Overview

Committees Overview

All governing bodies have statutory functions to perform and at Middle Barton School, the majority of these are delegated to four separate committees. This makes the administration of our statutory duties much easier to manage.

• Curriculum
  To support and monitor all aspects of teaching and learning
• Finance
  Management of all aspects of the school budget
• Personnel
  Employment issues and welfare of staff
• Premises
  Control and maintenance of the school premises and grounds

Each committee has 4-7 members and their composition is determined at full governors’ meetings, with a Chair elected for each one. The terms of reference, constitution and membership is reviewed annually, giving governors the opportunity to change committees within their term of office - although membership tends to remain the same once governors settle into their roles. We are lucky that many of our Governors have specific professional skills which they can bring to individual committees.

Much of the annual schedule of work issued by Oxfordshire’s Governor Services Department is delegated to the respective committees, although legal responsibility for all decisions rests with the full Governing body. All major issues agreed within committees, such as policy reviews and changes, are brought back to full Governors’ meetings for ratification. In addition to the statutory committee work, our governing body sets up working parties to look at specific issues: the Disability Discrimination Act, Community cohesion and Communication are some of the issues we have dealt with recently.

Committees meet between three to six times per year, depending on agenda needs. For further details about the work of each one, see the relevant page on this website.