Our Governors: A Necessary Pedantry

In my journal…

Are our policies and practices reviewed, updated and compliant? 

Is the Board fully informed?

Monday evening brought about the first of three termly full Governing Board Meetings.

The six current Governors of Cransley School, chaired by Professor Darren Walter, have been drawn from a range of professional and personal backgrounds, including present and past parents, and volunteer necessary experience, constructive thought and analysis to the leadership of the School.

Good governance ensures the highest standards in the School's strategic leadership, financial health, and educational standards while upholding its ethos and vision.

This requires members to act with integrity, make effective, strategic decisions, and hold the school accountable through clear roles, responsibilities, and performance monitoring. 

Key responsibilities include ensuring financial sustainability, providing a safe and compliant environment, and fostering a diverse and effective leadership, building strong, supportive relationships between the board and school leaders.

We have three sub-committees of three or four governors, each of which also meets a minimum of once a term - Academic and Wellbeing; Welfare, Risk and Compliance, and Finance, Business and Premises.  Each reports back to the full Board.

Professor Walter and I meet each week to discuss a range of issues.

As the headteacher and Chair, we need our governors, both current and future, to be committed, loyal and utterly pupil-centred, academically and pastorally, through an understanding of our values, a critical friendship, a necessary pedantry, maybe, and a willingness to do an awful lot of reading. 

There are in practice over 30 Cransley School policies, describing the necessary practice required to ensure the school is compliant against the Independent School Standards regulations (ISSRs).  Policies from safeguarding and child protection to behaviour management, safer recruitment to curriculum and assessment, Trips and risk assessments to first aid and intimate care.

Many of these can extend over 80 pages, and my management team and I have to pore over these to ensure compliance and good practice, and submit them to the board for reading, review and final ratification, just as an ISI inspector would, before they are then published, and any changes to our practice made.  The review cycle usually takes two years, but several key policies require annual review.

Staff are then required to read and understand many of these policies.

Cransley School has been compliant throughout the last 12 years, confirmed by three increasingly glowing ISI inspections, and interim material change inspections (made necessary by our growth in numbers).  The last inspection was in November 2023, when, despite being only the 46th school to be inspected under the new format, assessed to have a ‘significant strength’ setting us apart from many other schools who have been inspected since.  In fact I believe only 12 of all independent schools in the North-West have such a (to quote the Junior School PPB) special mention.  

The three-year inspection cycle will bring the next ISI visit in a year’s time and not only has Cransley continued to consolidate its practice, but its educational provision is growing and developing more than ever, and the governors and senior leaders more experienced with each day.

The parental and pupil voice dominates the inspection process and outcome.  To that end, I will be sending a general review survey to parents in October, which I ask you please to take time to complete.

In the meantime, we press on through a busy term.  As I type, the rain is still hammering down after 12 hours.  Thank goodness we delayed our Open Day…

Yours

Richard Pollock

Headteacher

Development: The Second Curve

This happens at the start of every year.  I half-write a journal entry and then something else note-worthy happens, I begin another entry and I neglect to complete both.  The result is either a huge single entry full of items, or three shorter entries in close succession (surely much preferred).

Grab a coffee/chardonnay/small dog and read at your convenience. 

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Dear Journal

Has the year begun well?

Is our events calendar full, fun and shared?

Are the staff focused, trained, motivated and equipped for the year ahead?  

Is the new timetable working?

Are Friday Afternoons running smoothly?

It never fails to astonish me how different two adjacent weeks can be as the summer closes and a new school year begins.  From a peaceful planned period of completion of the Estate works at the end of August, to the high energy of a now-major, year-opening festival and the full influx of hundreds of fresh and refreshed faces.

To see Cransleyfest in full flight: lights dancing on the Hall; guests dancing on the lawn; fireworks dancing in the eyes, allows me a moment to take stock of the school’s ever progressing development, as it begins the academic year.  That moment to take a long breath before the show begins.

I watched this time with a more critical eye after five iterations of the event, and concluded - rightly or wrongly (someone will eventually let me know) - that the festival itself is still engaging for all ages, entertaining, well-timed and worth holding.  

Note to self, to speak to the team who sorted the weather…

The Cransley events calendar (see the schoolbase portal or Mr Morris’s recent email) is packed full of more and more occasions, for pupils and parents alike with every year that goes by.  And as a result this term tends to sweep by in a blur.  There is not a week that goes by without a major event taking place in school - from Head’s coffee mornings, parents evenings, ISA Art exhibitions, promotional filmmaking, guest speakers, trips and activities out of school, Harvest, Fireworks and Christmas festivals and productions and services, Open days, open afternoons, makers’ markets, occasions when we are hosting both Mr Morris’s Association of Junior Independent Schools and my group of fellow ISA Headteachers in the North West,  and much more.

My colleagues and I recognise that being a Cransley family is as much about a sense of experience and opportunity as it is about anything else.  I hope we meet that brief.

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As employees of the school, we are part of a truly talented group of colleagues, each ever-increasingly expert in their field.

The year began with two intense training days for staff on mandatory safeguarding and child protection, our next careful but confident strides in the development use of AI in teaching and assessment, some exemplary pedagogical research, a wider sector overview and my outline development curve for the year ahead.  

If you are unlucky enough to find yourself talking with me at a Head’s coffee morning, I might chunter on about Sigmoid Curve theory, which describes a common life cycle pattern of growth, maturity, and decline, observed in various systems like businesses, products, technologies, and even individuals. 

If you haven’t encountered such a dull conversation topic before, it's an S-shaped concept curve that begins slowly, then enters a period of rapid, almost exponential growth, followed by a slowing growth rate as it approaches a plateau of maturity or saturation.  It can model projects, physical and mental activities, even relationships.

Sigmoid Curve Theory 1

A crucial aspect of the sigmoid curve theory, especially in business, is the concept of the "second curve" (yellow dotted curve above) which must be identified and started before the first one peaks, not once it is in decline (brown dotted curve).

The second curve initiates by recognising slowing growth from a previous curve, and the need for something new.  Progress isn’t immediate, because everyone gets twitchy - no one likes change and people love WhatsApp. Problems have to be predicted and addressed, plans have to be fail-safe and accurate, even when based on soft data and theory.  Time and effort and thought and collaboration is required.

Then, after this, when everything is readied, the change takes place and everyone starts to see the benefit of why the second curve was bought in in the first place.  Eventually these benefits become appreciated and normalised.  Everyone settles in, and growth is allowed to happen. 

Sigmoid Curve Theory 2

Having been the headteacher now for over nine years, and deputy prior to that, there have been hundreds of different curves which together have led to the school’s continued development - pedagogically, financially, operationally - and a school of our size is more flexible and adaptive than many other larger schools in bringing about those changes successfully.  

The latest major Sigmoid curves, amongst others are the development of AI in teaching and learning practice (more of which will be shared in another journal post) and the new timetable.

We may still be coming out of the ‘uncertainty’ stage, but we can see the reality backing up our theory, and that the decision was the right one.  Talking to parents and pupils and colleagues, even seeking out those who objected a few months ago, we can see that the benefits are being recognised and appreciated: Pupils don’t really notice the longer day, but teachers appreciate the increase in teaching time, and both feel that the Friday afternoon is a happy reward.  We know that the Friday lunch service is being fine tuned and we will better ourselves with every week.  If we are still making the mistakes in November, then complain.  I am right here, and ready to listen.

I would love for other schools, and their staff and pupils, to follow suit, and reap the benefits (and they are indeed asking) but to be frank, they all are far too large and rigid to move on such an idea.  Our agile, aspirant and flexible nature makes Cransley true pioneers in doing this.

Enough for now.  You have finished your cup of tea and I am heading home.

Yours, as ever

Mr Pollock

Headteacher

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Next Journal entry:

Are our policies reviewed, updated and compliant? 

Are the Board fully informed?

GCSE Results 2025

Dear Parents and Families

Congratulations to our 25 wonderful Year 11 pupils for the commitment and effort shown in their GCSEs.

35% of all exams results were graded 7 to 9 (compared to 23% nationally).  92% of exams results were graded 4 to 9 (70.5% nationally) and 88% of pupils have gained five or more GCSEs at 9-4.  

A fitting outcome for those pupils taking advantage of the continuing superb support and engagement from teaching staff, hard work and discipline and maximising their use of our pastoral provision.   

My colleagues have been exceptional in their teaching and support of our wide range of pupils across all subjects.  I am truly proud of everyone.

As usual, we are very pleased that many pupils have achieved well above their indicative grade (based on cognitive tests taken on entry into the senior school), some almost an average of three grades per subject, resulting in the pleasing number of top grades (7-9), mentioned above. 

It is rare that individual pupils are identified in our communications, however a particular mention is required for one pupil who attained seven grade 9s, one grade 8 and an A* in their A level maths last week. Furthermore, two other pupils achieved grade 8s and 9s in eight of their GCSEs taken and a fourth pupil achieved all grade 7/8/9s in all nine of their subjects.

As always, our benchmark is with other similar semi-selective intake schools across the country, and our initial findings are that we are higher than these settings and very much higher than national averages.  Further regional and national data is published over coming weeks.

Our pupils now enter into various colleges across the region, from schools to sixth form colleges, to study a variety of academic and vocational courses.

We will miss them dearly, and wish them every success.

Mr Richard Pollock

Headteacher