To think that a school Chair of Governors should be impartial?

[GivenchyDahhling]

I’ve recently had reason to contact the Chair of Governors at the school at which I work.

I must confess that prior to this I was pretty ignorant as to how they work and what they actually do. I know they approve pay rises and policies but aside from that, as I said, I was fairly ignorant.

On investigation, I have discovered that the Chair of Governors in my school is in a very senior management position and a director of the company owned by the patron of the multi-academy trust my school is in. They are not at all local, do not seem to have had or ever had children attend the school - and took over the role when the MAT took over the school.

I am absolutely flabbergasted (sorry for the MN hyperbole) that this is allowed. Whilst perhaps expecting complete impartiality is unreasonable (eg I would often assume governors would have children at the school), to have such a blatant financial interest in eg keeping budgets slashed as low as possible surely is too far?

Not sure that governing bodies usually get involved in individual staffing issues like sick leave.

@BurnDownTheDiscoHangTheDJ

I work in school governance and he might have gotten the job by default because no other bugger wanted it. That said, he probably shouldn’t be chair in that position. However the instrument of governance should be freely available on the website and tell you what the make up of the GB is. It’s normally a couple of co-opted governors who work in the local community, one or two staff members, one or two parents, a couple of local people involved in business, a priest type guy (or someone otherwise involved in “spiritual” gubbins). There will also be a skills audit which should be available and will show you what skills your GB have. If there are any glaring gaps they should be working to find someone with those skills.

That doesn't really apply in a MAT.

Some lgbs are run like IEBs
.

If the school is part of a MAT, it doesn't have a proper governing body, just a (usually fairly weak) local school board. I would expect the chair and most of the board members to be fairly local though, so they can represent the local community and help out with local issues.

Heads have operational control of schools like individual pay rises etc.

Trusts set direction but wouldn't get involved at that level

@topcat2014

Heads have operational control of schools like individual pay rises etc.

Trusts set direction but wouldn't get involved at that level

That depends on the Trust

Depends on if a Principal or a Head of School with an Executive Principal etc

[quote GivenchyDahhling]@TheHoptimist I truly had no idea that the BoGs in MATs operated so differently to other schools [/quote]
In a MAT there will normally be a school advisory board for each school (who have positions that are a bit less than actual governors - advisors, not trustees); then an overall trustee board for the whole MAT with the actual trustees for the wider trust. It’s like a double level of governance.

So the school advisers are in a lesser position than governors of a single school would be, because they aren’t Trustees - that role has been devolved higher up. The individual school boards are a bit toothless compared to a board of governors, because their role is a bit more circumscribed. Not all academy trusts have the same governance structure like this, but a lot do.

Was it the individual school board or the overall governing body of the Trust that you approached?

Most of our top dog governors are hand in glove with the head and their dc get top school roles.

Fair play @TheHoptimist I obviously don’t work with MATs as they don’t need us.

Very difficult. Our chair of governors is best friends with the head, as is his wife. She is godparent to their kids who are pupils, that must be a hard line to tread.

If you want to take the whole thing further, you are going to have to do some digging into rules and regs, to see if any have been broken.

@Hb12

Very difficult. Our chair of governors is best friends with the head, as is his wife. She is godparent to their kids who are pupils, that must be a hard line to tread.

I knew a school where lets say there were realtionship boundaries um crossed, between a head and chair. People resigned. Got into media etc. Not pretty.

It's completely normal in multi-academy trusts. I'm unsure why you think the priority of a director would be to "keep budgets low" any more than any other governor who is reading the books - a key part of governance is to balance the books. The only conflict of interest here is if central academy policy (eg a new teaching framework)

The income of a school is a function of its headcount, and all trustees are obliged to sign a balanced budget, or else explain to DFE where costs are going to be recouped.

I'm struggling to see the big issue here.

School governance at secondary level is a lot more 'grown up' than it gets credit for.