School Governors..what do they actually do? and do they need any educational experience?

[Maidamess]

They seem to have an awful lot of power at my school, and have the final say in lots of things, but are basically just parents who wrote a short paragraph about themselves to try and get our votes.

What do they do?

I am a school governor and it is my job to be a "critical friend" to the management of the school. I go to meetings and vote on important issues. I am a parent governor and I got in without having to write anything about myself because no one else volunteered at the time the vacancy arose. I have educational experience, but not all governors do.

There are 4 sorts of governors:

parent (of dc currently at the school)
staff (can be teachers or admin at the school)
community (live near the school)
local authority (can be a political appt - we had a local councillor on our gov. body).

Many schools are desperately short of governors as it's quite a time consuming and thankless job.

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god, the policies....
The trees! the trees!

governors are essentially culpable for anything that goes on in a school.
At the moment they are implementing single status through the pay and grading reviews that are going on for all non-teaching staff in schools- so thats fun.

You spend a LOT of time in meetings reviewing whats happening in schools, have to keep abreast of constant changes in rules from DCSF, sit at appeals, etc etc etc - all from the goodness of your heart- we are not paid, but do it out of a sense of community.

My dh was a governor at dd's last school.
At the time the school had an acting head and it was basically up to the governors to decide whether or not she could take over as head.

He was also a member of a couple of sub committees and involved in writing polices.

And he attended a lot of boring meetings and had to learn loads of acronyms.

I have just been appointed governor and I didn't have to write anything about myself either as no-one else volunteered. I do not have educational experience.

Snap, Wannabe!

Although I DID have to do the writing about me thing and wait for the parents to vote

Am knee-deep in paperwork now!

Noone else volunteered at dd's school either. They were always desperate for governors.

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It sounds like they do a awful lot....but still I can't understand HOW they have so much power...isn't it the Boroughs job to decide who works as a Head at a school? How are Governors qualified to decide?

I feel a school should be able to 'run itself' as it were, without having to run everything past the Governors each time. Or is that not a possibility?

Perhaps it is the 'busybody' nature of some of the Governors at my school that has made me perplexed as to their motives!

School governors decide on school policy, check compliance, and manage budgets. They may be involved in recruitment too, especially for senior management.

I have been a school governor, and my job was to attend meetings and offer opinions. I was a non-working teacher at the time and I used my background in my personal statement, so I think it got me elected. It is not necessary to have any background in teaching though.

Icod - governors certainly don't write policies in my school. They read and comment on the policies written by subject co-ordinators and senior management.