Letter from the Governing Body - 6th December 2019

Letter from the Governing Body
Dear Parents & Carers,
In September, the governing body asked Mrs MacDonald to consult with the community regarding the proposal to open a nursery at our school. Following the consultation, and no formal objections submitted to the Local Authority, we have been given permission to open our nursery on 7th January 2020. Please share this news with any families you know who have children aged 3 or 4 in the local and wider area.
The addition of our nursery allows us to implement a permanent three class structure, alongside the appointment of a Head of School, which we believe will stabilise our school structure and complete our federation process. This appointment will give our school the consistency of a Senior Leadership Team member on site who will oversee the day-to-day running of the school and allow Mrs MacDonald to spend an equal amount of time at each of the three schools in the federation, in her role as Executive Headteacher.
Mrs Torode is still unwell and is not due to return to school until later in the academic year. We have carefully considered our staffing structure and have adjusted it to meet the needs of all our children.
For consistency for our very youngest children in Class 1, we have decided that Class 1 should be taught by a full-time teacher. We warmly welcome Mrs Alnajjar to teach full time in Class 1. Mrs Alnajjar has worked within the federation for the past two years and is an experienced Nursery, Reception and Year 1 teacher, with a proven track record of excellent pupil progress. She is looking forward to joining us and has already started teaching on a Thursday and Friday afternoon in order to get to know the children. Mrs Collins, who has been teaching on a Thursday afternoon and Friday, will move across to teach at Barlow.
Years 2, 3 and 4 will be taught by Mrs Newton and Mrs Copley on a job share basis. Mrs Newton will move from Class 1 to Class 2 and will teach Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning and Mrs Copley will teach Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday. We feel that between them they have an excellent knowledge of the children and are in a position to move their learning forward at pace.
Mr Bealey, who has been working at the school on secondment since September, will join us to teach in Year 5/6 and is our new Head of School. He is currently senior teacher at a federated school in the East Riding and has taught Year 5/6 for a number of years. Once his notice period has been served, he will begin his position at Burton Salmon. Until he is released from his current school, Mrs Ridler will teach Year 5/6 from January 7th. Her background is in Year 5/6 and she has a proven track record of SATS outcomes for Year 6 children.
In order to make the move to our new class structure, with three full time classes rather than two, we have also carefully considered the deployment of our support staff for the rest of the academic year. As of January 7th, 2020, the staffing will be as follows:

We appreciate that the past six months has seen significant, planned change; however we are confident that these changes are in the long-term benefit of your child’s education. We really appreciate your support and understanding during this period. Please be reassured that every change implemented has been made in the best interests of the children. Now that we have completed our process, we can concentrate on embedding the structure and achieving the best results for your children.
Should you have any further questions, please do contact me either at the beginning or end of the school day or by using the school admin email address.
Yours sincerely,
Jenny Brown
Co-Chair of Governor