Governors' News & Events

Dear parents and carers,

Update from the governors

We hope you have enjoyed your summer break and welcome back to Handsworth for another year. In particular, we’d like to extend a very warm welcome to our new Nursery and Reception parents and carers. We are really pleased to welcome Mrs Claire Nairne as our new Headteacher and are excited to work with her to take the school from strength to strength.

We would like to introduce two new co-opted governors to the Governing Body; Stacey Dobbs and Richard Trainor who both bring a wealth of skills and experience to the team.  We would like to thank Alina Harris for serving as the Chair for the past two years and to thank Liz Winder and Jenny Smith who will be Co-Chairing the Governing Body this year. You can find more information about the Governors on the school website here and you can get in touch via the website or by emailing governors@handsworth.waltham.sch.uk.

Voluntary fund: what are your views?

At the end of the summer term, we asked you for your views on the possibility of a voluntary fund; thank you for taking the time to respond. In spite of recent announcements from the government regarding additional funding for schools, we remain of the view that the school budget is likely to continue to be extremely tight over the coming years and believe that a voluntary fund would still be of significant benefit to the school community.  

We received 105 responses from parents and carers and, of those responses, 90% of you stated that you would be likely to make a contribution to a voluntary fund.

We asked you to share any suggestions, comments or concerns in relation to a voluntary fund.  We note the view raised by some of you that the government should be providing adequate funding and we are saddened that many schools are having to look closely at cutting spending and finding innovative ways of raising income to balance the budget, including asking parents and carers for voluntary contributions. 

We want to do all we can to allay concerns around the confidentiality of a voluntary fund and reiterate that:

• contributions would always be entirely optional
• contributions will be treated confidentially within the school in the same way that other sensitive information is routinely and professionally handled.
• there would never be any impact on individual pupils at school resulting from parents’/carers’ choice whether or not to contribute or the amount given
• the school would never chase individual parents/carers who chose not to participate

We are glad that the overwhelming response to our survey was positive and we will now proceed by investigating the logistics of setting up a voluntary fund.  We will update you with further information as soon as we are able.

We are hopeful that voluntary contributions will allow spending from the budget to support our key priorities this year.  We are really grateful for your feedback and your many messages of support. 
 
The Governing Body