School Governor

Have you considered looking at the likely secondary school your kids will go to. Most schools need extra governors- not all will advertise as they are looking to specifically gap fill.

I suggest this as I suspect as a solicitor you will get more interest/experience doing panels and looking at issues connected with bigger sites / staff numbers than you would get at primary. Also as a secondary governor I am enjoyed it more before my daughter moved there and am looking forward to having my hands less tied next year as she leaves this summer!

I would never be a governor in a maintained school again or where my children go. When it goes wrong and relationships break down it’s awful when you have kids there.

Based on previous experience, I would not expect to see a policy in writing before September at the earliest and in practicality not before the before next year, once consultation with Unions and stakeholders has been undertaken plus the legal input. If I am honest that is what most companies are doing, more of a wait and see rather than rushing in blindly.

@CantHoldMeDown I was not criticising you, nor denigrating your expertise but merely explaining that on a complex (and I suspect you will agree with me) area like sex and gender, a school would not wish to go out on a limb but would rather stick with a national policy which will offer protections which a locally sourced policy would not.

Actually, you will find that policies like this are handled centrally by either the Academy chain or the LA and will need to be agreed by Unions and Legal Departments. For the most part policies tend to be the more or less the same due to their national application, eg Complaints, Safeguarding, Finance. The ones that are tweaked locally will tend te be site specific, eg Lettings policy, Menopause Policy.

There are challenges. The very strong head ruled with a rod of iron and expected the governors to rubber stamp. I often challenged her when appropriate and it did not go down well at all. Three of us left in the end.

Lol

I’m a governor at my son’s primary school and a trustee at a secondary school.
I started as a parent governor but moved into a LA governor role.
I was approached for the trustee role as I have a particular set of skills.
It’s very rewarding, particularly the work at my son’s school. It can be time consuming at particular times of the year but you usually get all of key dates in advance.
Im fortunate that my employer encourages us to take on this role so some of it can be done in works time.

I have done it for 30+ years and found it both fascinating and rewarding. Yes, there are times when you give input from your day job which is helpful, for me it was Finance, HR, dealing with local government and safeguarding (I am old and have had a varied career). Mostly it is about a fresh pair of eyes, telling a school that they do not have to stay in their lane and they can engage in innovative thinking to ensure your pupils can get the most out of their education.

You have to be very clear about the difference between strategic oversight and delving into the operational side. As a parent, it is easier to question how things are done compared to critiquing the overall strategy that drives them. My LGB has a lot of parents and this can cause issues if they don’t understand their role. It is absolutely not about rewriting policies. This is operational and the responsibility of SLT.

Time wise it’s more than just the meetings but it depends how long it takes you to understand and grasp the papers and the training around it. I found it easily do-able alongside a FT job.
the massive time drain is all the parents coming to you in the playground asking for help/ complaints. I just used to listen for a few minutes say “oh that certainly does sound like hard work” or similar and then tell them how to properly raise their complaint - ie teacher then head then us. In writing. Inevitably they didn’t bother.

Being a governor on the local board of a school in a MAT is a bit more straightforward than governor on a maintained school. In a MAT a lot of the responsibilities that would fall on maintained school governors are witin the remit of the MAT board. Even the contents of agendas can be set by the MAT, in other words they set the agenda. So being a governor in a MAT school can be a bit less onerous than the situation - a strategic role that's still interesting.
Technically the 'local governing board' of a school in a MAT is a committee of the MAT trust board.

I think you should go for it. It’s a rewarding position and, once you have completed the initial training, isn’t too much work at all. Arrange to speak to the chair of governors and find out more - you will get a sense of their expectations and whether they sound a stable team to be a part of.

Governors shouldn't be re writing policies they should be questioning them, and possibly editing them in small ways. If the policy needs a re write that's the job of someone at the school.

It's a strategic oversight job, not a "get involved in the nitty gritty".

I love it, really interesting and so far not too time consuming. I can see how it could be more time consuming depending on the size of the school and sub committees.

Vice chair of governors here and being asked to stand as chair for the next academic year.

We are a locally maintained school so it is slightly different form a financial monitoring stand point but the rest of the takes are similar.

The basic premise is that you offer strategic oversight of the way the school is run. So do they actually do what their policies and procedures say they do.

Involves a lot of training in the first 12-18 months to understand the roles. Safeguarding and budgeting for a school as it does run very differently to private industry.

The rest is attending school to meet with core staff and sometimes the kids for 360 feedback, writing a report on your visit to summarise what you have seen, does it match to the policies/procedures/school development plans.

Done right it's really rewarding!

I’m a parent Governor with early years specialism. We have 6 meetings a year at 430pm for around 2 hours. We are expected to attend at least 4 of them. We have training probably around 8 times a year (some mandatory some optional) I do 2 school visits a year for a couple hours where I get a tour and ask some questions, look at attainment and write a report.

its ok , I have found our school to not be that supportive unless you are singing from their hymn sheet. So it’s sometimes difficult to challenge the school. But in a more willing school I can see it would be rewarding. I like knowing the ins and outs of the school and my son who has Sen has always had all his needs met (as he should but I don’t know if my role makes a difference)