School Governors and poor leadership via Headteacher but know where to go!

[harveydog1]

Hello,

I am really struggling to see the point in the whole process of School governors. We have school governors who always agree with the Headteacher. Recently we lost 7 governors due to a disagreement with the Head and one was forced out. Surely for an independent process the governors are supposed to challenge the head or there is no purpose to the system in place. We have also had no explanation to why 7 governors resigned all at once. I also struggle that the chair and other governors are just parents and have no experience in running a school and that the fact we don't have any say in who is voted chair. In a couple of years time it will be new random inexperienced parents making decisions. I can't see this being an effective way of running our schools.

Our Headteacher doesn't work effectively with parents and fails to communicate effectively on a regular basis. You cannot get passed the governors for any complaints if they are not 'independent' so there is no point in the complaints process and the headteacher knows this. Basically surround yourself with friends. I also can't believe many schools are that different.

So what is the point?? I believe there should be independent professionals making the headteacher accountable and not just random parents. Ofsted and the Education department fail in this whole process too.

May be there should be a new system and a petition to change the whole process should be started??

If you want to know why they governors resigned, asked to see the minutes of recent meetings. The school are legally obliged to share them with any interested person within a reasonable timescale - 7 days I think.

Is your school part of an academy or a maintained school? This makes a difference - local governing bodies in a primary school that is part of an academy as much more toothless than that of an LA primary that has the back and support of the local education authority.

A governing body can be powerful - I know of one who forced an ineffective HT to resign, although the process was stressful and traumatic for all involved.

There are some wild assumptions here that are not correct. However there can be flaws in the governance system if people wish to exploit it.

Firstly, a few years ago, governing bodies were asked to reconstitute and co opt people with the necessary skills and experience to do the job. There is no way a governing body should be dominated by parents. In a 240 place school, we have 2 parent governors out of 12. We have the Head and 1 additional staff governor. The others have the required skills, as do the parents! It’s taken seriously.

You can complain to the LA governance section if the governing body doesn’t follow its constitution. The constitution is available from the school and isn’t confidential. It’s unlikely “dirty washing” will be in the minutes. You can ask for them, if course, plus agendas, but I wouldn’t expect them to be illuminating. The governors who resigned don’t have to explain themselves. They are volunteers.

That brings me on to training. Governors must be trained. It’s not obligatory but, if they don’t, how do they know how to do the job? The minutes should say what training has been done.

How do you know they agree with the Head? In fact, why shouldn’t they? The governing body receives (or should) a very detailed report from the Head for meetings and committee meetings. A good Head will give a lot of information and they are, in effect, the chief executive and responsible for the day to day running of the school. This is Not the job of the governors. The Governors are there to challenge and support and provide strategic direction but not to micro manage. If you can give examples of the governors agreeing with the Head, I can comment on whether this was appropriate or not. It may be the Governors all have different reasons for going. It’s not necessarily sinister.

Governors must challenge an ineffective head. In extreme cases this can lead to the Head going. As in every job, if you are deemed to be poor, despite being offered support and training, of course you can go through a capability process. Heads are no different.

A good governing body will be independent professionals! That was the point of reconstitution.

Yes agree they are supposed to be but in reality we all know they are not.

And how can a parent be a professional? Are they trained? Have they completed a course?

‘A professional’ what? What do you expect OP? Our GB members bring different transferable strategic level skills and experience to the board.

We had a similar situation in my DS’ school a few years back. Luckily for us, Ofsted paid a visit and downgraded the school to ‘requires improbement’ together with a strong criticism of both the headteacher and the ineffectual governors. The head resigned shortly after, followed by the head of the governors. Best thing that could have happened to that school. There is now a new, enthusiastic and very efficient headteacher in place.

‘Requires Improvement’ obviously, like my fat-fingered typing

My goodness me!!! Do all the parents in your school have no qualifications? Are they all illiterate! They don’t need professional qualifications as such, but they need enough of an education to do the job and have the right skills! The Governors should have recruited on a skills basis. The GB cannot be full of parents!

Every new Governor is expected to go on a training course to get up to speed with the role and what it entails. All local authorities offer these. The Governors then usually look at areas of governance that best suit their skills. This might be premises, finance, HR, data interpretation, curriculum, SEND etc. Surely parent governors have some expertise and skills? The Governors are then offered further training on their particular interest in school. They should akso be offered training on updates on how Ofsted inspect and self evaluation! Ofsted might be your best bet if they are dysfunctional.

What qualifications and jobs do the parent governors have that are not acceptable to you? What ratio of parents/co opted and local authority governors do you have?

As an ex-teacher (SLT) and ex-governor I think the power of governing bodies to affect the experiences and outcomes of children is somewhat illusory. To be honest, I found it something of a talking shop and very removed from what was actually going on in the classroom.

The person who has the power is ultimately the headteacher - they set the tone of the school, motivate or demotivate the staff and decide upon policy. Yes, policies are ratified by governors, but their involvement was limited ime.

However, Ofsted are entirely independent and put the fear of God into any headteacher!

Obviously you guys think the whole process is perfect. How can a parent be a professional in how a school runs.

There are a lot of parents very unhappy with the head and the governors. We lost outstanding due to the inefficiency of them.
The governor was forced out and this was in the minutes, but no official reason given.
They were supposed to be in a disagreement with the head and how to take the school forward to outstanding.

I am envious as you must have a great school and the process in place obviously works perfectly.

I agree with everything you say and that is how it should be but in reality it isn't. I wish it wasn't.

Hmm a lot of governors answering i believe 😂 😂 🤔 🙄🤔.

Two local schools both went from Good to Special Measures within a few years. The same thing happened in both cases: pliant governors who were able to slipstream behind a good but strong-willed head oversaw the appointment of a replacement head, who was in one case a charlatan and in the other case naive but well-intentioned, and then didn't have the strength of purpose to challenge the replacement. There were mitigating factors in that in each case the strong-willed previous head had managed to push some fairly large issues under the carpet for their successor to deal with, and there were some demographic issues which compounded the task of the incoming head.

But in essence, an underqualified governing body that saw their role as cheerleading for the head (the parent governors were in each case big in the PTA, which is a bad thing) which is fine if the head is competent, not fine otherwise.

One school has recovered. The other is essentially dead, with no-one local willing to take places so there is a death-spiral of it being the school of last resort for distant families otherwise unable to get places.

I wish Ofsted would visit but then again they never see everything 🤔

I don’t believe it is illusory. Very few excellent schools have crap governing bodies. Few very poor schools in a downward spiral have great governing bodies. The two are linked. In failing schools the governors are replaced with more experienced and effective governors. Ditto the Head. They work as a team and the governors set the ethos and strategic direction of the school. It should never, ever, be a talking shop. It should be focussed and evidence driven. If you have not experienced an up to date GB, then you should find big differences between some years ago and now. Of course some GBs haven’t moved on. Many have though.

The Governor’s place is not in the classroom. The Head is responsible for classroom practice, learning and progress. Governors should have the mechanisms in place to ensure teaching is monitored by the Head and performance management should be used effectively to improve classroom excellence. The Head must provide evidence of learning and progress. Governors are not qualified to judge teaching. However the report by the Head to governors should, ideally, follow a LA template so all aspects of school life are covered. As with many organisations, the committees are the engines of the GB and they look at the school in more detail. But again it’s focussed and sticks to an agenda.

I am always aghast when Governors are not valued by schools and parents. Poor governance makes a mockery of what could, and should be, a very good system of holding schools to account.

I've been on the governing bodies of two schools. In one we managed to get a failing head to retire early and in another we have just appointed a new head who is keen to work with governors to improve the school. It is really hard for a governing body to remove an underperforming head but it is possible.

It is very easy for a governing body to become a rubber stamp for the head's decisions. Training is available. Under the new ofsted regime you can't retain or go into outstanding without evidence that you governing body is able to both support and challenge the head. The evidence for this should be in theminutes. It wasn't in ours. It is now.

Well harvey it is Governors who know the job better than you do!

I agree it’s difficult to do anything about poor governance but, from what I’ve read, Ofsted certainly call out poor governance. If you don’t know what good governance looks like, how can you seek change? Parents do need to know what governors should do.

Of course they don’t all need qualifications in education! Governors need a range of skills but they need to do appropriate training. They do not need to know how to run a school in detail. They are not doing it! They need to concentrate on making sure each child has the best education possible. They need to set strategic goals. They need to task the Head with achieving those goals and they need a plan to do it. You can ask to see the Improvement Plan.

You have not really articulate what the problems are op. How many are parents? What is wrong, exactly?

Many schools are no longer outstanding. The inspection framework has changed. Good is fine! Does it matter that it’s no longer outstanding? How did Ofsted criticise the GB?

I agree that in a lot of cases Governor's should be valued but unfortunately I can't in our case. I can see that it should and does work well in a lot of cases, but not all cases and sadly quite frequently. I think my point is when it doesn't work there is no where to go and no way to change things 😔

The Governors should all have been on training courses for any role they have undertaken. I was a parent governor for just under 8 years, and when I became Chair of Governors I undertook the National College of Teaching and Learning's Chair's Development Programme, which was a 3 module course for Chairs of Governors.

Governors should be providing Head Teachers with support and challenge. A balanced measure of effective support to reach the goals they have set as professionals with the expertise to run the school. alongside that, comes the challenge of asking the difficult questions about whether they are being fair to all groups of children, how effective they are being with the budget, whether it is wise to spend 10% of the budget on laminating everything to make the displays look good... who did authorise that £1000 spend on xyz, as it wasn't mentioned at any meeting we had been in?? What is happening to make sure boys don't slip further in literacy? How are we going to close the gap for pupil premium children in maths? - it's very nice that subjectively the children seem to be loving "fishy snap" to learn their number bonds, but the data is showing that the gap is widening, so the school needs to have a rethink about how they organise things.

The budget has been frozen, but pay has gone up, so what are we cutting this year to make sure we don't go into deficit?

All of those things (and many more) will be for the governing body to deal with, and it really doesn't matter if they are parents - having children doesn't stop you having brains.

Schools have schemes of financial delegation. If a Head can spend £1000 on something, they can. They may not be able to if the scheme of delegation requires it to to Governors for approval.

You have not really articulated why your governors are so poor, Harvey.

I do not wish to add why i believe they are poor, but i have been very surprised on how much support for Governors this thread has received.

It is quite a strange system and I can only see that they must be very variable in their effectiveness. IIt takes new governors about a cycle to get to grips with how things work and what they are doing.

They are supposed to provide strategic leadership and accountability for educational performance and financial performance - they delegate running the school to the head so you wouldn't expect them to know how to run a school.

but ive seen governing bodies not question why a school is below national average in phonics and not ask what the head was doing about it for instance.

People might be less supportive of the particular board of governors you're talking about if you gave more detail about what you think makes them unprofessional and ineffective. I serve on a GB alongside astoundingly capable and committed individuals, who provide challenge and support to the head, and put a lot of ongoing work into ensuring we keep to the budget, follow safeguarding and other procedures, are on track to hit targets, amongst many other things. I'd say there's been a drive to make our GB more professional than ever before, and we're by no means unusual in that respect.