Headteacher Appointment
Dear Parent/Carer
As most of you will recall, Mr Pilkington made us aware in September that he intends to retire at the end of this academic year.
The governing board has been busy since September, planning and organising a recruitment campaign to find Mr Pilkington’s successor. On the 20th and 1st November, a 2 day interview process took place at the school, with candidates asked to carry out many activities including giving an assembly, teaching a lesson, conducting a learning walk, meeting the nursery and school council, together with written assessments and finalising with a presentation and a rigorous interview with governors and a representative from Suffolk County Council.
We are delighted to announce that following that process, the governing board has made the appointment, and Mrs Deaves will join Hadleigh Community Primary School in September 2025 as our new headteacher.
Rather than us tell you about Mrs Deaves, we asked if she would like to introduce herself.
Please read on to find out more.
Yours faithfully
Mandy Gowers, Chair of Governors
On behalf of the Governing Board
Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope this letter finds you well. My name is Mrs. Deaves, and I am delighted to introduce myself as the next Headteacher who will be joining Hadleigh Community Primary School in September 2025.
I began teaching in 2010 and have had the privilege of working at my current school since 2015 which is where I began my journey into headship in April 2016. Prior to becoming a teacher, I studied Developmental Psychology, which has greatly influenced my approach to education. Understanding the unique developmental journey of each child is something I find both fascinating and incredibly rewarding, and it has helped me to work collaboratively with my Team to support children in ways that allow them to grow, learn, and flourish.
Hadleigh Community Primary School stood out to me as a truly special place, and this feeling was reaffirmed throughout all my conversations with staff and children during my visit and interview days. When meeting with the school council, HCPS was described as a big family, and I can’t think of a better environment to continue my career. I am excited to join such a warm, welcoming community, where every child is supported and valued.
I am committed to creating a positive, nurturing, and inclusive environment where every child feels safe, confident, and inspired to reach their full potential. Working closely with parents and carers will be essential to our shared success, and I am looking forward to building strong partnerships with you all. When I’m not at school, I am very family-focused. I have two wonderful stepdaughters and a terrific two-year-old, we often spend our free time cooking, baking or on days out exploring new places around the UK.
I am looking forward to working closely with Mr. Pilkington over the course of this academic year and getting to know you all better as I officially join Hadleigh in September 2025.
I am excited to begin this next chapter with you all.
Kind regards
Mrs Deaves
Governor Newsletter: April 2022
Governors are responsible for setting the school’s vision and strategic direction, for holding the Headteacher and Senior Leadership team to account for educational performance, and for ensuring the School’s money is spent well.
Farewell to:
Mike Finch and Laura Crawford - Mike and Laura both served their terms as Governors with such commitment and dedication. We thank you for all you have contributed.
With Mike and Laura having left the Governing Board, we now have two vacancies and are looking for eager replacements to join the school’s Governing Board. Details of how to apply can be found here - please do get in touch if you would like to discuss the opportunity in further detail.
Ofsted
We were thrilled and proud as a Governing Body to receive the Ofsted report in September last year confirming our school as “Good”. This is a reflection of the excellent staff we are fortunate to have leading, teaching and supporting in our school, and the wonderfully behaved children who approach their learning with such enthusiasm. Thank you to everybody, what an amazing school community we have.
Governing Board Activity
This academic year has seen us be able to return (albeit tentatively with Covid still presenting some barriers) to some of the things we used to enjoy prior to Covid. We have managed to carry out some monitoring visits. The school development plan focuses on embedding the new curriculum, so we have chosen to align our monitoring visits on subject areas to understand and reassure ourselves of the progress being made in these areas. To support us, we have recently undertaken whole Governor Board training, focussing on how to best carry out monitoring visits. This was a great refresher session, giving us some reassurance that we already carry out much of what is expected of us, as well as some ideas for other areas we can look to develop.
If you are interested in what we do, and think you may like to join us, then please do give the vacant positions some thought and get in touch for a confidential chat if you would like to know more
Chair of Governors Letter: 5th January 2021
Dear Parents/Carers,
Following on from Mr Pilkington’s email last night after the Prime Minister announced a National Lockdown and the need for immediate school closure, I am writing to urge you all to only use the Keyworker provision where essential.
From what we understand from the data and statistics being published, the infection rate and impact of the pandemic is the worst the country has seen so far. It is imperative that we keep the provision of Keyworker and vulnerable children service to a minimum to keep it as safe as possible for the staff who will be providing it, and for those children and their families who have no other option but to attend.
If you are able to keep your child(ren) at home with you, please do so wherever possible.
If after due consideration you require a keyworker place for your child, please complete the online form by the deadline of 3pm today. This is crucial to enable the correct staffing ratios.
Thank you for your co-operation and understanding in these most challenging of times.
Take care, stay safe, and let’s hope we can open the school gates again fully in the not too distant future.
Regards,
Chair of Governors
Governor Newsletter: December 2020
Governors are responsible for setting the school’s vision and strategic direction, for holding the Headteacher and Senior Leadership team to account for educational performance, and for ensuring the School’s money is spent well.
Welcome to:
Nicola Webb - Parent Governor, elected 8 December 2020.
Farewell to:
At the end of the Summer term we said farewell and thank you to our long standing and dedicated Governor Joel Runnels-Moss whose term came to an end. The school gained tremendously over the years from his motivation, experience and knowledge.
Our last Newsletter spoke of the uncertainty of the coming Autumn term, and here we are at the end of it. School days are quite different from that of a year ago with all the additional measures and safety precautions, but what a fantastic term it has been, welcoming all the children back and being able to resume some kind of normality.
Governor activity has had to, understandably, take a back seat whilst the focus has been on settling into new routines and observing the additional measures now needed.
Committee and Whole Body meetings have still taken place via video call, the Governors who have a responsibility in Safeguarding, SEND and Health & Safety have all had “virtual” meetings with the staff responsible, and website compliance has been reviewed, but our usual on site Governor Monitoring visits have had to be postponed.
Next term, we will revisit the Governor Action Plan and establish the focus for the following few months, hoping that perhaps by the Summer term we will be able to return to visiting the school for visits in person - of course there is no certainty of this and the health and safety of staff and pupils will always come first and foremost.
So as we come to the end of another term, we would just like to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone - staff, parents, carers and children, for rising to the challenge this pandemic has brought; by adjusting to the new school protocols and all working together to keep everyone as safe as possible whilst enabling our children to still learn and develop in a school environment. An especially big thank you to those who are braving the elements every morning, afternoon and lunch and break times throughout the day, to provide reassurance to us all and enable our large school to arrive and leave in the safest way possible. We hope you have a particularly warm and relaxing break!
Governor Newsletter: December 2019
Governors are responsible for setting the school’s vision and strategic direction, for holding the Headteacher and Senior Leadership team to account for educational performance, and for ensuring the School’s money is spent well.
It’s been a busy term for Governors. We started the term with a full governor training session delivered by Schools Choice on the new Ofsted Framework and a few weeks later had a session to consider the school’s ethos, vision and aims and whether what is published is still appropriate. The consensus was that it largely is, but perhaps with a few tweaks in some areas to reflect how our school operates and what it aims to achieve today and going forward. Those changes will be updated on the website and publications in due course.
We have also been supporting the school with the School Development Plan, a summary version of which you can find on the website under the Policies section. Many of our monitoring visits this term have been arranged around this. The Governor Action Plan is also now updated and available on the website, so please feel free to take a look to see what we aim to achieve over the forthcoming months.
Thank you to all of those who stopped to talk with us at the Consultation evenings back in October and take part in the Parent/Carer survey. We had a fantastic response rate with over 100 surveys completed. If you didn’t get a chance to complete a survey, we would welcome your views and you can complete a survey at anytime at parentview.ofsted.gov.uk. We are now busy collating all of the data and will feedback to you in due course with the results.
In the New Year we are hoping to launch a Head and Chair open morning every term, providing you with the opportunity to come along and meet us and discuss any matters you would like to. In the meantime, we would like to wish all staff, pupils, families and volunteers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Governor Newsletter: July 2019
Governors are responsible for setting the school’s vision and strategic direction, for holding the Headteacher and Senior Leadership team to account for educational performance, and for ensuring the School’s money is spent well.
Welcome to:
- James Baalham - LA Governor, elected 11 July 2019
- Matt Paisley - Parent Governor, elected 11 July 2019
- Mike Finch - Co-Opted Governor, elected 12 July 2019
Farewell to:
Brendan Clancy and Chris Herron – Brendan and Chris have served 4 and 8 years respectively and contributed much in that time. We thank them for their service and wish them well.
Focus: What have we done this term?
- Hosted the BBQ stall at the school fete
- Carried out a monitoring visit reviewing the school’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities provision
- Invigilated at SATS exams
- Visited camp to see the fun and adventure the children get to experience
- Observed a Maths Mastery class being delivered
- Met with the school’s Standards and Excellence Officer who was assessing the Early Years provision
- Attended training on Safeguarding matters
- Carried out Safeguarding checks on the school
- Reviewed the school’s compliance with GDPR legislation
Future Plans:
Governors are in the process of arranging training for next term so they can better understand the new Ofsted Framework and Curriculum which comes into place in September, and we are also working on creating a Governor Action Plan to focus our attention on key areas.