How are big decisions made at your DCs school? Are parents consulted?

[Bramshott]

We have a new head at DD1s school who is (understandably keen to make a few changes). Some of these are fairly major, like changing the start of the school day, how the school is structured etc. There is some bad feeling among parents as the head has tended to make the decision, with agreement of the governors, and then tell everyone what is happening - cue lots of whingeing! The head's arguement is that proceedurally she can't consult before the governors meeting, and that after the governors meeting it's a already agreed, so there is no possibility of any discussion with parents (although hopefully she does discuss with the teachers, although I know they are not all happy with some of the changes).

Clearly the head needs to be able to lead her own school, and people are always resistant to change, but I was just wondering how this works in other schools? Is there any forum for parents to express their views before things become a fait accompli? What is happening at the moment is just lots of whingeing, in the PTA and elsewhere, with no constructive suggestions because it's all already been decided!

I'm fairly sure that legally they need to consult with the parents over changes to the school hours. And give them 3 months notice.

I was governor at a school and the new head wanted to change the start and end times. We sent out a letter to the parents, and had a consultation meeting. And then it was voted on by the governors. And us governors turned down the proposal because we felt the parents hadn't been sufficiently consulted, and weren't happy.

Your governors should not be deciding big things without proper parent consultation.

Parents are generally consulted at our school.

Obviously, it's the governors who finally give the go-ahead.

So, for example, when the homework policy was changed, the Deputy prepared a questionnaire for parents, held a meeting with parents, and met with children.

This then went to the governors who agreed the policy, taking into account the views of teachers/children/parents.

Sounds like your governors need to be a bit stronger. e.g. say 'go back to the parents first'

the head's 'argument' is nonsense.

he is basically saying that he can't consult because he doesn't want to make time to consult.

I would say that there's a reasonable chance to influence some things at ds's school, because the governing body is fairly combative. I'm not sure it's always positive, as the head is apt to get defensive when anyone questions her decisions, but better that than a rubber-stamp body.

The head, and entire staff team, are very keen to introduce a uniform at our school. This has been largely stopped due to two successive Chairs of the governing body being both highly sceptical and quite strong on insisting on a proper consultation period.

Any decision that is being made in a single meeting is either not being discussed enough, or the head is subverting the governors individually beforehand. A lot of meetings do run this way, but IMO it's risky and it certainly isn't consultation.

Does anyone know if the governance/consultation thing is different at private schools?

We have also had the Head/ Governors just introduce some things and then 'tell' parents later (like increasing class size) which lots of the parents are very angry about it. We're not sure what comeback, if any, we have - other than to remove our children of course, which we don't want to do.

We had a consultation about changing the times of the school day. Letter circulated with a tear-off slips for us to comment and/or ask to discuss the issue at a meeting.

Change of uniform was also consulted upon, with a "fashion show" of different options.

Whinging in the playground is pretty common, regardless of how they handle it, though!

Thanks all - very interesting. I think I am getting progressively more cross about the lack of communication, but struggling with what to do about it! Maybe talk to a governor or two . . .

There is no consultation at my dd's school, one of the reasons we are moving her.

At my own school we used to handle the consultation process by having what we called a "parents and Governors Forum" once a term which produced minutes that were circulated to parents and to the Governing Body.

We stopped doing this when we stopped being able to get any parents to attend; I suspect because all the issues that encouraged attendance had been resolved for the time being. More lately we have had a very active PTA which works closely with the Head so there are lots of informal channels.

However we could always start it again.

Regarding private school no rules universally apply.

The "rights" parents have at a private school are the "rights" of fee paying customers. How these are realised depends entirely on the private school in question. Some may have Governing Bodies, some not. Depends how they were set up. Some private schools are charities. Some are profit making companies. let the buyer beware?