Gloucestershire County Council
Permanently extend the age range of Tibberton Primary School from 4-11 to 2-11 years from 1st September 2024
Notice is given in accordance with section 19(1) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and the School Organisation (Prescribed Alterations to Maintained Schools) (England) Regulations 2013 that Gloucestershire County Council intends to make a prescribed alteration to Tibberton Primary School, Orchard Rise, Tibberton, Gloucestershire, GL19 3AQ from 1st September 2024.
The proposal seeks approval to permanently extend the age range of Tibberton Primary School from 4-11 to 2-11 years from 1st September 2024.
The current capacity at the school is 105 and the PAN is 15. The current number of pupils registered at the school is 109.
This notice is an extract from the complete proposals. Copies of the complete proposal can be obtained from the Gloucestershire County Council website at:
Forest of Dean school places | Gloucestershire County Council or by contacting universalcommissioning@gloucestershire.gov.uk
Within four weeks from the date of publication of these proposals, any person may object to or make comments on the proposal by sending them to universalcommissioning@gloucestershire.gov.uk or by post to Tibberton Primary School Consultation, Gloucestershire County Council, Education Planning and Infrastructure, Shire Hall, Westgate Street Gloucester GL1 2TP.
Signed
Dated: 20 June 2024
Explanatory notes
1.
DfE have requested that we undertake a statutory process to extend the age range at Tibberton Primary School from 4-11 to 2-11 years. This will allow the school and Nursery to join the approved multi-academy trust.
2.
The Headteacher, Governors and DfE are supportive of the proposed extend the age range.
3.
The change in age range itself is not likely to have an adverse effect on any staff or pupils.
The Governors of our School and Nursery are looking to appoint a confident and enthusiastic Teaching Partner and After School Club Assistant from September 2024.
We are looking for a Teaching Partner to support children in a mixed Year 3 & 4 class whilst improving pupil outcomes. We are looking for someone who is able to work alongside the class teachers whilst bringing their own interests and experience to the class. The successful applicant will be able to deliver interventions across the school, as well as deliver support in class. We would be interested to hear from candidates who have experience of working in KS2. Excellent skills in English and Maths, GCSE level or equivalent, are required.
Additionally, the postholder would join our After-School Team, which runs Monday to Thursday currently 3:30pm to 5pm.
The vacancy is for 5 afternoons (1pm-3:30pm) Monday to Friday, totalling 12.5hrs, as Teaching Partner, with additional hours of 6hrs for After School Club Assistant Monday to Thursday 3.30pm to 5pm. Both positions will be on Grade 3 salary, term time only and fixed term until 31/08/2025.
For more information and an application pack please see our Vacancies page:
Vacancies | Tibberton Community Primary School (secure-primarysite.net)
https://tibberton.schooljotter3.com/newsletters-1/primary-quest-consultation-2024
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