Welcome
This site is for Church of England schools in the Diocese of Chester. In it you will find information about the schools and advice for governors and staff.
Information on this website can be accessed using the menu which appears when you move your cursor over Schools at the top of the page.
There is information about church schools in general and specific information for aided and controlled school as as well as academies.
Some files are provided in pdf format. You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader program, available free of charge from Adobe, in order to view the files. Click here to download the programme.
Denominational inspection (SIAMS)
The inspection schedule has changed and schools should be starting to use the new schedule when undertaking self-evaluation. A revised Chester inspection handbook is here and an example self-evaluation document produced by the National Society is availalble here.
VAT and aided schools
Voluntary Aided Schools are the only maintained schools in England which are unable to reclaim VAT on every aspect of their educational provision. The governors of VA schools are unable to reclaim VAT on expenditure deemed to be capital. Most Voluntary Aided Schools pay and reclaim VAT through their Local Authority. For over ten years, for good administrative reasons, some Local Authorities have chosen to apply a definition of capital based on a purchase value (normally anything over £2000) rather than use the correct procedure of assessing each purchase on its merit under 'normal accounting practices'. DBE Services has for many years worked on behalf of schools in encouraging Local Authorities to interpret capital expenditure in the correct way. We are delighted that HMRC have now sought to clarify the position which should allow schools to reclaim some of the VAT that was rightly due to them in the past and ensure that in the future the VAT rules are correctly applied.
VAT4Schools is a new service offered by DBE Services to help schools recover wrongly paid VAT and if you would like more information, please click here.
New courses
Details of 2012/2013 courses for staff and governors can be found here. More information will be provided (when available) under CPD and Events.
New on the website
A Practical Handbook for Developing the Distinctive Christian Ethos of church schools is available here.
To see the latest newsletter, click here.
Family of Schools
Links to 'What's On' help for collective worship, are sent to member schools. To download information about the scheme for 2012/13, click here. Anyone requiring information about the Family of Schools scheme should contact Sandra Reynolds in the first instance.
Becoming an Academy
Before applying to become an Academy, schools must have the consent of the DBE. A Church School which converts to an academy will automatically maintain its religious designation. For further information click here.