Last night was the regular termly meeting of the Governors of St Margaret’s Primary School on Heywood Road. This is one of the two local schools where I serve as a Governor.

Here are the main issues from the evening:

Buildings
The Buildings Sub-Committee (of which I’m a member) met up before the main meeting to have a “walk round” the school to look at building issues and ideas. We were able to take a look at the recent improvement to the staff toilet blocks, but also have a think about some of the things that could be done over the coming years to improve the facilities in school. We’re going to meet up again in September to take some of these ideas forward.

Budget
We agreed the School Budget for the 2009-2010 (academic) year. There has been a lot of discussion in Bury’s schools about “excessive balances” (e.g. Schools holding on or saving up money that they have been given by the local Council). The Council does have the power to take back excessive unspent money – fortunately this doesn’t apply to St Margaret’s.

Admissions
There has been a particular problem in the next academic year as significantly more children wanted to come to St Margarets as their “first preference” than there are places. The school has become a very popular and successful school which is a tribute to everyone involved. Regrettably what this means is that some children in the school’s traditional “catchment” area are having to be offered their second preference, though many are going through the appeals process. If seems particularly ridiculous when children from Simister cannot get into St Margarets, as they have to walk / drive past to get anywhere else! I will be raising this with the Authority.

Traffic Safety
At the request of the Governing Body I met with Bury Council’s traffic engineer to look the chiccane and traffic calming measures that were introduced a couple of years ago to reduce the speed of traffic on Heywood Road as it passes the two schools. Some people have reported excessive waiting times at the chiccane at school opening/closing times. We had a good discussion about this, and I agreed to take back ideas about improving safety, particularly around the bend as Heywood Road passes the Parenthorn ‘estate’.

Please get in touch if you need to know more.
tim