Governance - Feeling deflated

[LeBelleEpoque]

Trying not to be outing - so keeping it as general as possible.

I joined my child's primary school as a governor around a year ago through another parent I was friendly with at school (daughters in same year group) who is the COG.

For context, we moved in year 3 into this school and due to a number of factors (established bully/small village school) my DD was horrifically bullied and excluded for a full school year more or less with little respite and friendship. It really impacted her sense of self and how those friendships flourished.

I addressed this with the school and the school were great and supported my daughter in a number of ways and the bully effectively left the school.

Fast forward to this year (year 6) and for whatever reason the girls in her class (small village school) have just decided to excluded her.
Periodically they seem to take it in turns to fall out with somebody. However all of their friendships are more secure as they have all attended since pre school.

We attended the sports day and could see immediately that she was isolated and they were just blatantly ignoring her. She was literally sat on her own.

This behaviour continued for around 6 weeks until the end of her school year in July.

We didn't ask to discuss this with school, largely because the end was in sight with an early secondary transition, and also our daughter, although she was upset was now just getting cross with it all and couldn't wait to leave the school.

We did mention the behaviour to teachers, but as transition to SS was happening, there seemed little point in doing anything more, the school hadn't noticed it seemed and as a result it seemed a waste of time at that point. There were a number of things happening outside of school and in group chats that meant that the girls mums (inc the COG) are all fully aware of what is happening within the friendship dynamic.

Fast forward to my recent governor meetings.

The friend/COG has obviously (and rightly) spoken to the head about this dynamic (as she's fully aware due to her daughter being in the friendship group). Small school but big impact as the friendship group is the whole of the girls in that year for context.

The head then whilst summarising the year went on to say that they had done a year 6 survey and the results were 'a load of rubbish, all saying they don't have any friends' which rang alarm bells as my daughter had mentioned this. The HT got a glare from the chair, so I knew at that point it was in relation to my DD.

The next gov meeting I was really ill and sort of deliriously had to sit through the HT stating (very carefully) that there had been bullying stated on the questionnaires and the staff had followed up with the children involved and it appears that the behaviour wasn't what they would call bullying. Clearly this was with the intention of smoothing what she said at the previous meeting.

My dd was isolated and excluded, the other girls have a history of behaving like this periodically and I am so disappointed that this is how the HT is trying to say that they dealt with it.

None of this rings right with me (for context I am a teacher myself and I know you can read a room for friendship glitches - ESP in small settings).

I think they are bracing themselves for a complaint by me and I am now chewing over this and I am not sure that I feel I can continue to contribute and participate in the school governance, if this is how they are dealing and discussing/side stepping discussing issues that directly affect my children in their school (we have 2 siblings attending the school in lower years).

DD is thriving in secondary so it's almost a non issue, but it has left a (recurring) bad taste in my mouth after each of those meetings and I am not sure how I can continue if this is how it is being addressed inadvertently.

So my question is how should I deal with this at the next meeting?

I am new to Governance and really feel I have been restrained (in a state of disbelief tbh) in the interest of trying to be professional so any advice welcome.

You should know as a governor you can’t bring personal issues to the meetings
BUT you can challenge and be a critical friend
no one should be saying that results of rubbish and not to be trusted
you and your fellow governors should be challenging and interrogating the survey and school responses - did anyone challenge the statement at the time?

Yes I do know that, and didn’t quite mean that exactly, sorry if that wasn’t obvious from my post.

I don’t want it to be a personal thing I’m raising and I have remained professional and not passed comment because, in part I couldn’t believe it was happening.

What I mean is challenging the manner in which they are talking about my dd at ALL in a gov meeting in front of me as a parent governor.

I’m sure that’s NOT the norm and I am sure that the chair and fellow govs would take a dim view of this if it were their child.

No, it went unchallenged, but I think it obviously got picked up after the meeting hence her rather clumsy mop up at the next meeting because it WAS obvious.

It’s a very small school like 10 in a year group more or less. I should have challenged it and I was just too unwell.

It’s just left me feeling sour about participating in this going forward in terms of supporting the school, and inadvertently how I feel I have been treated as a parent governor if that makes sense.

I didn’t expect to have to be a critical friend to discussions about my dd and was just not prepared for that happening at all.

Thanks for replying.

I think I do need to address this but outside of the meetings themselves.

You have to separate the personal from the professional. If you can’t, step down. I’ve been a governor at my child’s school (including CoG) and had to participate in really painful discussions/decisions that impacted my child’s learning because it was the best thing for all the children. That’s your role.

I’m not sure you really do understand your role - from you saying things like how you’ve been treated as a parent governor. Have you got another governor as a mentor?

Several issues here;
Why are you even attending meetings if you are so unwell you feel delirious!?
Governance is poorly understood by a lot of governors ime (20 years +) and you seem unsuited to the role
Unless you have a specific job/expertise you shouldn't be on the board - "my friend asked me" just isn’t good enough - What value to do add to the board and school community?
You absolutely have to leave personal issues at the door. If you cannot do that, step down.
It doesn't need to be dramatic - a single email to the clerk that you no longer have the time necessary to devote to the role.
Wrt how the school are handling this issue, I'm afraid this is a big problem in small schools. The peer groups are so small, any little fall out can have horrid consequences...I've seen it very often

No I do understand my role and I have kept the private and the professional separate in those meetings because I didn’t get visibly upset/outraged or become unprofessional about it.

Perhaps my wording is clumsy…when I say my treatment, I mean the way in which my child and their disclosure/treatment was discussed in front of me. That is not normal for governor meetings and as I say, other parent governors would take a dim view of this and likely feel sensitive about it and rightly so, that is not what governance meetings are for when the parent is in attendance.

It’s one thing having general discussions that impact outcomes on say book funding or new iPads and another feeling that the school does not address issues like bullying seriously when it your child.

However, I think in terms of being able to separate personal and professional, as a governor I did not anticipate it being personal at all so perhaps it is right to step down.

My illness aside, it’s quite the jump to assume I’m unqualified for it and don’t have any sort of skills or expertise to bring to the table.

How on earth people assume I’m unsuited to a governance role because I have dared post on mumsnet querying how my child is discussed is quite amusing.

This is me doing it it in my personal life and keeping it separate. I have kept the professional to exactly that. You don’t become a governor and become immune to how your child is being treated when it is discussed ant a professional meeting and this is me pondering how to address that.

I wasn’t ushered in from the streets just because I had nothing better to do. I asked to join and feel that plenty of people from a variety of backgrounds can contribute and develop governance skills. Scrutinising my child’s experience of bullying wasn’t on my list for my first year I have to say.

Yes it is horrible, she’s out of it now as I say.