On Saturday 6th October, 22 advisory board members, cluster governors and trustees braved the rain to attend DSAT first governance seminar of the year.

Paul Stone opened the session with an update on main themes in the trust’s strategic plan, an overview of all schools’ performance in the statutory tests, and key priorities for the year. He also outlined upcoming developments including changes to the Ofsted inspection framework which will see MATs being inspected from 2019.

David Briggs, Director of Primary Education, provided an update on the teaching and learning strategy and how regular effective feedback can impact on children’s’ learning. He talked about pupils thinking about their own learning more explicitly and how learning with no limits is at the heart of what all DSAT schools do.

Dawn White, School Improvement Partner, provided an overview of the Ofsted inspection process, the kinds of questions that might come up, how advisory boards can prepare and the support they can expect from DSAT. In response to this it was agreed DSAT will run a session dedicated to Ofsted for those schools due an inspection, understanding the inspection data summary report (ISDR) and link key questions for ABs into the scheme of delegation.

Finally, Liz Braithwaite, Head of Safeguarding and Pupil Wellbeing, gave an overview of the protective behaviours approach to help people of any age feel safer and build resilience & self-esteem, and how this will be implemented to schools through a training programme. Through a series of exercises the group explored early warning signs and safe/unsafe secrets and talked about how ABs and CBs can be involved.

It was encouraging to see nine of our 13 schools represented along with cluster board governors and trustees and overall feedback from the seminar was very positive. The next seminar is scheduled for the Spring term.

“The information passed on was very useful and high quality – thank you”

“As a new governor I need lots of input so this was very helpful”