Policy and Practice: Governors

On the 23^rd of January we had a guest speaker due to Andy’s absence. Steve Gullick took the session. He gave us an insight on the role of governors today, he spoke about the role a Governor has and what it indicates and the purpose of a Governing body.  The department of Education describes the main purpose of a Governing body is to “help the school to set high standards by planning for the schools future and setting targets for school improvements.” (2011)

Steve Gullick told us that Governors were volunteers, which I found particularly interesting as they make such broad decisions such as the school budget, the start and finish time of the school and teachers salary. Which showed how much power governors have. He then went on tell us about the arguments that there are about Governors. One argument is that Governors should be experts about the decisions that they make, then on the other hand that Governors should not be experts but they should be people who live near the school such as the Parents and the Council as they want the school to do well. Another argument is that maybe Governors should be paid but the concern with that is that it may attract the wrong type of people to be Governors people who just want the money and don’t really care about the school but recently the new chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw cited on the BBC news said that "My view is that when a school is doing poorly, we need to think about paid governance.” (2012)

The Governing body is currently made up of people who have a steak in the school these can be

• Parents
• LEA’s
• Teacher’s
• Staff for example a Care Taker
• Community
• Headmaster

All Governors can only be Governors for 4 years and then another election takes place. School Search UK  “The full governing body meets at least once a term to discuss the running of the school.” (2006) This gives everyone who wants to be a governing a fair chance.

References

Department of Education (2011) Retrieved on 25^th January from

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/governance/a0056625/the-role-of-governor-within-the-governing-body

Education and Family ‘Pay school Governors’  (2012) accessed on 1^st March from

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17204548

Schools Search UK (2006) School Governors retrieved 28^th March from

http://www.schools-search.co.uk/school-governors.php