Welcome to our Governors’ section

St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School (Northfleet) has 2 governing committees - The Our Lady of Hartley & St Joseph’s Executive Committee and The St Joseph’s Academy Committee. Both are made up of volunteers who work together to support our schools across all aspects of daily school life, including strategic, financial and the curriculum.

All of our committee members work in different ways and have their individualised roles however, their main aim as a whole is to help us to provide the best possible education for our pupils by:  

• Setting the school's vision and strategic aims, agreeing plans and policies and making creative use of resources.
• Monitoring and evaluating performance, supporting and challenging the Executive Principal & Academy Principal in the management of the school.
• Ensuring that the school is accountable to the children and parents it serves, to its local community, to those who fund and maintain it, as well as the staff it employs.

As St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School (Northfleet) is a member of the Kent Catholic Schools’ Partnership, a Multi-Academy Trust, its governance arrangements are regulated by the KCSP Governance Handbook (which includes the Scheme of Delegation and Terms of Reference). 

KCSP Governance Model

Kent Catholic Schools' Partnership is a charitable trust and a company limited by guarantee. The Trust was established in August 2012 by the Archbishop of Southwark.

The Trust Board of Directors ('Trustees') are responsible for overseeing the management and administration of the Trust and they fulfil this role by delegating functions to committees. 

The Trust understands the importance of the role of governance committees and the Trust has set out guidance and support in its Governance Handbook and Scheme of Delegation.

Governance at St Joseph’s:

The school has two committees:

• St Joseph’s Academy Committee (AC) – specific to our school
• Executive Governance Committee (EGC) – oversees the two Academy Committees of St Joseph’s and Our Lady of Hartley

Whichever Committee a person is on, we are ALL here to serve the school and, above all, the children. We have our mission – Learning in the Light of Christ – very much at the heart of all that we do.  

The Governance Committee is a ‘critical friend’ of the school. It provides Strategic Leadership in school improvement. It does this by being appropriately involved in the school improvement cycle as follows:

1. Developing and sharing the values and vision
2. Setting out the aims and objectives of the school
3. Setting out the policies and procedures by which the aims and objectives will be achieved
4. Establishing the criteria by which the aims and achievements will be seen to be achieved
5. Taking the views of stakeholders into account
6. Evaluating evidence on how well the school is doing
7. Finding out how well the school is doing in comparison with similar schools
8. Agreeing targets for improvement
9. Planning to achieve improvement
10. Ensuring that deployment of staffing and resources match the school’s priorities.

Key Issues

The governance committee will consider and keep under review: the progress and attainment of all groups of pupils, evidence of narrowing gaps between under achieving groups and other pupils, improvements in the quality of teaching, the school’s improvement since the last inspection, and the school’s self-evaluation of how well it is doing currently. Governance committee members are not expected to be involved in the day to day running of the school.

 Who can be a governance committee member?

• Almost everyone over 18 can become a member. Governance committee members are volunteers from all walks of life – everyone has experience and skills to offer
• An effective governance committee has people from different backgrounds and with a mix of skills. No formal qualifications are needed to be a member
• Governance committee members are not education experts – they are there to offer a fresh perspective

What makes a good governance committee member?

• The ability to work in a team
• An interest in education and a commitment to the school
• Patience, energy and enthusiasm
• A willingness to listen, learn and to spend time in school
• A willingness to undertake training

The ECG determines the strategic direction of the two schools, and it also has direct responsibility for certain key areas, such as finance. Both committees support and challenge the leadership of St Joseph’s but covering different areas.

This means, for example, that if you have concerns or questions about the financial management of St Joseph’s, they should go to the Finance Committee Member on the Executive Governance Committee. You can always contact them through the school office.

St Joseph’s Executive Governance Committee

St Joseph’s Academy Committee

To be included: Meeting attendance list for last academic year. 

Our Chair of Governors, Andrew Brett, can be contacted by email:

abrett2@st-josephs-northfleet.kent.sch.uk

The Clerk to the committee Emma Jones, can be contacted by email:

ejones@kcsp.org.uk

Copies of Governing Body minutes are available from the School Office.