What do you think of governors - are they helpful for teachers?

[Sleepymorningcuddles]

I'm thinking of becoming a governor- but not at my kids' own schools.

I believe the best teachers are happy teachers and that everyone can do a crap job if the circumstances are bad.

So....what are your governors like? Do they affect your professional lives, for good or for ill?

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It's basically equal pay for work of equal value. ie female cleaners, dinner ladies etc being paid the same rate as male caretakers and bin men. A court ruling said years of back pay was due if the women could successfully argue they had been discriminated against.

Sleepy - they were shagging.

They're shacked up now, I believe, having extricated themselves from their former relationships.

One of ours asked if we'd heard of differentiation as they'd read about it and wondered if we'd like to try it!! Said it all really. I feel sorry for heads who spend their time explaining the basics. Some parent Govs seem to have their own agenda and have no idea of their role. Have always thought it's an odd way to run an organisation. I wouldn't do it unless you're useful - accountant, surveyor, personnel director etc. also don't think you can change anything there's lots of rubber stamping of long policy documents.

If they are asking about differentiation they haven't been given an effective induction to the school!

Stevie, pheromones in the budget meeting -yuck!

Lizzie, these are policy docs written by Head/deputy?

Gosh. I am beginning to wonder if it's worth it....

So how does this Governor thing work then?

We don't have them in Scotland and the schools function perfectly well without them. What do they do and why do you have them?

No idea what the point of them is but they seem to run the school, make decisions about stuff, sack headteachers and look at those who whistle blow on others.

I've been teaching at my current for over 2 years and I've never met a governor. No idea who they are. Never set eyes on one, let alone had a conversation. They are rather low key, to say the least. Not sure who are parent governors are - we're forever advertising for them to fill slots - it's a very deprived area, with very little involvement from parents, despite out best efforts.

SirChenjin. Every maintained school is required to have a Governing Body which is responsible for:
a. Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
b. Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils; and
c. Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.

As of September 2015 the minimum number of governors on a GB is 7 (2 parent, 1 head teacher, 1 staff, 3 co-opted).

We have statutory responsibility for a large range of functions, but often the day to day implementation is delegated to the Head Teacher. For instance, Health and Safety is monitored by the HT through the site manager. The HT then reports back to the Governing Body regularly. Periodically, a member of the GB will accompany the site manager/HT on a H&S walk to see that the state of the site is as reported.

The Head Teacher may staff the school as he/she sees fit, within the agreed staffing structure, but must adhere to the budget which is set and approved by the Governing Body. The Governing Body review the budget (line by line) 5 times or more per year.

The Governing Body review and monitor pupil performance. Not on an individual basis, but strategically. So, for instance, we are given a breakdown of the data for specific cohorts: girls, boys, year groups, specific types of LD (special school), ethnic background, travelling status, (Previously) Looked After Child status, etc. If data shows a dip in performance for one cohort of children, that may lead us to specifically target it in either the Head Teacher's Performance Management targets or in the School Improvement Plan. That may trickle down to the teaching staff's performance management (managed by the HT), as the HT may task a member of staff with investigating a specific intervention for those groups, or analysis of the data to understand the reason for the dip, etc.

We review teaching performance in a strategic way - not looking at the performance of Nigel Tonkin (we should never be able to identify the staff member from the data), but looking at the trend of quality. It may be that we notice that a dip in pupil performance in KS2 corresponds with higher levels of sickness, an increase in supply teaching and poor teaching quality in KS2 staff. We may then ask the HT what her plan is to counteract that trend.

Similarly, if we noted a sharp downward trend in pupil numbers in one year group, which tied in with a rise in behavioural incidents and poor teaching quality, we may have to ask difficult questions about what the HT plans to do (although to be fair, any decent HT would have explained the situation in their report and the plan for rectification).

We are there to make sure that the HT, as the leader of the school, has the necessary support and challenge to improve the school.

I'm at an outstanding school. We have not, even for one day, considered that we've 'arrived' at where we should be. We are constantly looking at what our next step is to improve the school for our children and to make it a great place to work and learn.

Thanks for that lougle.

On the one hand, you personally sound great.

On the other hand, I have real doubts about the value of stripped-down data. How do you know the ks2 teaching is poor?

Well, it wouldn't be looked at in isolation. A good school will have systems in place to ensure that performance management is done by a team of SLT, that they've all agreed what good teaching looks like from County benchmarks and they cross-moderate their performance management (e.g two members of SLT observe the same lesson, write their own performance management, then compare). Also, they could link with a school with a similar profile, and then have a member of SLT doing learning walks with a member of the partner school's SLT, to ensure that they are seeing the same thing when they see teaching.

Similarly, with pupil progress. In my county, some schools with similar pupil profile are moderating pupil progress with each other, so that they are making sure that the same performance at one school would give the same 'level' at the other.

Data is only one of the things that leads to accountability.

Oh, and of course you're right about stripped down data in the sense that small numbers of outliers can make a huge difference in a very select group. But that's why you'd look at the data from all angles, and also why the HT may report that 'at first glance x seems to be the case, but y has skewed the data...'

We're not there to hold a gun to the HT's head. We are there to ensure that standards are maintained and then when they are not there is a good reason and it's not just that the school has taken its eye off the ball.

Isn't the role of the school management team and the LA to maintain standards? That is, after all, what they are paid to do - and they do it well. I would hate to think that school standards were reliant upon parents (I presume Governors are parents?) having a certain skill set and desire/time to be so heavily involved in the running of my DCs schools.

Firstly, the constitution of a Governing body lays out its membership, which in turn is restricted by law. For instance, a person working more than 500 hours per year in a school is not eligible to be a parent governor, even if they would otherwise qualify. School staff cannot form more than 1/3 of the Governing body. There must be at least 2 parents. Those parents must be elected by other parents (unless there are not enough volunteers, in which case the school can appoint the volunteer as long as they feel the parent has skills that would benefit the GB). The list goes on.

Yes, the SLT is responsible for maintaining standards. The LA is also responsible for ensuring standards in its schools. The way the Government puts this in action is by having a voluntary workforce called governing bodies.

I can see the need for a 'critical friend' - we have Parent Councils up here which do a similar job. Lougle's description seems to indicate an extremely involved set of parents taking on a role that I would expect the school's management team to do, as opposed to a team of volunteers - who may or may not have the skills, time, experience and appropriate judgement and neutrality.

If, as others have said, it's a hands-off, support role then fine.

It's not parents ?. Every school must have 2 parents on its GB, but the remaining governors will be people from the community with an interest in the school, perhaps someone who had benefited the school in some way, a staff representative, a person nominated by the Local authority, etc. In other words, the Governing Body should be representative of its stakeholders.

It's absolutely hands-off -the minute a GB starts to dictate the day to day operation of the school, it's over stepped the mark. The role is strategic, not operational.

Having said that, to be effective you have to be involved. At the end of the day, the legal responsibility for the implementation of policies lies with the GB. The legal responsibility for the financial management of the school lies with the GB. The legal responsibility for the financial state of the school lies with the GB.

If a school is found to be failing by OFSTED and leadership is the root cause, as well as removing the head teacher, the LA can remove from office the entire GB and parachute in other governors to take their place.

If a school isn't dealing with safeguarding matters appropriately, for instance, the GB will be criticised because they should have known that there was a problem with it. They should have had a member of the GB who is responsible for safeguarding, who meets with the HT to talk through any safeguarding cases (not named children, but 'we have a child who we have referred to SS and steroids are being taken, etc), to ensure that policy is being followed. The GB also haa responsibility for ensuring the policies comply with legislation and that they are fit for purpose.

Governance is a huge responsibility and anyone who thinks they can just turn up for a meeting, nod and smile, then pat themselves on the back for being a good governor, has got it badly wrong.

Good question SirChenjin, good answers lougle!

What I've learnt from this thread is that there is a vast degree of variation in what governors do and in what voice they have. We've heard about schools where they have inappropriate voice and schools where they have too little voice,

My biggest concern is the quality of data. As a lawyer, I'm used to walking into a business and being given the information. Being given an anonymised version stripped of the human stories then trying to put two and two together by visiting the class seems a weird substitute, especially if you haven't spent years in education.

Well, I sent off the form, will update in due course!

I'm also very troubled by the unnamed child example that lougle gives. A parent governor will soon know who that is.

Behind all this there is a lazy misuse of the doctrine of confidentiality. (Not by anyone on this thread, but structurally).

I haven't read all of the replies, just some, nor do I profess to be an expert on how schools arrange and manage themselves. However, to those, who say their governors seem to have too much power, I will share my story. It may be anecdotal but for me, as a parent the governors were crucial in dealing with the headteacher. I do wonder, without governors, who other than ofsted can curtail the power of the head?

My son aged 10 was on a residential. He was on an activity which most would agree is dangerous for a 10 year old (not when supervised but in view of what happened to him it was). His group was under the supervision of the headteacher and the manager of the residential unit. My son was under the direct supervision of the head teacher. The headteacher made a bad decision and as a consequence my son got lost. Not only did he get lost, no one knew he was lost and furthermore the way he ended up being repatriated with his group, would make your hair stand on end (if it isn't already). I don't want to out myself but I do wonder if I should really give a shit about that, so I'll leave the details there.

After the trip, the headteacher refused to take responsibility for anything, blaming the residential unit entirely. He had one of his teachers investigate him (conflict of interest much?). He also presented the details of the incident to the governors meetings in such a dumbed down way, that they truly weren't aware of his role and red flags weren't raised about his conduct. His treatment towards me was absolutely appalling. I was left feeling angry and fearful nothing would ever change and that children on future trips were at risk.

I chose to complain to the governors rather than escalate to ofsted and the local papers. They were amazing and Completely overhauled the way in which trips are run now.

I feel that without the governors the head's powers would be incredible and unchecked.

Lastly, in case you were thinking this must be some kind of backwater, backwards school. It's actually on paper 'the best' SATS wise and ofsted wise, in the most affluent area of a big city.

A parent governor is unlikely to take on that role, in the same way that a staff governor would not be placed on a head teacher performance management committee, or be involved in internal interviews (conflict of interest). Governors must be told of any safeguarding issues. However, no details are given. In other words, we wouldn't be told why a referral had been made, the year group of the child, the class of the child, what social services have said, etc. It is literally 'we have x number of active cases with SS'.

Parent governors do know stuff that other parents wouldn't know. We have confidentiality clauses attached to the role and breaching those would be taken very seriously. I never discuss GB matters with parents, just as I never bring a gripe I may have as a parent to the GB meeting. It's no different to a governor who is a professional sportsperson resisting the urge to bang on about sports provision -you're there to consider the needs of the school and its children, not your personal agenda.

Yourface thanks for sharing that. Did you have a clear complaints procedure to follow?

The reason that the Governors could help you is that they are ultimately responsible for the organisation of school trips, in that they sign off the plans for any school trip. They can choose to delegate that responsibility to the HT, but they remain ultimately responsible.