Staff  Team

Waterside Academy is committed to safeguarding children.

Should you have any concerns regarding a child's safety, please contact our Designated Safeguarding Leader (DSL) or a Deputy DSL who can all be contacted via the office.

DSL - Mrs Wilson (Deputy Head)

Deputy DSLs - Mrs Pace, Mrs Geaves, Mrs Powell and Mrs Woods 

Should you have any concerns or questions regarding safeguarding, please do come and speak with us without delay. Alternatively, feel free to e-mail me directly via head@waterside.herts.sch.uk - this is particularly useful during the school holidays and on other occasions when the school is closed. 

The school governor nominated for safeguarding is - Monika Szita-Rimann (Chair of Governors).

...

The Senior Leadership Team:

Executive Head Teacher (Interim) - Mrs Pace 

Deputy Head Teacher - Miss Wilson 

Assistant Head Teacher - Mrs Geaves

The Middle Leadership Team:

SENDCo - Mrs Jarrold

Lead TA - Miss Sturmey

LKS2 - Mr Craig

UKS2 - Mr Craig

 
Teaching Staff:

EYFS Teacher, SLT, Well-being and Workload Leader - Mrs Geaves

SENDCo (Special Education Needs and Disabilities Coordinator) - Mrs Jarrold

SENCo Contact Information  - Contact Mrs Jarrold the SENCo through admin@waterside.herts.sch.uk

Year 1 - Mrs Burman
Year 2 - Miss Woods
Year 3 - Miss Wilson
Year 4 - Mrs Begum
Year 5 - Mrs Thavanesan
Year 6 - Mr Craig

Cover Lessons

- Mr Rock

Support Staff:

Nursery Nurse:                                                                                                          Mrs Foyle

EYP:                                                                                                                          Mrs Jones

Lead TA:                                                                                                                   Miss Sturmey

Family Support Worker, Nurture Lead, Well-being and Mental Health Leader       Mrs Woods

Lunchtime supervisor and TA:                                                                                 Mrs Weymouth

Teaching Assistants:                          Mrs Girdlestone, Miss Harrison,
                                                           Mrs Bone, Mrs Newvell-Taylor, Mrs Clare, Mrs Rogers and Mrs Evans
                                                          

Additional Mid-Day Supervisors:     Mrs Tutton
                                                           Mrs Sones

(Please note: to ensure high quality supervision and support for children at lunchtimes, most TAs work the lunch hour.)

English -  Miss Wilson 

Maths - Mr Craig (STEM team)

Science - Mrs Geaves  (STEM team)

Computing - Mr Craig and Mr Rock (STEM team) 

P.E - Miss Wilson with Mr Wood (Premier Education) supporting

P.S.H.E - Mrs Jarrold

Creative Arts (Art, DT and Music) - Mrs Thavanesan

MfL  (Spanish in KS2) - Miss Sturmey

Humanities  (History, Geography and R.E) - Mrs Burnman with Miss Sturmey supporting

EYFS leader - Mrs Geaves

KS1 leader - Miss Wilson

LKS2 leader - Mr Craig

UKS2 leader - Mr Craig

School Office

Mrs Dranse - Finance Manager

Mrs Worland - School Business Manager
Mrs Powell - Attendance and Admissions Manager
Mrs Milligan - Administration Assistant

Kitchen Staff (Chartwells)

Mrs Robertson (Chef)
Mrs Churchill (GA)

Site Staff

Mr Churchill - Caretaker

Mrs Sones - Cleaner
Mrs Hoy - Cleaner
Mrs Weymouth - Cleaner

Academy Trust - central team and their responsibilities (please follow the link below)

http://agoralearning.co.uk/our-people/central-mat-team-personnel/

Academy Trust - members and their responsibilities (please follow the link below)

http://agoralearning.co.uk/our-people/our-members-and-trustees/

Teacher workload and well-being

● Long working hours in schools and colleges affect teachers’ work–life balance. Nationally, teachers reported spending less than half of their time on teaching, and almost a third on lesson planning, marking and administrative tasks. They also said that they do not have enough time for the important aspects of their role.

All teachers at Waterside are given two full lessons per week as planning, preparation and assessment time.

We have also worked hard to reduce the number of weekly meetings we have. For example, our 'daily briefing' has been reduced to just once per week and our 'weekly staff meeting' is usually only one hour in length and we try to ensure that it never spills over 75 minutes.

Here at Waterside we give our teachers, who are also subject leaders, two additional lessons per week release time to fully plan for, implement and then evaluate the impact of their area of curriculum responsibility.

Being a subject leader is an incredible privilege but a big responsibility too. We recognise the increased workload that comes with leading a subject; curriculum mapping and planning, monitoring, feedback, research, measuring impact and so much more.

This is why every single one of our subject leaders gets two lessons, every single week, out of class, to fully lead their subject properly.

This is protected release time and enables our team to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. The children are then taught by Mrs McConchie, who is a very experienced and highly skilled teacher. 

 
● Nationally, staff believe that lack of resources – both human and physical – affects their ability to do their job as well as they could. Human resource shortages increase the already high workload, decrease staff’s
ability to do their core job effectively and mean that they are often asked to take on additional
responsibilities outside their expertise. Staff also feel hampered by a lack of physical resources such as
computers or library materials. This all contributes to a sense of dis-empowerment, despite having the
skills and knowledge needed to deliver good-quality education.

Here at Waterside we are incredibly well staffed - don't get me wrong - the more the merrier and we are always looking for ways to add to our staff team but budgets only stretch so far. 

We are very fortunate to have 11 members of staff who are all fully qualified teachers. We have four members of staff who work in our early years setting (with 37 children), four members of staff who work in the office and a grand total of 9 additional TAs (not including those already attributed to the early years). We have a non-class based Headteacher and a very highly-skilled deputy head too. 

In terms of physical resources we have taken extensive time to review what is available to us and we are constantly looking for ways to improve our 'stock'. For example each year we are looking at what proportion we believe we should spend from our sports and PE premium on physical resources. 

We are however, incredibly lucky to have our own dedicated school library - a wondrous place indeed. please come and check it out!

● Across the country, pupils’ behaviour often has a negative effect on teachers’ well-being and some teachers do not always feel supported by their senior leaders or line managers in addressing this poor behaviour. This is often because behaviour management at those schools is inconsistent.

Here at Waterside we take every step possible to make sure our behaviour leadership is robust and consistent. In the autumn we sat down with our leadership groups and then our teachers to work through our behaviour processes and this year we have implemented a new behaviour policy. The absolute focus of the policy is consistency and restorative justice. 

All staff have been given training and instruction on how to embed the policy consistently. We review this overtime and continuously provide staff with behaviour leadership guidance via my internal weekly (e-mailed) bulletin.

You can see our policy here...

Behaviour Policy

At Waterside Academy we all strive to follow our Golden Rules...

We let other children learn

We are kind

We look after property

We keep ourselves safe

We try our hardest

 
● Nationally, teachers also reported that Ofsted inspections affect well-being and stress levels, especially when
senior leaders expect more administrative work in preparation or if they focus too much on data and
exam results.

This one was an easy one for the senior leadership team and I to address, we never ever ask any member of staff to do something because 'Ofsted will want to see it.' 

We do things because they are genuinely in the best interests of our pupils. If we keep to this firm belief then I am sure any inspectorate will be happy with our work.