Parent Governor

[MyfanwyMontez]

My child’s primary school has a vacancy for a parent governor position and I am tempted to apply.
Has anybody had experience in this? What kind of things do they expect you to put in your nomination statement?
If successful, what will the reality be like?
If anyone can help , I would be most grateful.

Differs slightly depending on whether it's a Local Authority funded school or part of an Academy trust. In my experience (LA school) you can expect a couple of Full Governing Body meetings a term (usually evening), plus you'll be required to join committees/monitoring groups which will usually require a meeting per term each (on average), sometimes during school time. There will be some/lots of papers to read and consider prior to each meeting (especially Full Governors).

You will be encouraged to get to know your school well and there is a wealth of governor training available.

It's frustrating, rewarding, and eye-opening.

BlueChampagne
Thanks for that information.It’s a LA school. I am willing to put in the time and effort and have a interest in the school ( obviously. otherwise I wouldn’t be considering it), but I am unsure what to mention on my application. Any hints/ tips?

It's some time since I did mine, I'm afraid! But I would definitely mention that you have considered the time and effort required and that you can fulfil those requirements.

If you have any useful workplace skills, such as knowledge of health and safety, recruitment, human resources, finance, project management, building maintenance, meeting organisation, minute taking, leadership ... then get those in. However in our GB we value the requisite time and enthusiasm most.

There should be a current governor you can contact for specific questions relating to your school. There should also be published minutes of previous meetings to give you an idea of what they discuss.

Your statement to apply is what the other parents will vote on so bear that in mind - bluntly put it can become more of a popularity content than a case of who is best suited to the role. That said, we’ve never had more than one parent apply (mostly none!) so we’ve never gone to vote, just taken the person who applied

I would mention any relevant skills you bring from your work/life - eg finance skills are always in need, or HR/training, or data analysis, or marketing and comms
I would then focus on why you want to do the role (eg to make a positive difference to all the children in the school and to ensure they all get the best education possible and are happy in school - ie it’s about what will make the biggest difference for all kids, not just your child :-) )

And acknowledge that you understand the role (ie it’s strategic not operational, you want to help guide the future of the school and set the vision etc...not get involved in the day to day)

I’ve been a governor in 3 different schools over the past 12 years or so, most recently parent gov at my children’s school - it is interesting and rewarding, can be time consuming and at times tricky as you have to remember that you do not represent the other parents and cannot get involved in their issues and concerns (which must be directed to the Head) and you must maintain confidentiality at all times (definitely not a role for someone who likes to be first to share the news and gossip!)

Chair of governors here. Just remember you are a representative parent, not a parent representative. I love it, but there are times when it’s taken up more time than my day job and it makes me equal parts amazed by humanity (our staff) and disgusted (parent behaviour) at the same time. There’s loads of training available as well - make the most of it.

As others have said, list the skills you have that would make you a good member of the board. Also, that you are aware of the commitment and that you have the time to give. As also mentioned, a parent governor is not a glorified class rep and they have no say in the day to day running of the school, nor can they take parental moans and groans to the head or the governing board. A lot of people are unclear about this!

I would suggest you ask to see the Chair of Governors and find out exactly how your school works. A good Chair will see you as long as they don’t vote! It’s better than asking on here because schools work very differently. Many schools don’t have meetings in the day any more as governors work. There should be a requirement that you visit the school though so you can evaluate policies in action and monitor the school improvement plan. Some schools run meetings very efficiently and they will be limited to 2 hours. You read everything before you go and have mechanisms for challenging the Head. Other schools want all Governors at all meetings. Would you like this? Some schools have poor agenda control and even worse timekeeping - I’ve clerked a few of those in my time.

What is the real time required? Days/evenings/home based training? What works for you? Visits to the school - how often and how long? Realistic length and frequency of meetings? How long is the Heads report - in my last school it was 35 pages long! Lots of progress data. Lots of it! There are minutes and other reports to read plus your school improvement plan and new policies. You need to understand data and evaluate it. Training will help if you are not a natural.

So, before you apply, try and evaluate what your school is like. Strategic and business like? Organised and effective? Or prone to waffle on matters which are operational and don’t really consider the important issues facing governors? If you believe it to be a good school and you respect the Head, you will probably find the former.

All the advice about your skills is great advice but don’t do it if you have serious concerns. I speak as someone who did it for years and years!

I’m a parent governor, it can be quite time consuming if you end up on an appeal committee... otherwise it should be 1 full governing board meeting a term and 1 sub committee meeting.

We had about 10 applicants for 2 places!!! Most people wrote about their jobs and what they would bring to the role in their statements.

FGB meetings plus at least one committee, one link area, training, learning walks and monitoring visits. Average time requirements is 6 to 8 hours a month term time only.
Tell them your skills and what you will bring to the job.
The link below is the standard for Governing boards and I would see if there are areas you have skills in and refer to these.
Speak to the Head about what skills they are looking for.
The first year is about catch up and finding your feet.

You are expected to adhere to the Nolan principles.
There is no such thing as a silly question.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/583733/Competency_framework_for_governance_.pdf

I’m a parent governor, it can be quite time consuming if you end up on an appeal committee... otherwise it should be 1 full governing board meeting a term and 1 sub committee meeting.

You really need to find out from your school what's involved. At ours, there are two full board meetings per term and two for each sub-committee. All governors are expected to sit on at least two sub-committees, so that's already 18 meetings per year. Then extra for any appeals etc. We recently recruited a new head, and that took loads of time (pre-meetings to plan the process, meetings with SMT to get their views, finalising the advert text, shortlisting, two full days for interviews/tasks, extraordinary meeting to ratify the choice...you get the picture!). We also had a big anniversary recently, and governors were expected to get involved with that. Then there is an expectation that everyone does as least 3 training sessions per year, and at least two school monitoring visits. Then the notes of those visits need to be written up, and the paperwork for all of the meetings needs to be read. Most, if not all, of our governors have some sort of additional responsibilities on top of the normal governor stuff too - eg training and development governor, SEN governor etc - which usually entail some extra work. Plus we're asked to write a column for the school newsletter once a year. It's quite a lot of time when you add it all up, but it's interesting and rewarding.

Not a parent governor personally, so can't tell you what to write to get elected, but it makes no difference once you're on the board.

I'm one - we have one full governing body meeting a term, plus two sub committees, and then some other stuff that less people get involved with like data monitoring or our collaboration meetings with another local school. I'm in once a term meeting with the curriculum leads for my specific areas of the curriculum - which tends to vary how schools run that side of things and there's times we're invited into school for different things as well - take up on those things varies.

I can't remember much about my nomination statement other than that the word count was terrifyingly short - in the end ours didn't go to election anyway.

We had a substantial amount of data to comprehend for every Full GB and at Teaching and Learning Committee. Data is for everyone. Finance Committee would have a lot of info from the school too. Some schools rightly delegate a lot to the Head. Some schools don’t handle their own admissions so don’t do admission appeals. I didn’t interview staff applicants at my last school. I did at my previous schools. Depends what’s delegated.

I notice few posters have mentioned evaluation and monitoring of school policies and monitoring and evaluation of the school improvement plan. These are key areas of Governor work and will require school visits. Also evaluation of the effectiveness of the GB. Anyone who says it’s just two meetings a term has a GB that isn’t really doing the job!

Collaborating with another school was operational for us. Not a GB function. Although it would be if you were federated. The Head of our junior worked appropriately with the Head of the feeder infant school. I would be wary of getting too involved with projects that are not GB business unless they are clearly strategic and affect the direction of travel of the school in a major way - eg federation. Governors have enough to do without adding to it.

I was one but couldn’t keep up with time constraints. The training times and locations made it impossible to make work for me.
The couple of meetings were fine but it was the training that caused me the issue, I also know another governor in another county who had the same issue due to location of the courses - courses ran at the other end of the county and finish at 3, so no way to get back to get the dc.
There are times when it is like a full time job in itself (ofsted for example) and others it ticks along nicely.
But I did enjoy the little I did, and was sad I couldn’t make it work.

It can be very interesting, but also very time consuming. We have done away with sub-committees and introduced working parties instead. Working parties tend to revolve around visits to the schools (our governing body covers more than one school so that adds to the time). Visits can include school improvement, premises, finance, and are usually undertaken during the day.

We have a full governors’ meeting every month and they usually last about 2 hours and are held in the evening.

There is quite a bit of pre reading, both for items on the agenda but also background reading eg OFSTED framework.

You can be asked to sit on interview panels, exclusion panels, complaints panels.

You will be asked to take on some sort of lead role, either subject or something like SEN, GDPR, Health & Safety. Training will need to be undertaken. This can be at an actual course or online.

As a parent governor it can be difficult to separate the role of parent and governor, but it is important that you do. You must also learn how to direct other parents’ questions to the right person. Most parents’ questions relate to the operational aspects of the school which is not the remit of the governors.

Our local governing boards are struggling to keep governors due to the workload involved.

Also remember that when OFSTED come calling they inspect the governing board too. As a new governor you probably wouldn’t be asked to attend a meeting with the inspector if an inspection is imminent but it is something you need to bear in mind.

If that hasn’t put you off, apply.