Governors

[sittinginthesun]

I know there are lots of you on here, and you were all extremely helpful when I posted last week.

Do you know whether there is a forum/website where governors can share ideas or discuss matters? I'm a relatively new governor, and our GB seems to be going through a period of change ATM.

Current query - how do you structure committees? Are your governing bodies "task led" or do you have a structure of committees report back to full GB? (I sense a fight brewing at our next meeting;) ).

There used to be a governorUK site but it was closed down, now I think the best advice can be found on the governors forum of TES. We have a small governing body so don't really have a committee structure, except for adhoc committees when ( for example) recruiting or organising building works etc

Try the following which is a good source of help and advise for governors
www.ukgovernors.org.uk/

For what it's worth our GB has four main committees with clear terms of reference and delegated powers which then report back to each GB meeting.

I'm a member of a 15 member Governing Body. We are a Special School GB, so slightly different focus (e.g. we don't have to consider 'SEN provision' as a subject because it's ALL SEN).

Our committees are:

Management -so site and buildings, staffing, resource decisions
Finance -as you'd expect
Standards and Improvements

Then we have just decided to have link Governors, which means that each of us take an area of interest (Spiritual Moral Social and Cultural, PMLD, ASD, Sensory Curriculum, Team Teach etc.) and meet with the relevant staff once per half term to get an overview of the area, then report back to the GB. We did this because the Chair felt that we were not being as effective as we could be, because we didn't know what was going on in the school and the challenges the staff face.

They feed back at the FGB meetings.

Thank you! I've had a look at the TES forum (a quick search seems to have lots of suggestions). Think I know how I'm going to tackle the meeting, anyway.

We have 2 main committees the Education committee (curriculum, progress monitoring etc) and the Business committee (finance, health and safety, the building, personnel issues etc) and then will form other groups if we need them (but this happened in the 3 yrs I've been a governor).

If you have a look at someone like @ClerktoGovernor on Twitter you'll find plenty of useful links. There's also @UKGovChat for regular discussions. No need to sign up if you're not into Twitter, as they're publicly visible accounts.