Annual Governance Statement - July 2026

July 2026:

Kildwick CE Primary School: Annual Governance statement

Dear parents / carers

I write to summarise the work of the Governing Board through the past academic year - please see this letter as an addition to the short updates in the school newsletter, written following Governing Board meetings. The term governing board can be used interchangeably with ‘governing body’.

The work of the Governing Board is framed by the Kildwick School vision, which I am sure you are all familiar with:

Learning to live - Living to love - Loving to learn

Intrinsically interlinked to the vision are the six Christian values: Forgiveness; Peace; Friendship; Courage; Trust; and Respect, each with a Biblical underpinning. 

Governors ensure that the vision and values are regularly revisited and remain central to the functioning of the Board.

The vision statement can be seen through the school website, alongside the current strategic plan, at:

kildwick-ce-vc-primary-school-strategic-plan-2025-2028-y1-2025-2026-with-development-plan-y1-.pdf

The Governing Board is focused to make sure that the school is efficiently managed in line with statutory requirements, and, equally importantly, continues to provide all children with a high quality education, and access to a wide range of enriching opportunities.

Our three strategic functions, set out in Government guidance, are:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction; 
• Holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils;
• Monitoring the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.

The Governing Board additionally has important ‘standalone’ statutory responsibilities, including, for example, around the safeguarding arrangements in place in school, and for the Health and Safety of all school users.

Governors also feel that a key governance responsibility sits around well-being, both of the children and the staff team, including importantly Mr Whitehead, as headteacher, and hence actively ensure that well-being is a consideration in all decision making.

The Governing Board is made up of:

• Foundation Governors - appointed by the church, as Kildwick is a church school;
• Parent Governors - elected from the ‘parent body’;
• Co-opted Governors - appointed for their individual skills and experience;
• A staff governor - elected by the staff team;
• A Local Authority Governor - nominated by the local authority;
• An Associate Governor - a non-voting member appointed by the governing board for their individual experience; and
• The headteacher. 

As ever membership of the Governing Board has evolved through the current academic year, with governors both leaving and joining the Board.

Working with Rev. Mike, we have recently been able to fill one of the two Foundation Governor vacancies, which should help give an important additional dimension to the Board in the next academic year - Parish workload has not allowed Rev. Mike the space to take up his position on the Governing Board and we are still looking for an additional Foundation Governor who can, in effect, deputise for Mike on the Board.

A list of the current governors can be seen on the school website: Governing Body Members | Kildwick CE Primary School

We are currently in the process of recruiting both a new Parent Governor, and a Co-opted Governor and should have everything in place for the new academic year.

Governors appoint a chair annually, and should ideally also identify a vice-chair.

School pays into the Local Authority governance service for the Clerk - the Clerk provides professional advice to the Governing Board, co-ordinates activity and minutes all meetings. Stephen Dale who was the Clerk for some nine years, and ensured things ran smoothly, retired in the Autumn Term. Joanna Brookes is the current Clerk.

We also buy into support from the Diocese education team - this includes an element of governance support providing further guidance for governors.

The School is also a member of the National Governance Association, which provides independent support, training, and guidance to governors on a wide range of governance issues - the weekly newsletter ensures governors can keep up to date with national issues and legislative changes.

Governors give their time voluntarily - I would like to put on the record my sincere thanks to all governors for their support for the School throughout the last year.

I usually try not to single out colleagues but would on this occasion like to break my own rule and thank both Karen Law, who is stepping down as a Parent Governor, and Cameron Quinn, who has recently resigned as a Co-opted Governor.

Karen’s good humour, careful consideration and thoughtful challenge will be much missed by the Governing Board.

Equally the Board will miss Cameron, not the least for his understanding of financial spreadsheets - succession planning has nevertheless ensured that the Board still has the required skills for monitoring the school budget.

Governance has this year been structured through: Full Governing Board meetings, one per term; Curriculum and Finance and Resources committees, which have again met termly; an additional Full Governing Board business meeting in September; and a strategy meeting in June - we will next school year be moving to two Full Governing Board meetings per term, looking to better manage governing board business without adding to governor workload.

Further governor sub-committees are formed as required, for example for Mr Whitehead’s performance management - headteacher performance management is managed by governors although with the professional support of the Diocese school education adviser.

Attendance at governor meetings has been generally strong despite the pressures on everyone's time. Governors have this year again attended a wide variety of training and refresher sessions, usually online.

Governors have this year:

• Reviewed Year 1 of the 2025-2028 school strategy, revisited the school, vision and values and drafted Year 2 of the strategy - using the strategy the staff team structure a school development plan to, as the title implies, frame ongoing school development;
• Ensured that the school finances remain as secure as possible, despite the current financial pressures - my thanks to Mr Whitehead and the Bursar for their help in managing the budget;
• Monitored both curriculum delivery, including through scrutiny of the Local Authority school adviser’s reports, and the children’s attainment, including through benchmarking against other comparable schools;
• Ensured that they have kept up to date with evolving Government education policy, including the planned changes in relation to Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) - governors feel Kildwick as an inclusive school is well positioned with regard to SEND provision and future expectations on all schools;
• Ensured that staff, local organisations and volunteers, are supported in continuing to provide a wide range of extra-curricular activities - these are a key element of the ‘Kildwick offer’ and governors are keen to ensure that they can continue;
• Monitored school attendance, for all children, and for specific groups, for example children with SEND, and for age cohorts - again monitoring has included benchmarking against other comparable schools - attendance monitoring is currently a significant Government focus with research demonstrating that attendance at school has a clear impact on children’s confidence, well-being, readiness to learn and ultimately their life chances;
• Monitored the safeguarding arrangements in place to support all children - safeguarding monitoring is, in what is an increasingly online world, a core consideration and is seen as hugely important by all governors - monitoring the behaviour of the children is also an important aspect of governor safeguarding monitoring;
• Reviewed and ‘signed off’ a wide range of school policy documents, including the new behaviour policy, curriculum policies, and workplace policies; and
• Ensured that staff well-being is a key consideration throughout all Governing Board business.    

As suggested above, the school budget continues to be under considerable pressure and will require very careful monitoring through the current financial year - governors are acutely aware that we ask the staff team to work extremely hard to provide a high-quality education for all Kildwick children, yet the resources we are able to provide are not as expansive as we might wish.

Talking to the Bursar it is clear that there are similar budget pressures in pretty much all local schools, with ‘governing boards’ having to take difficult decisions - importantly, as funding is driven by pupil numbers, the number of children on roll at Kildwick remains strong, providing at least some budget certainty.

With reference to the safeguarding responsibility, governors have this year again considered mobile phone and online access, in its broadest sense, and will continue to actively look at this issue as Government Policy evolves.

With respect to online safety, governors note the online safety newsletters regularly circulated by Mr Whitehead, alongside the school newsletter, and consider these an excellent source of information for parents / carers.

Governors could not function without the understanding of Mr Whitehead, the staff team and the whole Kildwick School community - my thanks, as ever, for everyone’s support and patience throughout the year.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my visits to school throughout the year - on every occasion the children are welcoming and genuinely interested in finding out what I am doing.

I have always found that behaviour is good, even in the ‘pinchpoints’ around the Hall and cloakroom corridor - in May, for example, I, as a governor observer, sat in on, the administration of the KS2 SATs and was really impressed to overhear two younger children noting, before the session began, of the need to be extra quiet this morning because of the ‘tests’

I have again this year really enjoyed reading the weekly newsletters, particularly the contributions from the children, and always try to pass on a comment for those who have worked on the content - feedback says that the newsletter is a strong feature of the School and an important part of school home communication.  

I am sure that each governor will have their own highlights from the year, as I know will the children, the staff team and yourselves, as parents / carers - and perhaps also your wider families.

I would like to finish by thanking everyone for their fantastic support for the school and the children throughout the year: governors for their time and energy; the staff team for their continued hard work and dedication; the PTA; and everyone else who has volunteered in a myriad of ways… from supporting school trips, to donating raffle prizes and reading with the children, and not forgetting the New Year redecoration of the toilets.

As a final thought, the summer fair surely illustrates the high esteem in which the School is held, with a truly great response from everyone involved, despite the heat - I have no idea who the parent dressed as a cartoon character at the gate was, but given the blazing sun it must say something… Many thanks.

My apologies if I have unintentionally missed anyone out, or failed to mention a key initiative - any mistake is as ever mine. 

Thank you for supporting the school and I hope you have a good and safe summer break, wherever it takes you.

I am happy to discuss the work of governors and can be contacted at: [email protected]

John Perry

Chair of Governors

July 2026