we can set things up.
If any of you have any questions in the meantime, then either I or Mrs Wilson are obviously very happy to discuss too. Thank you for all you, as parents and carers, do to support the school too. It really is a key part of making it what it is. We are looking forward to the weather hopefully improving before too longer, and the children spending more time outside in the spring sunshine this term.
Yours Sincerely,
Neil Kinlay
Chair of Governor
The PTFA Bonfire night was absolutely amazing and a huge success! Thank you to the PTFA and volunteers for their hard work and dedication, and to the sponsors for helping with this fundraiser. The PTFA have worked so hard these last few months with their fundraising. They have held Break the Rules day, the Halloween Disco and Bonfire night and are pleased to announce that they can add another £7000 into the 'Playground Fund' bringing the total so far this year to a massive £12,000! This would not have been possible though without our fantastic school community for supporting every event they organise, so thank you so much. Please continue to support the next up and coming events to raise the total some more. Tickets are still available for the wreath-making workshop on Friday 1st December and they are now in preparations for the PTFA panto on December 8th and the Christmas stall—watch this space!
PTFA | Tibberton Community Primary School (secure-primarysite.net)
Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope you have all had a lovely summer break with your children and that they have enjoyed their first week back with their friends and teachers. It’s amazing how often the weather seems to improve as soon as the children return to school!
We had a very busy year last year with the appointment of a new head teacher in Mrs Wilson, an overhauling of our curriculum plans, along with an expansion of our clubs and sporting activities. Towards the end of the year we were visited by Ofsted, which went very well, and confirmed that Tibberton is a good school.
This year our priorities are to continue to work on strengthening the curriculum and our support for children with SEND. We are expanding both our nursery opening hours and the nursery hours that qualify for government funding. We hope this will help busy working parents.
The Governing Board will also be exploring the potential benefits of joining a Multi Academy Trust (MAT). As some of you may be aware, the Government have mandated that all maintained schools must have joined or be in the process of joining a MAT by 2030. In order to be proactive, we will be exploring the potential benefits and the option we feel is best suited to Tibberton.
We have started to review the various options, which include joining a large national MAT, working with a local secondary school, or joining a primary school focussed MAT. At this stage we think a primary focussed MAT is likely to offer Tibberton the most benefit and synergy. As well as the benefits, we want ensure there is enough flexibility for us to continue to develop our school with some independence and to ensure we continue to protect what’s special about Tibberton.
One primary and early years focussed MAT who we are currently talking to is Primary QuEST, www.primaryquest.co.uk. It is very local to us, has similar sized community schools to Tibberton and has grown organically from an academy created in 2011, which then expanded into a MAT in 2019. It currently has five good primary schools within its MAT. Each school has its own Head Teacher, Advisory Board, PTFA and have maintained their own identities and culture.
Once we have completed more of our due diligence on this, and any other potential options, I will write to you again and arrange some sessions to share our thinking with you and to answer any questions you may have.
Yours sincerely,
Neil Kinlay
Chair of Governors Email :- chair@tibberton.gloucs.sch.uk
Tuesday 25th July 2023
Dear Parents and Carers,
It has been such an amazing year, that we both wanted to write to you all to thank you for all your help and support for the school and nursery this year. It has been Sarah’s first year here as Head Teacher and what a great year it has been. It has flown by, but has also been quite a year of change for all the staff and children. One key event this year was Ofsted visiting us in May; they were last here in November 2017 so quite a long break since our last inspection. So much has changed in the last six years, both in the make-up and content of the curriculum we teach, but also in the way Inspectors undertake their inspections. They now spend far more time with subject leaders and the children themselves; furthermore, we have less than a days-notice that they are coming so having everything in place is key. We had been working all year on strengthening the curriculum, making sure it builds logically up through the age groups showing progression and has clear measurable outcomes, as well as making sure the curriculum subject leads were able to confidently explain its build up and outcomes and how they monitor progress across the whole school. We are both so proud of how calm everyone was on the inspection day, which felt pretty much like a normal school day. The inspectors were impressed with what they saw and continue to rate the school as good. In their report they referenced our experienced and knowledgeable staff; the caring and calm learning environment; our supportive parents and community, and how confidently the children spoke to them about their learning. The teaching team have been amazing, coping with the level of change this year, and are so committed to helping your children achieve their full potential. We have plans to further strengthen the curriculum, as well as extending our wrap around care. Next year, we will be opening our nursery full-time and we will be increasing our government funded hours to 30 hours. These changed were made based on feedback we had through our questionnaires sent to parents. There have been so many examples this year of what we think makes Tibberton special; whether that be the extended list of local inter school competitions we entered; the development and extension of lunchtime and after school activity clubs; the carol singing in the village at Christmas and the school concert which showed off the singing, drumming and piano playing skills our children demonstrated at our Spring Concert. We also celebrated the King’s Coronation with a royal themed lunch for the children supported by our wonderful Women’s Institute. Furthermore, we were overwhelmed with the large number of families who attended our Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and Grandparent’s Day celebrations which the children thoroughly enjoyed too. These are to name just a few of the many events we held at the school. Our amazing PTFA, who have excelled themselves this year again, starting with the amazing fireworks evening, the quiz night, the summer fayre and supporting other events with refreshments. In August still to come is the first ‘PTFA beer festival’ after the village show. The money that the PTFA raises through these events enables us to do things we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, for example, this year they purchased audio devices to support reading at the school and nursery. We are also both really appreciative of our experienced and committed team of Governors, all of whom give their time and expertise to help the school be the best it can be. And finally, thank you to all of you for the support you give us. We hope you have a lovely summer break with your children and we look forward to seeing you all back in September for the new school year. Warmest Regards, Sarah Wilson, Head Teacher Neil Kinlay, Chair of Governors