What's it like to be a Parent Governor

[warmmfeet]

Hello

I've been approached by my son's school to apply for a parent governor position.

I'm not under any pretences, I'm pretty sure they don't have many / any other applicants!

I'm considering it because 'why not' but want to hear other's experiences if you've done it please.

What's it like?! What do you have to do?

I know it's apparently attending 2 2 hour meetings a term which are after school and they provide childcare for.

TIA!

A friend was a parent governor at a school…. Post Covid, some relatively minor changes led to a parent mutiny, complete with local press coverage. Friend basically went into hiding, stopped all hobbies and barely left the house for fear of abuse…

This is in a nice school in a good area… so, it would be a no from me!

I think you need to be prepared to take responsibility and make harsh decisions eg redundancies. In my experience, many parent governors only wanted to know what was going on but not get involved. When I was Chair of Governors, each governor sat on at least one sub committee - curriculum, staffing or finance - so that was at least one more meeting a term. We were each linked with a subject area so we met with the subject leader and took an interest from that point of you. To sum up, it’s interesting and worthwhile but involves more than a couple of meetings a term.

Yes,the time commitment isn't just the meetings ( of which there is normally 2/3 a term)- you will need to read the papers, do training, go to meetings with your link teachers for the areas you will over time have more oversight for, etc. it's not something to take lightly, although it can be hugely rewarding.

And you are not there to be a representative of the parents and what they want. You should be making decisions based on the strategic needs of the school, not what parents lobby for.

It was a few years ago, but what I did remember was getting a mountain of paper-work from the LA a day or two before the meeting. I just did not have the time to go through it all. I soon realised that no one else did, either.

It's interesting.
You feel as though you have input into the future of local children.
It can be fun
It's extremely rewarding if you've got great colleagues and school team.

It can also be frustrating.
And time consuming.
And worrying when you're expecting ofsted.
And tricky when other parents try to find out 'gossip' or push their agenda.

Are there any other parent governors you can chat with informally?

It will take a lot of time and is a lot of responsibility. If you can spare the time and energy it could be really worthwhile. But don’t underestimate the commitment!

Interesting - to see how much of a business schools are these days.

Frustrating - change and decisions seem to take absolutely forever

You may have been approached because you have skills yhey feel they need, such as accountacy. It is likely to be more than 2 x 2 hour meetings a term, as there will be sub-committees or monitoring groups, plus training. You should develop a real appreciation for the hard work of staff!

I would talk to the Chair of Governors, or someone who is on the Governing Board already, and get them to give you some more details. You could also ask if you could observe a meeting before committing. The answer may be no, but it will give you a good insight. You could also read the published minutes on the school website, for a better idea of what goes on.

Thanks to everyone for all the very helpful replies - Mumsnet at its best. Lots to consider over the weekend.

Have a good one everyone.

I've been a Governor for 5 years. Did you say they asked you?
At our school, parents have to submit an anonymous submission and parents vote.
We get together on a full Governors meeting 4 times a year.
I sit on 3 committees, so do those as well.I also am on panels for exclusions, recruiting staff and safe guarding. I love doing it.

I'm a parent governor. There's definitely more responsibility to it than most realise. It's more than just a few meetings and the odd assembly. A Governing body are there to act as a critical friend to the Head and hold them to account. This means you may have to challenge decisions sometimes. It also means you have to have a good grasp of the school's strategic plan, its finances, the demographics of the student body and the challenges the school faces.

A lot depends on your senior leadership team. I'm fortunate to have a Head and Deputy who are both blessed with a remarkable amount of common sense and working with them is easy.

Special tasks I've picked up include:

Reviewing aspects of the curriculum .
Gathering feedback from students and families
Sitting on a complaints panel
Sitting on an interview panel

You also have to have a strong sense of the 'firewalls', parents may approach you informally to make complaints at the school gate. However, there is a formal complaints process and it's important to direct people to that and not end up trying to manage other people's grievances when you are dropping your kid off at the gate.

Hope that helps!

I did it as encouraged to but didn't really enjoy it. Ours was a trust school so it felt like a tick box exercise all the way through my 3 years. I was asked for my area if expertise but it was never used