What exactly is the role of a parent governor?

[IwishIwasmoreorganised]

School have sent letters home saying that there are 4 vacancies for school governors.

While I'm interested I have to admit that I don't really know what the role would entail.

Could anyone enlighten me please?

The roll of a ?Parent Governor? is exactly the same as any other governor.

Parent governors are representative of the parents not for the parents.

Being a Governor varies slightly from school to school. The main thing is ?time and commitment?. You should think of the Governor meetings as meetings that you must attend and arrange your social/work life around them. You should attend the training sessions that your Local Authority provides.

School Governors are the biggest volunteer organisation in the UK. We estimate that it takes up about 35hrs per year although, of course, it depends on how involved you want to be.

Governors deal with Budgets, Policies, Targets and things which are 'a step away' from the 'day to day' running of the school.
Any question like 'My child doesn't ... isn't ... can't ...' is not for a Governors meeting. Sometimes one can get involved with sacking/redundancies and discipline matters.

School Governors do not run the school; they are there to take an overview and see that it delivers.

Some useful sites: ukgovernors and Governor Line and Being a school Governor

I enjoy it and I've learnt a lot. I like being involved with the school and making a contribution - watching and learning how others deal with and solve problems. I have gained in self confidence and speaking up in meetings.

I?m sure you can Google ?being a school governor? yourself but:-

The Role of a School Governor

1 To Provide a Strategic View
2 To Act as a ?Critical Friend?
3 To Ensure Accountability

I hope this helps - Go for it! - Good Luck

thank you Dan. I've just put myself forward for this - and have found that out of a four form entry school I'm the only candidate! Was worried that everyone else knows something I don't know?

I'm a parent governor, have been for the last 4+ years at two different schools. Can't really explain it any better than already has been up thread, but it is quite rewarding and a good way of keeping abreast of what the issues are in/for school

DH has just become a parent governor. From a practical point of view, he needs to read LOTS of reports and papers that are circulated before meetings. There is quite a lot of jargon and edu-speak to get your head around and at the moment he's on a steep learning curve. (But finding it very interesting and getting a much better understanding of how the school functions.) He has two meetings per term - one full governors and one committee meeting. So far, all he has really had to do is turn up to the meetings and sounds reasonably intelligent, but as he gets more experienced, there will be tasks that he is expected to undertake between meetings.

At our school, each governor is linked to a class and expected to take an interest in them, make time to go into school from time to time etc. We are not sure how that is going to work in DH's case as he is the only governor who is working full time. They are also in attendance at school events etc, although most of the parent governors would be there as parents in any case.

Thanks all.

It sounds like something that I could enjoy, and be reasonably good at but I'm not sure that now is the right time as I'm about to swap jobs.

I'm sure there'll be more vacancies in the future.

Chicken - some companies give employees time 'off' to fulfill community roles - your DH might qualify?

Sizzle - he does qualify, but he's a partner in the firm so has responsibilities that mean that he can't be all that flexible about time off. They just need educating that time off is something that needs to be planned, other than cases of dire emergency. But all working parents know that schools are not always great at realising that! For example, the head of safeguarding seems a bit put out that he will need more than 48hrs notice to attend a safeguarding course during the working day!