Not enjoying being a school governor

[Cerulean60]

I became a co-opted governor of a primary school a few months ago. I was looking for a local volunteering opportunity, thought it sounded interesting, was told it was a few hours work a month plus meetings, and that there was loads of training and support available.

What I've actually found is the role involves sitting in monthly 3 hour meetings where we discuss things I just can't get excited about - e.g. why have year 4 boys reading scores declined 0.3% compared to last year? I'm sat there thinking 'is 0.3% a statistically significant decrease and does it warrant a big discussion?' I don't know if this is the wrong attitude.

The meetings are also dominated by experienced governors who are either parents or former teachers. I get the vibe that because I haven't got children or a teaching background I can't credibly give a point of view.

I've found myself volunteering for roles/tasks without having a clue what they involve, just because I feel I need to do my share, but then stress over not knowing what to do (even when I ask, I get vague answers).

I attended one day of induction training but that was very general. There is more training I can sign up for but it doesn't necessarily map to the actual things coming up in meetings right now. I also don't have time to attend loads of training around work, FGBs, meeting prep and what feels like constant demands for school visits (on dates the school set, with little consideration that I do have a full-time job). I've been allocated a mentor but she hasn't been very friendly.

Overall it's already a very good school so governor work feels like paper shuffling and box ticking.

Does anyone have any advice?! I just want to quit really but also don't want to be flaky.

Because academies have reduced responsibilities the board is often much smaller and you can feel overwhelmed. If you have taken on to much without appropriate direction you need to say so. You are probably not the only one feeling that way.

I am afraid that I have to totally disagree with some of the comments of Bubbles Buddy.
It is quiet common now to have a full governing body meeting every month and work without any committees other than possibly finance. In fact if you work it out, this can actually mean less meetings for each governor and more importantly because you are involved in all the meetings that you should have more knowledge about what is going on in the school and take ownership of the decisions made.
Unfortunately OP you seem to have joined a governing board who have latched onto a newish way of operating but have not really understood how it needs to work. You are clearly discussing more operational issues when you should be discussing strategic issues.
A key issue for this way of operating is to ensure that there is a 12 month schedule of agenda items. So for instance, the head possibly only reporting via a full report every term, finance being every other meeting etc. When you have a clear set of agenda items for each meeting then the meetings should then hopefully run more to time. The fact that they are not indicates that the Chair is not running the meetings as well as is necessary.
I would formally ask what training the school has access to, as it frequently is available it is just not "advertised". If the school is not investing in training for governors then I would suggest that you will never feel comfortable in this situation, just as I would not and that the answer then is to resign and look elsewhere for another governing board where your capabilities may be better respected and used.

OP have you been able to read the School Improvement Plan and the Headteacher's report? You also need to be aware of the new Ofsted Framework. You need to know school data, but must not get bogged down in it. Following the new framework is one of the reasons we got rid of the School Improvement committee and increased the number of visits to the school. Teaching and learning is a huge part of our FG meetings.

I am glad admission agrees that the way we conduct our meetings is quite normal now.

I think that data can only be seen in the context of the school. I'm sure you weren't using real figures in your OP, but a small reduction in performance can be just a 'blip', but if it is a small reduction on performance in previous years where performance has dipped, then you could be looking at a significant downward trend, even though each year as it stands alone is fairly insignificant.

Board style governing bodies can be very effective, but as Admission says, you need to be strategic in how you run them, otherwise it turns into a series of committees that youall attend, in effect. They are intended to allow more access to information by all governors and more focus for individual governors.

I think we can all agree that meeting after meeting that goes on for ages really doesn’t help retention of governors or the school. Where time is precious for working Governors, having 3 full meetings a term is a heavy burden. The Head has to produce a report for all of these? I simply have never come across a school that does this. However they obviously exist but as decisions are a fairly rare occurrence and monitoring is a much bigger role, this can easily be done by a suitable committee. Reports then go from the head to all governors anyway. The FGB agenda reflects this and of course there is considerable prep time. I doubt there is any evidence to show multiple FGB meetings a term improves governance. Delegating and working smart tends to work better for busy governors. A first class head and chair also helps!

“ineedaholidaynow” by your own admission you are failing to retain governors and this system, you say, is very time consuming. Now you are pleased another experienced poster agrees with you But there are significant drawbacks as you have articulated.

Well Bubbles if you can tell us how to cover more than 5 schools in 3 meetings a year I would be very grateful, because I am sure we would be retaining governors then.

But between discussing teaching & learning, finance, premises, safeguarding, GDPR, pupil premium, SEN and all other things we discuss, challenge and monitor, I am not sure how we can do it smarter. Plus all the background knowledge we have to have, plus training. Plus all the other visits we do, including attending audits, SATS. But I am welcome to all suggestions. We are also Church schools so have to factor SIAMS in too, just in case we haven't got enough to do!

One of the other problems we now have to factor in is that there is geographical distance between all the schools, so you have to have governors who are happy to travel, and as many are parents at one of the schools be happy to be as interested in the other schools as well as their 'own'. It was much easier to retain governors when we were only looking after one school. It doesn't help when they keep adding schools to the group either!

I think you have stated your own problem. 5 schools is too many. In fact I would say it’s ridiculous. There cannot be adequate parental representation. Where I have been a governor, most schools have 2 parents per school. You don’t have to work like this and the GB must be very remote from the schools. I’m surprised you get anyone to do it. The answer is to devolve and delegate. Obviously.

How can one Chair have an adequate working relationship with 5 heads? Or how does an executive head manage these schools. It’s a very remote solution. I know when I was a chair it was time consuming and important. That was just for one school. Someone needs to have a rethink about what the GBs are supposed to do and how they do it. How can they possibly know 5 schools? No wonder you cannot keep Governors. I know schools where two have federated in neighbouring villages. That’s about enough!

Your experience OP sounds awful, but the norm. 4 of my closest friends have been governors and all said it was similar to what you describe.
Awful.

I was a clerk. Your job is to scrutinise the head and school. Ever question is minuted, the more questions the better.

My schools did 4-6 FGB a year and then committees for finance and curriculum. So a question next time can be, is this not pointless doing 12 FGB, could we not get more done splitting into smaller committees to work on certain areas! Each governor also had one area they were supposed to do school visits for, to talk to the subject lead and report back to the FGM (written).

There was an online governor training package the school signed up to. So another question could be be whether your governor training is effective enough and give your feedback as a new governor.

It’s a shame your mentor hadn’t been friendly and you have had the vibe that as a non-parent, non-teacher your contribution is somehow less valid because IMO you are exactly what is needed on most governing bodies which can be a bit cliquey, parents who have known each other years and love the head whatever etc.

It’s such a great thing to have on your CV so I would stick with it for your term at least, or a couple of academic years. I was a bit lost as a clerk when I started but the terms soon passed.

Make sure you go the meeting with some questions already prepared, having read all the paperwork. All our governors are expected to ask at least one question and were being trained to make it a two step question to provide more challenge eg what is being done to try and raise the standards in reading inYear 4? (Listen to answer, then next question) What else can be done if these strategies don’t have impact?

Monthly FGB meetings for three hours is hopeless. There should be one meeting a term. This should be clerked, with a tight agenda and all paperwork sent out in advance so that it doesn’t have to be read in the meeting. Sub- committees should meet termly too and their work is more focussed, eg looking at the budget. The chairs of sub-committees then feedback at the FGB meetings.

There are a number of very well-informed people on this thread who evidently don’t understand the concept of ‘statistical significance’! Which hopefully goes to show that it is always a question worth asking when the data is being over-interrogated.

Have you done Safeguarding, Prevent and GDPR training OP?

We are one large primary. We meet fully once a term with committee meetings separate. It's not a huge time burden although we could prob do with more time really. Papers are circulated in advance. There's lots of open dialogue between parent gov so issues are discussed also and brought to meetings

Maybe sign up for a course on analysing data first. I doubt the 0.3 was percent, it's probably a reduction of 0.3 on their statistical score which only ranges from 0 (average of all schools) to either plus or minus 3, so a variation of 0.3 does signify a trend, especially if it is a negative score it will need explaining to Ofsted. I think with experience and training it will get easier. I doubt it will ever get exciting. But remember that you are not doing anyone a favour if you don't at least try and rise to the challenge. As a governor you will get judged by OFSTED just like the Head and you are part of the leadership of the school, so it's a pretty big responsibility.

How many governors do people have on their governing boards?

I think we have eleven at the mo and a vacancy. 4 parents, 4 staff and three other inc chair / dep.

I belong to a really great FB group which helps me find my way through governance. Along with the LA training, NGA web site etc etc. It does take a while to get 'into'. And - as the comments have shown here there are many different boards operating in very different ways - some of it necessary because of all the different types of schools run in different ways (LA, Academies, VA, Federations, Junior, Primary, Infant, Secondary, All through....) Some is boards that are still running as they did 10 years ago, some are moving with the times. Some don't change because if it's not broke don't fix it.....some have been on incredible journey's of necessary change.

If you are still keen to help make the school better then don't ditch it yet. Get on more training courses. Talk to more governors (both from your board and other boards). And give it some time. Next time your question needs to be "Am I correct that we are discussing a 0.3% change? Is that statistically significant for us to discuss?" ....if a 0.3% difference is the worst of your issues....then well done! Lol. You have a great school!!

Our scheme of delegation allows for 12 on our GB - 2 parent, 2 staff, HT, 7 co-opted. Recruitment and retention of governors is a real problem. When I joined I was given no support at all and it was overwhelming. I make it a priority now that all new governors are mentored, have access to online training via the NGA and that they sign up for face to face training with our training provider. Our trust has moved to a flat structure - so no committees. We only have 6 FGBs a year, limited to 2 hours, so this is an issue for me.
As a pp mentioned above, The Key is a really useful resource. Also the EEF.

Our chair is fond of telling new governors that it probably takes them at least a year to feel like they've got any handle at all on the role. I think I hit the ground a bit stronger than the others who joined our GB at the same time because I was from an education background and so didn't quite drown in educational acronyms!

I generally enjoy doing it - although I'm probably going to have to step down after this year as my kids will all have left the school.

It seems to be M A Trusts that are ditching committees. Who actually decides committees should be abandoned? That model doesn’t necessarily make for good governance and retention of Governors. Dividing up the work into manageable chunks can help with this.

It might seem old fashioned to have committees but mats are rarely run by Governors. People fall into line without thinking about how the practicalities will be managed.

Where I am, schools are strongly encouraged to look at teaching and learning as a Committee. It’s one of the biggest failures of schools when ofsted appear and a teaching and Learning Committee has a stronger focus than a Curiculum Committee. It should monitor the T & L in the Improvement Plan. I notice most posters are not mentioning this key document.

Many GBs don’t streamline their work. They carry on with the same old agenda items. Operational matters are for the head to report, not for Governors to discuss as Infinitum.

My last GB had the same Governors as whisperinglow. Lots of schools didn’t modify their constitution when more co opted Governors were recommended around 7 years ago.

Regarding training: as someone who was the lead officer for Governor training in my working past, I strongly recommend doing training with other governors. Whether this is induction or something else. You can chat and learn from other schools. We even have training that’s tailored to each school. It’s paid for, but it’s invaluable. Some LAs sell their training to neighbouring LA schools. It can be very lonely just looking at a screen and trying to make sense of it all. Governors are part of the leadership team and deserve investment in order for them to be effective. Discussion about how effective they are is worthy of time and changes made if necessary.

ineedaholidaynow are you a governor at 5 small faith schools that are formally federated under 1 headteacher and 1 governing board or are you on the trust board of a multi-academy trust of 5 small schools ?

Obviously the structure of the organisation makes an enormous difference to how the governing board should be set up to run effectively. But it needs to be the right structure that works for that school or schools, something that bubblesbuddy seems not to accept, believing that the only structure that can work is one with committees. What works is having an efficient structure with the right people around the table and an effective chair.

You are being a bit provocative admission! I do believe schools should do what’s right for them but a top down view of a GB to run 5 schools might not be right if they are losing Governors and cannot recruit. It doesn’t sound that this is the right answer. I’m merely stating what I’ve found to work over 40 years. Of course people can disagree but ensuring Governors can manage the work by effective organisation of the GB is critical. If one GB for 5 schools with no committees does this, then great. The evidence presented suggests there is a problem. I’m merely putting forward an alternative for consideration and giving the reasons why. I don’t understand why this is seen as one dimensional. My LA has very few GB vacancies by the way.

I did one year as school governor at my children's primary but quit because the expectation was everyone would sit there and nod when the chair of govs spoke. The nepotism and incompetence was horrendous and I didnt want to be part of such a weak situation. The chair of governors became increasingly aggressive in his emails towards me. New suggestions were shot down. I had sleepless nights..

If you are not enjoying it get out.