Governors
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What are governing bodies and school/college governors?
The key purpose of governing bodies is to ensure that their schools deliver the highest possible standards of education, and strive for continuous school improvement. Their role is a strategic one. Governing bodies work with the headteacher and the senior leadership team, setting the school's vision, developing the framework for delivering that vision, and challenging and supporting the school to ensure that the vision is being met.
Volunteers with transferable skills learnt in the workplace can add significant value to the overall skill set required by governing bodies, while also offering a crucial external perspective. Encouraging and enabling employees to become governors can have significant positive impacts on the school, the volunteer and the employer.
There are 300,000 volunteer governance places in England on governing bodies in approximately 21,400 nursery, primary and secondary schools. At any one time, approximately 40,000 of these places can be vacant. Schools and colleges are keen to recruit appropriate volunteers to fill these vacancies (especially in more disadvantaged urban areas) and approaches from local businesses are usually welcomed.
You can read more about college governors at the Association of Colleges website.
Duties of governing bodies
Duties include the following:
- Setting the values, vision and strategic aims and agreeing the school's/college's policies and plans.
- Agreeing, monitoring and evaluating the school/college budget (secondary school budgets are now in the region of several million pounds a year).
- Reviewing the school's/college's progress and comparing it to its objectives.
- Appointing and performance managing the head teacher.
- Ensuring the school/college is accountable to the children and parents that it serves, as well as its local community.
The typical levels of commitment are as follows:
- Governing bodies have to meet at least three times a year; these meetings are usually held termly.
- Most governing bodies also have a range of committees and it is usual for governors to sit on one of these in addition to the full governing body. These usually meet about once a term.
- Most governing bodies expect governors to visit the school from time to time as part of their monitoring role.
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Training is recommended and there is a range of providers including the local authority.
Sources of Advice
National Governors' Association
The National Governors' Association is the representative body for school governors in England and their website contains useful information and further contacts: www.nga.org.uk
Please follow the links for a short summary of the role of the school governor and for an example Code of Conduct for a Governing Body (as produced by the National Governors AssociationNational Governors' Association).
School Governors One-Stop-Shop (SGOSS)
The School Governors' One-Stop Shop (SGOSS) is an independent charity dedicated to recruiting volunteers to serve on school governing bodies across England. Please visit:http://www.sgoss.org.uk/home/
Benefits for employees
"Being on the governing body is a bit like being a director of a medium-sized business: you get involved in a wide range of issues such as finance, premises, health and safety, and performance management. I get a lot of satisfaction out of helping the school to develop. Being a governor allows me to use my skills and experience in a different environment, so it's a great opportunity for personal development as well." Richard Betts, Employee Development Adviser, Rolls Royce, and serving governor of St Andrews (Special) School
Employees will:
- develop new skills and strengthen existing ones
- work in a team with wide-ranging backgrounds and talents
- deal with key areas such as finance, strategic planning and HR
- gain satisfaction from knowing that children will benefit from their efforts
- gain awareness of the education system as a whole.
Benefits for employers
Benefits for employers include:
- Skills development of employees in critical business disciplines, such as finance, HR, strategic planning, team working, leadership, and project management.
- Increased employee motivation.
- A more informed and aware workforce.
- Strong and positive links with the community.
- Enhanced employee recruitment and retention.
- Improved customer relations.
- The opportunity to develop the future workforce by contributing to increased education opportunities.
Benefits for schools and colleges
An effective governing body makes a critical contribution to a successful school or college. If a school/college has too many vacancies on its governing body it is likely to be at a proportionate disadvantage. It is also important that governing bodies are an appropriate mix of aspirations, experiences, energies, cultural backgrounds and expertise to facilitate an optimum decision-making process leading to a school with a clear focus on its future direction, raised standards of education, and happier students and teachers.
Code of Practice for school governors
The National Governors' Association recommends that governing bodies adopt a 'code of practice' which sets out the purpose of the governing body and describes the appropriate relationship between individual governors, the whole governing body and the leadership team of the school.
See the full code: Code of Practice
Videos about becoming a governor (supplied by the School Governors' One-Stop Shop)