Last night was the regular termly meeting of the Governing Body of Prestwich Arts College. I’ve just had the honour of being re-appointed by Bury’s Local Education Authority to serve on the Governing Bodies of two local schools – Prestwich Arts College and St Margaret’s CoE Primary on Heywood Road.

The Headteacher reported on good scores at the school in the summer’s GCSE results. The school saw the highest Maths pass rates at their highest level for many years at 75% with English at the same level. The school is developing an action plan to improve science results which were slightly lower at 61%.

The school agreed a new policy to try to reduce the number of absences “approved” by parents. Last term 6.1% of half days were missed as a result of authorised absence. Much of this is families taking holidays in school term time. Although we can all understand the financial and practical reasons why this is sometimes the case, I’m glad that the school is looking to reduce this downwards.

The main discussion at the meeting was around the Building Schools for the Future proposals that will be considered by the Council’s Executive Committee next Wednesday. In the proposals 4 mainstream schools (a merged Radcliffe/Derby, Elton, Broad Oak and Bury Church) will get rebuilt in “phase 1”, Prestwich Arts College is for later on in “phase 2”.

Everyone at the Governing body was concerned that Prestiwich might miss out, particularly when you imagine the effect that the current credit crisis might have on public spending in the years to come. We were also concerned that all of the schools being rebuilt in phase one seemed to be towards the north of the Borough, with nothing in Prestwich or Whitefield. The Headteacher presented a number of different models for the future of the School which will be developed over the coming months. The School will be making its views very clear in the consultation on Building Schools for the Future in the Autumn.

Any questions please ask!

thanks, Tim.