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??

harveydog1 - parent governors are elected by other parents, so if all the parent governors are conies of the HT, then the lazy, useless parent body who complain about it but don't bother to put their names forward to be on the governing body probably only have themselves to blame for the supposed stitch up... Why are you complaining on the sidelines? By your own admission, there were 7 vacancies, recently.

Parents who are, for instance, lawyers, accountants, IT professionals, nurses, social workers etc all have very valuable experience

Which is fine in naice middle class areas, where there are parents who are lawyers, accountants, IT professionals, nurses, social workers etc.

But you don't only have parents as governors. Our GB had 2 parent governors. The others were from links with school - a local business, people recruited via the LA governor pool, possibly ex pupils.

Reflectent, that's a very selective quote from my post which artfully leaves out my reference to a firefighter who was a very good governor. Pretty sure that firefighters, nurses, social workers and legal aid lawyers don't exclusively live in naice middle class areas.

This just doesn’t sound right. I don’t believe all your Governors are parents. I can’t think of any re-constitution model that would allow for this. Ofsted will look through the minutes for evidence of the Governors challenging the head and the Governing body effectiveness will be judged in the report. My experience is that Ofsted questioning of Governors (I’m not one btw) is rigorous so any issues with your Governing Body would not go unnoticed.

Pretty sure that firefighters, nurses, social workers and legal aid lawyers don't exclusively live in naice middle class areas.

Firefighters I don't know, but the other are disproportionately likely to send their children to schools in naice middle class areas. Obviously, there are exceptions, but the problems that schools in deprived areas have recruiting governors who are both qualified and understanding of the particular issues the schools and their students face is a matter of record. For example, 96% of governors are white, a third are retired and a large majority are middle class.

But the 96% could be excellent governors! It matters less what you look like, or what class you are or your age, it is about what skills you have! GBs must be aware of the needs of the GB when recruiting. What skills do they need? They are not required to have people who live in the area. There is no reason why Governors cannot travel from one area to another! Your children don’t have to go to the school. Raid the nearby area for excellent people if none live locally. However, I bet they do! Social workers and nurses are not the highest paid in society but who says the lowest paid cannot be decent governors, as long as they are literate, numerate and have the necessary skills the school needs? Some older people might have traded down in the employment market. GBs in difficult areas cannot afford to be choosy but they can try recruitment methods in better areas if they wish.

I find it hard to imagine that a headteacher would deliberately flout rules around governor recruitment. The questions asked by OFSTED at our most recent inspection were very searching. Governing bodies are expected to provide challenge to the headteacher and if they don't, OFSTED are very critical. We are also expected to carry out a skills audit annually, the results of that inform future recruitment - if we have no interest from the local community, we use Governorsforschools.

"Are they trained? Have they completed a course?" Yes and yes

What does your comment refer to NoRestformrz?

The questions in the quotation marks

In maintained community schools in England legally, there is actually nothing to stop most governors being parents. There are only 2 parent governor posts but co-opted governor posts, which are usually the majority, can be parents. Even the HT and staff governor could be parents of children at the school but this is less likely.

At voluntary aided or controlled schools there will be foundation governors too and again there is nothing to stop these being parents as well.

Whether it's desirable is a different matter, but it is actually possible.

8/13 of our governors are parents.
I would echo that when things go wrong it's not clear where to turn to. When they work it's fantastic. I don't doubt that most people go into it for the best reasons but there will be a small number of occurrences when it doesn't work well.

Making assumptions about anybody who can and should be a governor is likely to be ill-conceived.
The chair of one of the governing body that I have done work with is fantastic, really runs the governing body well, with a fabulous relationship with the headteacher. However when she walks into a room with significant numbers of tattoos, various bits of ironmongery in places I can see and the hair colour which changes from bright red to pink to blue as they feel inclined, I know that 100% of people are thinking who the *** is this, not oh this must the chair of the governing board. Never assume anything.

8/13 being parents, and presumably the head and a member of staff, is not in the spirit of the statutory guidance on the constitution of a GB issued in August 2017. It states there should be limits on governors with close ties to the school. 10/13 would be too high. It promotes the need to have a diverse membership but also having regard to skills. Co opting lots of parents ticks the skills box but not the non attachment to the school box. It’s not a healthy situation. I think I’m right in saying a staff member cannot be a parent governor in the school at which they teach.

Op we have issues too. Our issues is the governors are best friends with the head so there is no impartiality.

All of them, Willbeat? It seems unlikely that they'd all, including parent, stall and LA governors, be the HT's best friends. I won't deny that there's a danger of being too cosy with the head if things get too familiar, but I think most rightly keep professional and personal lives quite separate.