Welcome to the Governors of St Martin's School

As the current Chair of the Governing Body of St Martin’s C.E. (Aided) Primary School I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the governors’ section of the school website.

Our Governing Body consists of a diverse group of volunteers who may share a common faith but always share a mutual desire to support the school and all members of the school community. We are proud of the level of involvement we have within the school.

The meetings that we have with the Senior Management team and other members of staff are important, but so are the meetings and other contact that we have with the pupils on the School Council, parents and representatives of the Diocese and Local Authority.

Governors have three core functions:

1. Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction of our School;

2. Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of our School and the performance management of staff; and

3. Overseeing the financial performance of our School and making sure its money is well spent and well managed.

To state these functions is much easier than the practice of them! We deal with every aspect under the roof - and the roof as well! We do this through meeting as a full board six times times a year, and also through separate working committees dealing with curriculum and Christian distinctiveness. We try to place governors with the relevant skills to different roles on the governing body and we all undertake governor training in accordance with our roles. It is a very busy board and we visit school regularly - which enables us to feel a welcome part of life at St. Martin's. You can see the list of current governors below.

We have an active Link Governor programme, each of us spending time with teachers and pupils involved in a particular priority curriculum area. We also take part in the numerous extra-curricular activities that the children in the school enjoy, helping out on school visits, at school productions and taking part in the spiritual life of the school.

We enjoy a good relationship with the Friends of St.Martin's (FOSMS)to whom we are always grateful because they invaluably assist us in finding the funds which, as Voluntary Aided School, we need to contribute towards particular capital projects.

I am always very pleased to hear from anyone with a stake in the school and I can be contacted by email, or you can leave a message with your details with the school office: messages and letters are always passed to me by Mrs Newton and Mrs Pickles as quickly as ever possible. I am also happy to arrange to meet with parents to discuss aspects of school management should that be necessary.

I hope that this brief introduction to the Governing Body explains to you a little of what we do and I hope that you might feel able to talk to any of us about governance matters and perhaps even join us!

Julia Jones

Chair of Governors

How to contact the Governors

The Chair of Governors, Julia Jones and the Clerk to the Governors, Mick Prince, can be contacted through email or via the School’s office. Please call 01723 360239 or email admin@st-martins.n-yorks.sch.uk marked for the attention of Chair of Governors.

How to become a Governor

If you are interested in knowing more about serving as a governor of St Martin's please contact Julia Jones, the Chair of Governors through school on 01723 360 239 or send an email to admin@st-martins.n-yorks.sch.uk.

For a more detailed explanation of the role and obligations of school governors you might like read the Department of Education publications "Governance Handbook" and "Competency framework for governance", which are regularly updated. They can be easily found by searching the respective title name on the gov.uk website.

St Martin's Governors: Who's who?

Our Governors: Their roles and standing committee membership.

Our governing body has 12 governor seats. The term of office is 3 years for co-opted governors, 3 years for Foundation governors and 3 years for all other types of governor. The current composition of the board appears below with individual school priority responsibilities shown. The governing body meet twice a term as a full governing body. Please click on the link below to access information about the members of the governing body.

More Governors Information