Dear Families,

I am writing to let you know that we have a parent governor vacancy on the Academy Governing Council (AGC) that we are seeking to fill for May 2024.  On behalf of the Trust, I am acting as the ‘returning officer’ in the election process.  

Parent governors are elected by the parents/carers of pupils at this school to serve a four year term of office and you may, if you wish, put yourself forward for election, using the enclosed nomination form. Parents may self-nominate but if a parent wishes to nominate another parent, they should seek their approval before submitting the nomination.  Please read the information given with this letter. 

The timetable for the election is:-

1. Invitations to submit a nomination for a parent governor role issued on Tuesday 16th April 2024

2. Nomination forms to be returned to me by 12.00 noon on Tuesday 7th May  2024

3. Ballot papers to be sent to all parents on Thursday 9th May 2024; voting will only take place if there are more nominations than vacancies.

4. Ballot papers to be returned to me by 12.00 noon Monday 20th May 2024

5. The votes will be counted on Tuesday 21st May 2024 after which the result will be announced.

Governors have an important and influential role to play in the life of our school and  they, along with all other governors, are elected or appointed with the single common purpose – to govern the academy in the best interest of pupils. 

I do hope you will be able to take this opportunity to play an active part in the school’s life by becoming a candidate in this election process and by casting your vote when the time comes. If, in the meantime, you have any queries, please let me know.

Yours sincerely

Natalie Jones   

Headteacher 

Returning Officer for Parent Governor Election

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CANDIDATES PACK

We are seeking nominations from parents for a parent governor vacancy on the AGC.

This pack contains:

●         Information about parent governors

●         Information about the role of the AGC

●         Information about support arrangements

●         An outline of the election process

●         A nomination form

WHO ARE PARENT GOVERNORS?

All school AGCs have parent governors. They are elected by parents of children at the school.  For a person to stand for election and to vote in a parent governor election he/she must either be the natural parent of a child registered at the school, or be a person with parental responsibility for, or having care of, such a child.

If there are insufficient eligible candidates for the vacancies at an election, the Trust can appoint a parent governor, but there are restrictions on who can be appointed.

Governors normally serve for four years.  If a parent governor ceases to be the parent of a child registered at the school within the period for which they have been elected, he/she may continue to be a governor for the rest of his/her term of office.

WHAT ARE PARENT GOVERNORS?

Parent governors have the same rights, responsibilities and duties as other governors.

Parent governors should play a full and active part in the AGC.

Parent governors, like other governors, do not have the power to act as individuals or as a group, unless specifically authorised to do so by the AGC.

Parent governors are not on the AGC simply to represent the interest of parents, or to be the only link with parents because all governors must have regard to these issues.

WHAT DO GOVERNORS DO?

The AGC, together with the Trust and Headteacher, set the aims and policies of the school.  The Headteacher is responsible for the day to day management of the school.  Together the AGC and Headteacher must ensure the school provides good quality education and helps to raise standards.

WHAT DOES THE AGC DO?

The main duties and responsibilities of the AGC are: 

Relationships

■     Building and maintaining close relations between the school, The Co-op Academies Trust, the Headteacher, staff, students and stakeholder groups to promote the effective operation of activities

■     Working with partner organisations to ensure the effective delivery of services

Strategy and Performance

■     Ensuring improved outcomes in terms of student attainment and the rating awarded

■     Establishing clear and challenging objectives around school improvement, curriculum development, behaviour, attendance and safeguarding to deliver the agreed plans and strategy for educational outcomes and regularly review performance against those objectives

■     Ensuring the effective implementation of AGC decisions by the Headteacher and school leadership team

■     Holding the Headteacher to account for the effective management of the school and delivery of the educational outcomes

■     Ensuring the long term sustainability of the school

Stewardship

■     Upholding the values of The Co-op Academy Trust by example and ensuring that the values are reflected in AGC discussions and decisions and promoted throughout the school

■     Ensuring that the school promotes equality and diversity for all its staff, young people and other stakeholders

HOW MUCH TIME WILL IT TAKE? 

To be an effective member of the AGC, it takes time.  You will need to prepare for and attend at least six AGC meetings per year.  In addition, some governors take on other ‘link’ roles such as Special Educational Needs governor or Safeguarding governor or participate in working groups to oversee small projects, or particular areas of priority. 

The amount of time you will need to give depends on how involved you become but the AGC cannot operate effectively with passengers.  You must be prepared to take more than an interest.

 WHAT SUPPORT IS AVAILABLE?

The Co-op Academies Trust provides support services and training for governors.

All governors receive membership to the National Governors’ Association (NGA) which provides:

■     Weekly e-newsletter - during term time which keeps governors up-to-date with important government and education related news, including policy announcements, information on consultations, legislation, guidance and new research.

■     Governing matters magazine - published six times a year, is essential reading for governors providing strategic leadership in schools and academies. each issue includes the latest news on changes in policy, advice and guidance.

■     Free places at NGA member events and conferences

■     Guidance centre - the information hub for governors -  access to best practice resources including finance; staffing; Ofsted; curriculum; special educational needs; legislation, and school improvement.

Training and development opportunities are provided through face to face in-house training provided by the Trust staff, through on-line modular learning through NGA’s Learning Link programme and arrangements made locally by AGCs.  

If you require more information about being a governor speak to the Headteacher at your child’s school or contact the Trust’s Governance Team by emailing wygovernance@coopacademies.co.uk.

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NOMINATION AND ELECTION PROCESS

Parents are asked to nominate themselves using the Parent Governor Nomination Form included in this pack and also available from the school office.

The nomination form needs to be completed and submitted to the school office in a sealed envelope for the attention of the Headteacher / Returning Officer.  If you are unable to submit it at school, please send it for the attention of the Headteacher / Returning Officer to Leeds@coopacademies.co.uk  

In the event that more parent nominations than vacancies are submitted, all parents will be asked to vote for their preferred candidate.  Ballot papers to be sent to all parents on Thursday 9th May 2024. Voting will only take place if there are more nominations than vacancies.

Parents will be asked to fill in the ballot paper and place it in the sealed box located in the school office no later than 12.00 noon Monday 20th May 2024.  If they are unable to submit their ballot paper at school, they should send it for the attention of the Headteacher / Returning Officer to Leeds@coopacademies.co.uk.  A checking process will be in place to ensure that each parent only submits one ballot paper and votes for one  candidate only.  The names of the candidates standing for election will be on the ballot papers, along with their personal statements; no other names will appear on this paper.

The results of the election will be announced on Tuesday 21st May 2024.

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PARENT GOVERNOR NOMINATION FORM

Please enter IN BLOCK LETTERS the name and address of the person being nominated for election:

Name: ___________________________________________________________________

Address:

___________________________________________________________________

Signature of person nominated:

________________________________________________

Signature of proposer (if different to nominee):

____________________________________

Name and address in BLOCK letters of proposer (if different to nominee):

___________________________________________________________________

Personal Statement (maximum 250 words)

I wish to submit my nomination for the election of parent governor.  I declare that the information I have supplied is accurate.  If elected, I agree to:

■     abide by the terms of the Code of Conduct which applies to AGC members

■     commit to attending regular meetings of the AGC

■     uphold the values of the Trust and the Academy 

Signed: ........................................................................... (candidate)

Date: ..............................................

Dear Parent / Guardian,

Year 11 students are currently preparing for their final exams. The GCSE exam season begins in 6 weeks and I am writing to let you know about the plan of support we are putting in place.

1. Interventions will continue to run for core subjects during PSHE.

2. From the 18th March we have increased the before school, lunchtime and after school revision sessions. Please see the timetable linked here: Y11 Revision Offer Phase 3 2024

3. The library will continue to stay open until 5pm to provide a quiet independent student facility

4. All students will collect Easter holiday revision packs from their teachers - please check that your child has brought this home and support them to organise their time over the break to complete this.

5. Over the Easter holiday there is a programme of revision sessions running - see the schedule here: Y11 Easter revision 2024 

6. After the Easter holiday students will be given an updated timetable with targeted after school revision sessions identified. Please check this with your child and support them to attend.

7. Students will be provided with an online revision timetable to support them in planning their time after the holiday. This will be accessible via their google classroom - please support your child in accessing this.

8. Finally, students are working towards a ‘Passport to the Prom’. Every time they hand in homework they will receive 2 points and every time they attend a revision session they will receive 5 points. Students will need to achieve 150 in total. 

Please contact me via email at: emma.pearson@coopacademies.co.uk  if you have any queries about this or wish to talk about how you can support your child through the intense exam period. There is now a Year 11 Study Hub on our website where you can find more details about the above.

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Ramadan and Wellbeing

As I am sure most of you are aware, the Holy Month of Ramadan has started. Ramadan began on the 11th March and will end on or around 9th April 2024 (depending on the new moon), with Eid-ul-Fitr falling on either the 9th or 10th April 2024.

As one of the Five Pillars (basic religious duties) of Islam, fasting is a part of the month-long celebration. Muslims believe there are a lot of advantages to fasting, like feeling closer to God, leading a healthier lifestyle, creating better habits, improving self-awareness and establishing better relationships with others.

Attendance during this period is as important as at any other time of the year. We respectfully ask you to make sure that you continue to honour your educational responsibilities such as attending every day and attending revision after school in preparation for your GCSE exams. 

Students who are fasting will be monitored during the school day and parents / carers will be called if any child shows signs of being unwell. 

Yours sincerely,

Miss Pearson 

Assistant Headteacher 

Higher Education Access Tracker [HEAT]

Information Sheet & Privacy Notice

ABOUT US

Go Higher West Yorkshire is working in your school or college to help you and/or your peers to make decisions about your next steps in education. Go Higher West Yorkshire is a partnership of universities and colleges working together to reduce inequalities and help everyone who can benefit to access and succeed in higher education.

We are part of the OfS Uni Connect Programme – impartial advice and guidance on college and university.  Uni Connect is funded by the Office for Students. It is a national network of partnerships across England which offer impartial advice, guidance and activities on the benefits and realities of higher education in college and university.

ABOUT HEAT

HEAT stands for the Higher Education Access Tracker. It is a secure electronic database, which means no one can see it unless they are supposed to. Lots of universities and colleges use HEAT to track young people who are taking part in similar activities to you. You can find out more information about what HEAT is and how it works at https://heat.ac.uk/privacy-notice/.

ABOUT OUR TRACKING and EVALUATION

We need to collect information about you and the other young people we work with so we can report to the Office for Students. This is important because the money used to fund our activities is public money, it comes from the Government.

We are also doing evaluation and research to find out whether the activities you take part in make a difference to you. To do this we want to find out:

1. If you go on to university or higher-level study at college.

2. If so, which university or college you choose, and which course.

3. Whether you carry on studying or get a job after you have been to university or college.

To answer these questions, and to produce reports about who we are working with for the Office for Students, we use an electronic database called HEAT. We will ask your school or college to provide us with information about you and the activities that you take part in with us (your data) which will be recorded in HEAT. 

Through HEAT we will then be able to find out if you decide to go onto university or college in the future. HEAT do this by sharing your information with the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).  HEAT and HESA work together to provide statistics about whether you go to university or higher-level study at college.  You can find out more about HESA and how they use your information at https://www.hesa.ac.uk/about/regulation/data-protection/notices#linkg . 

We will use these statistics to understand how helpful different activities are and if they make a difference to your decisions about your future. This will help us to decide what activities we should offer to other young people in the future. 

ABOUT OUR REPORTING

These statistics will also be put into reports to communicate them to others. We will share the reports with some other organisations that are involved with us and in Higher Education. These organisations include:

• The Office for Students

• CFE Research (this organisation is responsible for the national evaluation of the Uni Connect programme on behalf of the Office for Students)

• Go Higher West Yorkshire partner universities and colleges

Some reports may be made public for anybody to read. People reading the reports would never be able to identify you as an individual.

KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION SAFE

We know that it is really important that the information about you is kept safe. We have procedures in place to make sure that this happens. Only authorised staff from your school or college, and some members of the GHWY Uni Connect central team will be able to see that data stored about you in HEAT. The HEAT database is only accessible with a password, and only by those who need to access your data to keep it up to date. For more information on HEAT and data security, please see https://heat.ac.uk/privacy-notice/.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW

If you are happy for your school or college to share your data with Go Higher West Yorkshire, you don’t need to do anything now. You should keep this information in case you have questions in the future.

If you have questions or want to know more about our reporting and evaluation, please get in touch with our lead evaluator using the contact details below.

If you do not want your data to be shared with Go Higher West Yorkshire, you have a right to object or to request that the information we hold is corrected or deleted. You can do this by contacting the researcher named in the next section. Our Privacy Notice sets out in more detail your data rights.  

Thank you for your time.

CONTACT DETAILS

Go Higher West Yorkshire

c/o University of Leeds

LS2 9JT

Email: ghwy@leeds.ac.uk

If you have any concerns about the above you can contact Amy Wilson, Senior Project Manager, a.wilson1@leeds.ac.uk

PRIVACY NOTICE

Please note, if you are under 16, your parent/carer can exercise the rights detailed in this Privacy Notice on your behalf.

DATA CONTROLLER AND COLLECTION

The organisation responsible for looking after your personal data (Data Controller) is the University of Leeds (acting on behalf of Go Higher West Yorkshire). Whilst the University of Leeds may share your data with other Go Higher West Yorkshire partners, it will carefully control who is given access to the data.

Your school or college will be responsible for collecting the data and passing it on to the University of Leeds. Your school or college will keep a record of what you have done with Go Higher West Yorkshire to support your future involvement and the development of the Uni Connect programme.

DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

The University of Leeds’ Data Protection Officer is Alice Temple. If you have any queries concerning the use of your data, please email: dpo@leeds.ac.uk.

WHAT WE WILL USE YOUR DATA FOR

We will use your data for monitoring, evaluation and research. You can find more information in the “About our monitoring and evaluation” and “About HEAT” sections above.

SHARING YOUR DATA

For monitoring, research and evaluation purposes, your data may be shared with relevant agencies, including the Office for Students, Department for Education, Higher Education Statistics Agency, or the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), and our partners including universities, colleges, schools, HEAT subscribers, Connexions and the National Data Service. The University of Leeds and its Go Higher West Yorkshire partners will not share your records in any way that would identify you without seeking additional permission first.

GDPR

This evaluation agreement complies with the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (GDPR).

WHY WE COLLECT YOUR DATA

Whenever an organisation collects data about you, it needs to have a lawful reason for doing so. This is called the ‘legal basis’. In this case, the legal basis is called ‘public task’ or ‘public good’. This refers to Article 9 of GDPR, which says that "processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest”. There are two reasons why the collection of data about you and your involvement in the Uni Connect Programme are in the public interest:

1. It is important that public money is spent in the way it is supposed to be spent. Your data will help us to report to our funders about how the funding has been spent and show that it has been used to support young people in Uni Connect target areas.

2. Your data will help us to understand what kinds of support young people like you benefit from, so that young people in the future can also get the right support for them.

WHAT DATA WILL WE BE COLLECTING

As part of your involvement in the programme we will collect data about you. The data we collect is:  

• Full name

• Postcode of where you live

• Date of birth

• Gender

• Ethnicity

• If you may be the first in your family to go to university

• If you are in receipt of free school meals

• If you have Special Education Needs or a disability

• If you are or have been in Local Authority care

• If you are living without the support of your family (estranged)

• If you are an asylum seeker or refugee

• The activities you take part in with Go Higher West Yorkshire

Sometimes, to help us understand what difference the programme is making, we may collect data about your school/college attendance, grades, behaviour, and what you progress to after you leave school/college. We may also sometimes collect the above data even if you have not participated in programme activity, so that we can compare the difference an activity makes against those who have not participated.

Some of this data, such as ethnicity is called ‘special category data’. This is data that needs more protection because it is sensitive. To make sure this sensitive data is properly protected, the law says that we have to make sure an ‘appropriate policy document’ is in place. We have conducted an assessment to make sure that this data is properly protected.

HOW LONG WILL WE KEEP YOUR DATA FOR

Your personal data (in so far as it identifies you as an individual) will be stored for up to twenty years after the end of the project. After that time, any data stored will be anonymised.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to

• Rectification - that any mistakes in the data held about you are corrected.

• Erasure – that data held about you is deleted.

• Restriction of rights to process - that you limit how the data about you is used.

• Object to your data being used.

• Portability – for you to have your data given back to you in an accessible form so that you can take it somewhere else.

• Withdraw – the right to decide you do not want to take any further part in the research, but you may be happy for us to keep the data we already hold about you.

If you are not happy with the way your data is being handled, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

 

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Dear parent/carer and student,

Leeds City Council’s Employment and Skills service are running the local Apprenticeship Fair on Monday 5th February. 

The event gives students the chance to speak with employers and training providers, to find out about the range of apprenticeship opportunities available in Leeds. Over 90 exhibitors have booked to attend across a wide range of sectors and industries. It is free to attend and everyone is welcome.

We are inviting students who would like an apprenticeship after Year 11 to attend the fair with staff. A coach has been booked to take students, and there are 45 spaces available on a first come first serve basis. 

Alternatively, if you would like to take your child and find out more, the event will be on from 1pm-7pm.  

To see more information on the fair and to book your own tickets, please scan the QR code below.

5th February - First Direct Arena, Arena Way, Leeds, LS2 8BY - 2-3pm

We will be leaving from the school at 1.45pm, so students will need to follow their usual lunchtime arrangements. If you give permission for your son/daughter to attend with the school, complete and return the consent form below to Miss Williams in CG8.

Please keep this part of the letter for your reference. 

Best wishes.