Re governor help

[gbconfused]

Hi I've name changed for this.

I'm looking for advice ideally from slt. I was taken on as a parent Governor for ds school last year. Iv found it difficult to learn my role as there has been no job description/training/shadowing. (Despite being told there would be) I'm not from an education background and any time i ask questions I'm made to feel like I should know what I'm asking. Basically in the past year I've attended safeguarding and data protection training. Sat in on 3 lgb meetings and completed a visit to the school where they put their best game face on and showed me all their positives. I'm the early years Governor. I've tried to look at how I can work with school but anything I suggest or do - focus group with parents, getting feedback from parents - is rejected. I feel like I'm a tick in a box. I do the training and attend the meetings and that's it. The meetings are generally about how well the school is doing with only the occasional admission of slip up. The other governors all work in schools except one who's newer than me so still finding her feet. Is what I described typical for the Governor role and am I trying to make too much of it ? Or is the school managing the board when they shouldn't be.

Is your school part of a MAT? Is your Chair of Governors approachable?

Do your board have membership of the NGA or governorhub / the key? There are plenty of websites that are a good starting point for governors to learn the ropes and give pointers on what to do for monitoring visits. Are they signed up to any online training? This can quite often be fitted in around other things and some have a 'bitesize' approach to learning. Otherwise speak to the clerk and ask to be paired up with another governor to chat things through.

Your job is to challenge in a supportive way, so you need to ask for all necessary info. Do it in writing so they can’t just brush it off.

instead of looking first at what they do - focus questions on what fisted and others require they do, ie please can you confirm how you engage with parents to get feedback and please provide me with to results.

Have you done the new governor training by the local,authority or the diocese if it is a church school? This is really important as your job is to ask questions. Some basics are:
-where is the evidence for that statement?

• what is the impact of this on the pupil premium children?
• what is the opinion of the school council and or parents voice on this proposal?

-how does this measure up to our school values? How do we evidence that?

A new governor is a gift to a governing body as they ask the questions everyone else has assumed they know the answers to and it gets that questioning into the minutes which ofsted will want to see. You can't get outstanding anymore with a nodding dog governing body.

Have you seen the school improvement plan, self evaluation form?

I’ve been a parent governor for almost a year and my experience matches yours a bit. We agree a lot of policies, which the schools are required to have and governors have to agree, so that responsibility naturally feels a little formulaic and I understand that. Or, like you, we are presented with lots of projections, feedback or reports that show how well everything is going or how well the challenges identified are being dealt with. And I do trust that to be the case and they do great work with disadvantaged students etc. But it’s an odd feeling to think that you’re part of being responsible for the governance of these schools but you don’t actually know them that well because everything seems to keep us at arms length. At every meeting we go around and confirm who is link governor for various things and it always says one of the key ways of meeting those responsibilities are school visits or looking at pupil books etc. But many of us have never actually done any of this and I have still not yet visited our partner school, which I thought would be automatically part of my induction. The exec head always says “oh don’t worry we’ll be calling on you”. But that still hasn’t happened yet. I don’t think they’re being disingenuous and I do think they’re doing an amazing job and very over stretched but it feels a mismatch to then have this layer of governance that is officially really important and they say lots of things about how important the governors and our insights are, but the reality doesn’t seem to match that. I don’t want to wade in and tell the schools how to do anything at all, but I just want to feel that I understand how they operate and how they feel as organisations on a day-to-day basis a bit better and that I’d be better able to contribute if that were the case. And that would be worth as much if not more than the various training courses I’ve done. I think we have a good mix of governors and they don’t all sit silently and questions of clarification are always welcome, but anything with an element of challenge can feel a little frosty. Anyway, that doesn’t answer your question at all but I guess what I’m saying is that my experience matches yours a bit although you’ve actually managed to go on a learning walk.

OP you are misunderstanding your role as parent governor and that's why your suggestions are being rejected.
Your role isn't to represent the parents like an MP does and go round asking the parents their opinions. You are on the governing body in your own right because you are a parent.
The sort of thing that you could do as an Early years governor is meet with the reception teachers and discuss what they would expect you to do.

It is part of a mat. The chair is very close to the head and not ver approachable

I've asked about shadowing/training a few times but it hasn't happened

I've emailed questions in the past and had no answer

No new starter training. I've been doing it a year now. A lot of the Governors work in other schools so presumably they know what they are doing

Roles really depend on the school, MAT and what the expectations are.
For example, my governing body absolutely do have parent focus groups and parent surveys - one of our roles is building relationships with the wider community.
However we don't have any financial responsibility - whereas other governing bodies will have a financial committee.
Our Early Years governor certainly wouldn't meet with a Reception teacher to ask what they would expect them to do - a teacher wouldn't know what the governor's role was. However, they would meet with the Early Years lead to look at their action plan and data and write a report for the governing body.

@gbconfused you definitely need to get some induction training. Email the chair of governors and clerk and ask for who organises induction training for the trust, ask if there's a governance handbook that explains roles. Is there a scheme of delegation saying what everyone's roles are and a plan for what each governor's meeting will cover throughout the year?
If no luck with the chair and clerk then have a look on the MAT website and see if their is anyone listed with responsibility for governance.

Thank you yes it feels very similar experience

You are not understanding the strategic role. You don't represent parent views but are a parent representative on a board. Your role is a critical friend not someone who has any responsibility for operational aspects of school leadership.
There should be a board assurance framework or similar that will show how you gain assurance. It would not usually involve organising focus groups or running surveys outside of any feedback mechanism established or agred by the board as a whole.

Ok I see your point thank you. So not appropriate to give feedback from parents? By then I'm only ever hearing the schools perspective and they think they are fab. Where's the challenge?

@Katapolts thank you

The challenge (in my lgb) would go like this:
At the governor's meeting, the Head tells the governor's about the fantastic new phonics programme the school is using and how it is accelerating results in Reception.
As Early Years governor you go in to Reception to observe a phonics lesson.
You arrange an after school meeting with the Early Years lead and they show you their action plan for reading and the data they have on where children are. You ask if there is a difference between the results for children with SEN/on PP.
You write a report for the next meeting saying (for example)

• children seemed engaged in the lesson you observed
• results are generally better in reading than this time last year
• children with SEN are making less progress than those without
• the EY Lead reports not all TAs have had training in the new scheme.

Then in the next meeting you can ask the Head - why haven't the TAs been trained yet? Is this scheme suitable for children with SEN? What is being done to ensure children with SEN are supported?

However, for our LGB all this is set out for us in the handbook. We have a schedule for when we meet with link teachers (eg term 2, 4, 6), we have templates for writing reports, we know the dates reports are due so everyone can read them before meetings, we even have sample questions for each term for each subject to guide what we are asking about.
Hoepfully your MAT will have something similar.

@Katapolts thank you that's really helpful

If you are part of a MAT your role as governor may be very different to the role of governor in a standalone state maintained school. Your role will depend on the responsibilities delegated to you by the Trustees.

There should be a scheme of Delegation on the school website which should show the responsibilities for the governors.

If the Chair isn’t approachable, how about the clerk? They should be able to define your role.

In the MAT I am involved in the governors are all about hearing parent and pupil voice. Strategy, finances, school improvement are more the role of the Trustees.

I'm taking notes thank you everyone

I gave up being a governor after a year a while back. The official and public reason is a change in circumstances and workload but the real reason is lack of training, cliqueyness between certain governors, and the chair and head, a toxic leadership culture, and other governors who work as teachers being actively hostile to those without a teaching background. Oh and it was a completely closed shop. They are welcome to each other.

I am chair of governors at a primary school.

Here are some useful thoughts from the KEY for governors - which if your school is not signed up to they should be.....

The role: summary
As a parent governor, your role is:
To bring a parental perspective to the issues discussed – you're not there to speak 'on behalf' of the parent body
No different from other governors
It's a fine line to tread, but remember that you're not there to speak on behalf of parents.
Use your perspective to help the board understand a parent's viewpoint. This will help the board make good decisions and maintain a link between governance and the parent community.
Help other parents understand that you're not there to:
Speak on their behalf
Bring up their individual issues in meetings
Solve problems for them
Be polite but firm, and tell them to stick to the official channels.

If another parent approaches you at the school gate with a grievance:
Do ask the parent to put it in writing and follow the school's complaints procedure. Tell them how/where they can raise their issue. This helps to separate genuine complaints from the customary grumbles
Do explain what the role of parent governor actually is. Learn a one-liner such as: "Parent governors don't speak 'on behalf' of the parent body, instead we bring a parental perspective to the strategic decisions the governors make"
Don't agree to raise it at the meeting or look into it for them – this will set a bad precedent and will cause problems later down the line as the right procedure hasn't been followed

You do not have to be a box ticker - your role is to say: "How have you consulted parents about this change of policy?"/ "Might it be worth consulting parents over this proposal for new parking arrangements?"/ "How has the school communicated x/y/z/ to parents" etc.

It really is a fine line to tread.

When you do a school visit, it should be a focussed visit with the clear aim of learning how the school meets a specific objective in their School Improvement Plan, and it should be written up with that same focus. It should not be a vague visit to "see what is going on in early years". It is not for the school to be putting on a good face, but simply giving you the opportunity to see how they work towards meeting objectives. So for instance you might ask "By what process do you meet the needs of children in early years who have SEND?"/ "How are parents involved in this?" etc.

You must go to your chair and say that you want to be given access to Governor Hub and The Key for Governors. These are linked websites that tell you absolutely everything about how to be a governor. It is unfortunate that you do not feel they are approachable.

Parent governors do not have to be rubber stamps.

@Katapolts has put some suggestions OP.

I have worked as Clerk in several primary schools and DP has been parent governor.
Some schools would let governors sit in on a lesson. For others a discussion may be more appropriate about resources needed, changes recently made etc.
Arrangements for managing children starting school and the transition to KS1 would be important for this year group too.
The school may think that they are great, but what is this based on?
Their previous OFSTED rating or something else?
So the other thing you need to ask about is assessment of how children are making progress. There should be date for each year group. Progress data, attendance and safeguarding are key.
Many Outstanding schools haven't been inspected for many years and have become complacent, so you are right to challenge things. But you can't really do it on your own, you need to find out more by going on training to find out what sort of questions you really need to be asking.
I hope that helps.

Things that should be asked in governor meetings is about attendance and what are they doing if children are absent especially if frequently absent. Names of children shouldn’t be mentioned but what processes are being involved.

What is behaviour like? When you do governor visits you can ask children do they feel safe, do they know what to do if they don’t. When you are at school observe behaviour.

Your role as governor is not to observe and judge teachers. But you can tell whether children are engaged. Again as a MAT governor your role may not include quality of education but you can ask the EYFS teacher have they got the resources they need, had the right training for phonics scheme.

Sounds similar!