Anyone in a school governing body? Request for advice

[Aria11]

For reasons related to the recent developments re education provision, I became very interested in issues related to school governance and parent engagement and I would like to understand more what is going on in primary schools in general. For parents/teachers and especially those involved in school governance, can you please give let me know what is the situation in your school regarding any or all of the issues below:

1. Is there any specific management policy on parent engagement?
2. How does the governing body work in terms of addressing concerns raised by parents? E.g. is there a standing item in the agenda about this? Are parent governors required to canvass the opinion of parents regularly and provide feedback in meetings?
3. Can parents raise collectively issues/complaints to management or the school governing body?

Sorry in advance for all these questions. I have limited knowledge in this area and any information would be extremely helpful.

Presumably the Governors would become aware of issues when, following the complaints procedure and after initially raising issues through the appropriate channel, the complaint was escalated to the Chair if not already resolved??

Can I ask what you think engagement should be?

As others have said schools are currently focusing on how they can cope with extended opening and the respective risk assessments, and the health and wellbeing of the pupils and staff.

Our schools aren’t even currently providing food, everyone has to bring in pack lunches.

Also as others have said most parent complaints usually relate to operational matters and are outside the remit of the governing body.

If you are part of an Academy the Scheme of Delegation should be on the school website.

Look at the school’s complaints policy, again that should be on the website.

Does your school have an Ethos Committee?

On engagement, I was expecting that the board, not the SMT, would contact regularly all parents directly via emails etc to inform us about significant developments/decisions, consult us on such issues and report then on how consultation, if at all, played a role in strategic decision making. I think that the code is clear on all these issues and suggests that the board is answerable to parents/carers. Activities such as holding an annual survey or participating in sports days would be deemed insufficient and rightly so, I think. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have an ethics committee.

Aria,
I think that your expectation in terms of the role of governors and what they will do is way beyond what is reality.
What code are you referring to where you are clear on all these issues?

The minutes of meetings should be on the school website.

Most decisions made by Governing bodies would not normally be consulted with parents. Some major decisions might be, but catering decisions would not come under that as that is operational not strategic.

What other decisions would you think should be consulted?

One example that I have been involved in, was when the individual school I was a governor for decided to become part of a Multi Academy Trust, so there was various communication to parents and also meetings for parents. But the ultimate decision was for the Governing Body not the parents.

Yes, I thought so...It seems though that the DfE now supports such an approach. Here is the link to the Governance Handbook that provides for that: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/788234/governance_handbook_2019.pdf. Here is also the NGA guidance that also suggests something along these lines: www.nga.org.uk/getmedia/64b96dac-ba3f-41a7-a4a4-c858330aedb5/NGA-Parentkind-20pp-Guide-(WEB-Aug-2019)-AW.pdf. It is quite interesting that lots of views here seem to suggest that such an approach would be at odds with what boards should do. It may be that given that these changes are recent, boards may have not yet adapted their approach to meet these requirements. It would be a different matter, of course, if these changes were basically ignored by boards and schools. I am not sure if this would happen in other sectors.

Btw, the NGA guidance specifically refers to prioritising parents through link governors or standing agenda items. My original thinking was more or less around this, i.e. have standing agenda items in board meetings that address issues raised by parents. We do something similar in the sector where I work, not very dissimilar in fact from schools (higher education).

We do regular questionnaires and then review the results. We attend school events and have also attended community events representing the school. We have Ethos Committees which parents are invited to attend (although we struggle to get parental engagement). When there were particular concerns at one of the schools I am involved with, I did meet with some parents together with SLT to listen to their concerns.

Have you ever thought about becoming an governor OP?

Thanks, ineedaholidaynow. I can imagine that it is not easy to get parents engaged, we have a similar problem with students in universities as well. Frankly speaking, I just find it surprising that school governance seems to have traditionally excluded parents' input and has prioritised more or less complaints as the main mechanism for parent engagement. I cannot consider parent governors as a mechanism for parent engagement and do not understand what is the point of having them in the first place given the restrictions in terms of their role. And yes, now that I am looking at all this, I find it rather fascinating but I would never volunteer to be a governor in my child's school. Not so much because of the limited role of governors but because we happen to have a headteacher that is, I think, the ideal example of an autocratic leader. I and others tried to engage and failed and the only thing possible now is to move our DS to a different school.

It is very hard being a parent governor, because you do get other parents coming up to you with all their grievances and expect you to take them to the Governing Body, but most of their gripes are to do with operational matters and should be addressed to the teacher/HT depending on the nature of their issue.

It can also be hard in a Governors' meeting when you are voting on something that you know might not benefit your child but know that it will benefit the school.

I can imagine that this is the case many times, I have been both student and union representative myself and can understand the issues you are referring to. This does not mean though that SMT should not be challenged and be accountable.

That NGD document suggest things like using the website, going to parental groups, using social media, and engaging in consultation and parental surveys. All of which a good governing body will do, and will look at the overall results from surveys in meetings. What it can't and won't do is use meetings as a forum to discuss individual grievances. That would be an improper forum to discuss such specific issues.

I never referred to individual grievances and I would also think that these should not be discussed at all in such fora (unless they are submitted as complaints to the board). As for the mechanisms, these all seem fine as long as they happen regularly and are meaningful.

I cannot consider parent governors as a mechanism for parent engagement and do not understand what is the point of having them in the first place given the restrictions in terms of their role.

What do you mean by what is the point of having parent governors? I can't see that there are any more restrictions on them than any other governors. Once they are a governor, the fact that they are a parent is not relevant to that role and they are not there as parent representatives, just as staff governors are not there to represent the views of the staff body.

Have you raised a formal complain OP, in line with your school's published complaints policy? You might find that you will get a fair hearing and reasonable outcome.

Governors, in my experience, are interested in the wellbeing of the whole school. Strategy, fulfilling obligations, striving for improvements.

They should not be involved with operational decisions. Perhaps the Board of Governors at your child's school have decided that catering is operational, and therefore outside their remit.

The point of the Governing Body, Aria11, is strategic governance. Complaints from parents and even individual views from parents are not strategic so should not be on the agenda at a GB meeting.

The school must, however, demonstrate the methods used to seek the view of parents, carers and the wider community. They must show how these have influenced strategic decision-making. They must feed back to the stakeholders that they engaged with. There is no requirement in the Governors' Handbook to listen to complaints or ideas or have items put forward by the parental body on the agenda. It is unlikely this could be described as strategic governance.

Parent governors do have a valuable insight into the school. However all schools need to guard against parents with one sided or one track views. They may not be representative of all parents at all. They might only be representative of 10! Therefore Governors should think about how to consult widely and be able to demonstrate that these views have influenced their strategic vision. They do not have to do more than that.

The school where I was a governor had a Parents/Carers Form with the Head. At every meeting, a Governor was asked to attend. This was operational but was open to all parents. Few took advantage of it. There are many other examples of how schools can consult and encapsulate views in their strategic vision. However, views on operational decisions are not the remit of the governors (unless illeagal of course) and school GBs will guard against having items brought by a certain group of parents who may not be representative of the wider commuity at all.

Catering is operational. It is not really part of strategic vision. Other than they wish to have it.

Catering is operational. It is not really part of strategic vision. Other than they wish to have it.

I'm not completely sure I agree the decision to support children in adhering to the requirements of their religious faith is really simply an operational decision.

It's all how you frame the question - "Should the governors be involved in the dinner menus?" vs "Should governors challenge the SLT when they are failing a religious faith by excluding them from dinner?"

Equally of course it's not obviously not an operational matter, it really depends on the details of both sides of the question, but I don't think you should be quite so dogmatic that it's not a role of the governors. In the very unlikely event that the SLT was deliberately trying to exclude children of a faith then it's every bit the role of the governors to address that.

Yes. I was a bit too dogmatic earlier.

However the detailed guidance available on what should be served is for head teachers. Not governors. Governors should have a school meals policy and there is guidance as to what should be in it. Some people are not happy with halal meat but there is advice available regarding catering for religious requirements. In this case, the governors should review their policy and check that the head has implemented up to date advice. But essentially the governors decide that meals are provided and task the head with the providing the meals that follow food standards and other legal requirements. It’s not clear whether halal meat is a legal requirement. The op could familiarise herself with the requirements and advice and then ask from a position of knowledge.

Schools might well have to consider a myriad of diets and might have great difficulty accommodating everyone. Some parents just get DC to have the veg option and keep halal for home.

OP might also find it useful to check the school's equality policy. It should be on their website.

Having done a bit more reading, this appears to be an issue decided at the highest level by local authorities. They tend to have LA wide policies. There’s a lot of info about Lancashire. Other LAs have policies and it appears individual schools follow these policies. So not down to the Governors if this is a LA school. If the school is a MAT school, then they should have a policy on this.

NGA quote re engagement
. "Governors and trustees are expected to retain their strategic role and so it is not expected that they proactively engage directly with parents and carers. However, some parents and carers may also look to the governing board for reassurance and so boards should consider supporting the communications from the school. This could involve the co-signing of a letter that goes out to parents."

Governors should engage with parents when drawing up policies. Definitely behaviour policies. As I said earlier, school meals policies might be dictated from above but the notion of engagement with the school community is not just the limited view from the NGA. The governors handbook is far more explicit on parental and community engagement. See attached.

I've read that before, and while I appreciate the sentiment, that looks like a load of meaningless guff to me, without any guidance on how this engagement is to be achieved. How many parents have the time to even read literally dozens of policies, never mind look up the legislation behind them? It's enough of a struggle to make sure the homework's done for most people, never mind being presented with a ruddy great pile of quite dull material to wade through.