Govenors independant appeal panel anyone?

[errdunno]

In particular the roles and responsibilities if the clerk who collects/collates all material?
Who are they and who appoints them?

It says on my letter that this panel of govenors who wil arbitrate the complaint should be independant impartial and welcoming.
But if Im not allowed to be there,why welcoming?

In addition,I know that the Head teacher and the Chair should not be part of this panel and that the clerk will write to me within one week to let me know the panels decision....

Anyone got any experience of this?

[cornsilk]

There should be someone from the LEA who can answer these questions for you. Look on the website and try to ring them tomorrow.

[errdunno]

Hi Sadly the lea are giving this a bit of a wide one too! we are no longer at the school and the complaint procedure is differnt thay say because its a faith school.
will call the diocesse 2morrow and see if I can get some more but in the meantimethere may be someone out there that IS a clerk for this sort of thing or indeed a panel member?
many thanks

[errdunno]

bump

[errdunno]

any school govenors then?

[errdunno]

I cant beleive there are no governors out tonite! anyone with any ideas?

[MascaraOHara]

was your other thread full errdunno?

it's you who reckoned the teacher 'sacked' your son isn't it?

[fortyandfab]

Not a governor, but as a parent I've had experience of taking a complaint to a Governor's Complaints Panel. It was also a faith school but that shouldn't make a difference. I had to demonstrate to the LEA that I had exhausted the school's complaints procedures - I was able to show that I had had meetings with and written letters to both the Headteacher and Chair of Governors without success.

The Panel is made up of a least 3 governors who have not had anything to do without the original complaint. It will be "clerked" by someone, usually from the Lea, who is there to make sure the correct procedures are followed and to take minutes. I can't undertand how they can have a Hearing without both you and the Headteacher also being present to make your respective cases? You should also be entitled to have someone with you. The Headteacher can too, probably someone like her Union Rep.
My experience, and this is not to discourage you, was not a very happy one. My complaint was upheld but I was left in no doubt that it was certainly not appreciated that I had raised the issues I had. I had documentary evidence to back up my case but the best I got was an admission that "mistakes were made". But there was no censure of the Headteacher for her failings and they (the governors) agreed with her Rep to keep everything confidential so that other parents wouldn't know what is happening.

I also took the matter up with the Diocese who made sympathetic noises but admitted that the Govt has made governing bodies "almost autonomous" (a truly frightening prospect having seen the quality and standard at my school!!). I was directed by them to the DCSF who are currently carrying out a consultation exercise on new ways of handling parents complaints about school issues because they recognise that there are issues about Governing Body accountability. (Sorry I can't do links but it is all on the DCSF website.)

The Complaints Panel is only "independent" to the extent that it should only include governors not previously involved in the case. But as several people have already said, they will probably close ranks. Because you are no longer a parent at the school they might feel more able to "fob you off". To regain some power, you might wanted to threaten to report the Headteacher to her professional body for professional misconduct to "concentrate" their minds.
Good luck!

[BoccaDellaVerita]

I'm sorry I didn't see this before. I am a governor in a VA school. I've never sat on a complaints panel but I have sat on panels for (eg) admissions appeals.

I'd agree with everything that fortyandfab says, except that I really would hope that the panel of governors would not close ranks but would look at the matter objectively. The difficulty, to be frank, is that any panel of this sort can only look at whether the decision or action being appealed against or complained about was reasonable. So, if a parent is complaining that the school has done A when it could have done B, then the complaint is only likely to be upheld if the parent can demonstrate that A was an unreasonable thing to do, bearing in mind all the circumstances (including the law, school policies, resources, impact on other pupils etc etc).

Some LEAs have a parents' advocacy service to help parents in complaints against schools. Can they advise you?

[errdunno]

BumP!!

[cory]

I too have only experience of an admissions panel (and that from the parent's point of view). The advantage of this was that it was a completely independent panel, not made up of school governors or people connected to that particular school. I think there is more of a risk of rank-closing with school governors tbh.

Still, all you can do is your best. Make sure your paperwork is absolutely immaculate, list dates of any incidents, all your correspondence etc. Your weak point is that you withdrew your child before you had even received an official communication from the LEA. This will put the school in a position to argue that the decision was yours and not theirs. Explain frankly that you believed at the time that the headteacher had the right to exclude your child and that this did constitute an exclusion, and that it is only now that you realise that you were mistaken. Put it all in writing, get someone to check it for grammar and logic; it is easy to get so carried away that you fail to see that the argument is not going to be clear to an outsider.

If you think you may accidentally have let something slip like 'well, I might take him out then' or 'I wouldn't want him to go to a school like this' or anything at all even remotely of this nature, during that first conversation with the headteacher, then I would not bother with the appeal tbh.

If you are quite sure that you did not, and that the headteacher could not have felt in any way intimidated (i.e. you weren't shouting or displaying threatening body language etc), then I would go for it, put the evidence clearly and unemotionally- and make sure you tell the panel what result you want. Is it an apology addressed to your son? State it.

[throckenholt]

the clerk is not a governor - they are there to make sure the legal side of things is taken into account. And also to provide impartial minutes of full governors meetings.

The complaints panel will be made up of a subset of governors appointed to do that at the annual meeting (I think).

They should be objective - they should be trying to see if there is a systemic problem that needs to be dealt with. And to be honest any issue of this type should have caused lots of questions to be asked within the school and the governing body with a view to working out what went wrong and how to avoid it in future.

[errdunno]

Cory thanks for that...am doing all you said!
Throkenholt..thanks for that advice! am taking it!!
will have an update for this thread soon! If you have read all my other threads
Head sacked my child
you will know all my perspectives!
Kind Regards