Interserve Academies Trust Limited ( IAT ) Minutes of the Meeting of the Directors Held on Wednesday 2nd September 2015 Crawshaw School, Pudsey, Leeds at 2.00pm Directors: Mr. Bob Vince (RV) (Chairman) Dr. Gill Eatough (GE) (Education Director) Mr. David Wootton (DW) (Education Director) Ms. Helen Jeffery (HJ) (Skills Director) Director Apologies: Mr. Steve Jones (SJ) (Director) Mr. David Swales (DS) (Director) Attendance: Mr. Graham Hutchinson (/CEO) (Chief Executive Officer and Chief Accounting Officer) Ms. Lisa Smith () (Chief Finance Officer) Mr. Chris Peel (CP) (MD Interserve Learning & Employment) Mr. Adam Daly (AD) (Principal Crawshaw Academy) Mr Richard Keen (RK) (Clerk and Company Secretary) 1.0 CHAIRMAN OF THE MEETING AND QUORUM The Chairman noted that due notice of the Meeting had been given, a quorum was present and that the Meeting could proceed to business. The Board welcomed CP to the meeting. CP was responsible for developing resources within Interserve Learning and Employment in order to provide opportunities for vocational learning and employability, including apprenticeships. The Board were keen to hear how IAT could benefit from this and CP gave an overview of the resources which could be available to pupils at Crawshaw school. 2.0 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Each of the Directors present at the Meeting confirmed they were not aware of any matters pursuant to sections 175-182 of the Companies Act 2006 which had not previously been either declared to or approved by the Board of Directors or approved by the Company s Shareholders. It was agreed that any declarations of interest should be disclosed on the IAT website. RK 3.0 MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS The minutes of the previous meeting held on the 9 th June 2015 were approved as a true record for signature by the Chairman. 4.0 MATTERS ARISING The following matters arising were discussed: 4.1 (Minute 4.2) Finance Plan Sixth Form Provision It was considered that it would be helpful to separate out the sixth form funding and costs in order to demonstrate financial viability of the 11 to 16 provision. had carried out preliminary analysis of the loss of the sixth form provision. DW challenged the analysis and would carry out further work. It was considered that Crawshaw did not currently have the capacity to deliver a full sixth form provision. See minute 9.7 below. 4.2 (Minute 5.1) Health and Safety Reporting.
advised that there were no incidents of concern to report. A written report was not available for the meeting but would be circulated in due course and would cover subcontractor works during the summer break. 4.3 (Minute 6.0) Safeguarding The Safeguarding Policy was being updated and a draft would be provided to GE for review. The policy would then go to the LGB for approval. It was noted that the LGB had received appropriate Safeguarding training. The Board asked to obtain confirmation that the following training had been delivered to staff at Crawshaw Academy: Prevent anti extremism training Safer Recruitment training The above matters were ongoing. 4.4 (Minute 7.2) RKA Partnership and Director of Education Role GE and DW would meet with the Principal in order to understand what support he needs. The Director of Education role could then be discussed with Richard Sheriff in the context of the needs of Crawshaw Academy and any expansion plans for IAT. Matter ongoing. See minute 7.4 below. The educational KPI data dashboard for Crawshaw would form part of the Director of Education Report and RS had been asked to include this in reports as and when it is prepared. Matter complete. 4.5 (Minute 8.2) Funding See item 8.2 below. 4.6 (Minute 8.3) Insurance had provided an insurance recommendation to the Board and the policies had renewed on 1 July. Matter complete. See also item 8.5 below. 4.7 (Minute 9) Governance It was agreed that Governor pen portraits would be added to the IAT website. Matter ongoing. RK 5.0 HEALTH AND SAFETY Health and Safety Reporting. advised that there were no incidents of concern to report. 6.0 SAFEGUARDING GE advised the meeting that she had not been made aware of any individual safeguarding matters to report to the Board. 7.0 7.1 EDUCATION REPORT Performance Review of Principal The Board discussed performance management of the Principal and procedures for target setting and review. The Principal was responsible for the Academy improvement plan and targets had been set on his appointment. It was agreed that The Principal should report on progress towards the improvement plan via the LGB. Appraisal of the Principal should be carried out by the Director of Education and the LGB with the support of the Chair of IAT. would review what targets were set for the Principal on his appointment. 7.2 2015 Exam Results AD joined the meeting to discuss the summer 2015 examination results. A narrative summary of the results had been circulated to the Board in the CEO Report and a
more detailed analysis of the outcomes including value added diagrams was circulated by AD. There had been an improvement in the achievement of 5A*-C GCSE s (inc. English and Maths) to around 54.3%. Maths and English had performed particularly well with both subjects improving expected progress grades by over 11%. Additionally the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students was closing and overall improvement in boy s performance had reduced the gap between boys and girls. The Board considered that the results were encouraging in the context of the significant restructuring, budget cuts and changes in the leadership team which had taken place during the academic year. Results by subject were reviewed. The Board discussed the challenge being faced on pupil premium but the gap was closing and also between female and male students. The Board were also keen to understand how the most able students had been challenged as there had been a dip in performance for level 4 males. AS and A2 results had improved significantly. All higher education applications had been successful and the Board analysed the results by subject. It was agreed that maths had not performed as well as expected. The Board urged caution when preparing predicted grades. Expectations had been set high and AD was asked to analyse inaccuracies and consider worst case scenarios when making future predictions. AD explained that the DFE considered initial predictions were too low. The Board discussed lessons to be learned and 2015/16 planning for improvement. The Board would be looking to see an Academy improvement plan which focussed on employability and the post 16 provision. The Board would like to see this plan run by the leadership team as a task and monitoring group and fed up to the LGB. 7.3 Marketing The Board discussed the marketing of Crawshaw through the open day and importance of marketing the IAT values and benefits. was pushing for marketing support from Interserve Learning and Employment. 7.4 RKA Partnership and Director of Education Role The role of RKA was discussed and it was agreed that it would be appropriate to review the level of support required after the next Ofsted monitoring inspection visit. Meanwhile GE and DW would discuss their expectation of the role and resource requirement going forward. It was considered that it would be helpful for GE and DW to visit the school and make observations. 8.0 FINANCE OFFICER S REPORT 8.1 Auditor Appointment advised the Board that Saffery Champness had been previously provided audit services to Crawshaw. Saffery Champness worked with a number of academies and were considered suitably qualified and experienced to provide audit services. Grant Thornton and Murray Harcourt had been asked to provide competitive quotations. GE/DW 8.2 Trust Costs It had been agreed that Trust costs be deferred for August 2015. 8.3 2015 Budget It was noted that the 2015/16 Budget had been circulated to the Board and
approved. The Board formally ratified their approval of the Budget, which was submitted to the EFA in July 2015. 8.4 Forecast Year 7 intake was expected to be 143 students, being significantly below capacity of 185 places. Cost savings would need to be achieved during the coming academic year. The Board interrogated overhead and central costs. They questioned the deficit on Rates and would look in to this. It was noted that the current outsourcing of the payroll was under review. The Board discussed restructuring costs and it was agreed that the Budget should be the responsibility of the senior management team, who should review progress on a monthly basis. The CEO and CFO were not considered responsible for budget spend. 8.5 Insurance It was noted that Crawshaw school was subject to a five year long term agreement with Zurich. Insurance had therefore renewed with the incumbent insurer. The EFA would pay the top up premium from 25 per pupil to 45 per pupil which mostly covered the cost of 46 per pupil with Zurich. 9.0 CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER S REPORT The CEO Report had been circulated to the Board and the following points were noted: 9.1 Premises Team outlined changes to the onsite premises team which would involve the current Premises Manager assuming Operations Manager responsibilities for the running of the academy buildings, premises, landscaping, catering and associated contracts. Two existing full time assistants would support this role and an Apprentice would be recruited to provide further support. The Board asked for confirmation that the school was compliant with all statutory inspection requirements and was asked to evidence statutory compliance was in place and to review the fire risk assessment. 9.2 Staffing at Crawshaw A new Interim HR manager had been appointed on site at Crawshaw. Other staff restructuring had been completed. 9.3 ICT Work by Civica on the new ICT platform had progressed well but there were still issues to resolve before the end of the summer break. The Board were assured that matters were being monitored closely. 9.7 Pudsey Sixth Form Provision had circulated a paper to the Board describing sixth form provision in Pudsey. The Board also gave consideration to a new sixth form provision at Crawshaw. In order that a proper evaluation could be made further understanding of the current sixth form costs was required. A further meeting was planned with other existing providers and would add bid cost to the agenda. 9.8 Employment Skills HJ had held meetings with school staff together with. The employability curriculum was developing and it was considered that someone should take ownership of the programme on site.
10 ANY OTHER BUSINESS There was no further business to discuss and so the meeting closed at 4.30pm. 11 NEXT MEETING The next meeting would take place at 1.00pm on 8 th October 2015 at George Road, Erdington....Chairman