Thread: Being a school governor Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=028000

---

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :
 
Me and the church I'm minister of have had increasing involvement with our local infant school over the last few years, which has been utterly fantastic (and not just for the full church we now get at our carols by candlelight service!). Now, the headteacher has asked me to consider becoming a co-opted school governor, which apparently is a vacancy they've been struggling to fill for some time.

My heart says yes for various reasons, but the thing I'm most concerned about is how much work this is going to take and how much of my time it's going to need. To put it into context: I'm a full-time minister with two children (8 and nearly 4), and I'm chair of our local Churches Together group (which isn't that arduous) and already on the PTA of the school. If I'm going to become a governor, I need to do it well and properly; but I also don't want it to be too much to the detriment of my church work - which is, after all, what I'm paid for.

So, I guess my question is do any Shippies have any experience of this? How much time/work did it take up - was it manageable with other duties etc.? It strikes me as a worthwhile thing to do - is that the case?

Any and all help gratefully received!

[ 20. November 2014, 18:56: Message edited by: Stejjie ]
 

---

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
I can't answer for you ... but should you perhaps consider being a Governor but dropping out of the PTA?

I can see why you might wish to be in both, but I could possibly see potential "conflicts of interest" arising (not in any legal sense of course).

IME it's easier to get parents to serve the PTA than to join the Governing Body, so you'd be doing the school greater service by being a Governor.

If I were you, I might also ask what skills deficiency on the Governing Body you might be filling - that might give an idea of the work involved, which I know can be very time-consuming.

[ 20. November 2014, 19:24: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
 

---

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
My experience of being a governor is fairly recent...

I was first governor of a small primary in the late 1970s and into the 1980s and found it fairly simple to combine with a full-time job and other commitments.

Based on that experience I agreed to 'do' a five year stint as governor of a combined nursery & primary school in the late 90s/early 2000s.

It was immediately apparent that the workload was much greater than it had been, with the statutory requirements for form-filling alone taking up many hours. There were also lots of new rules about what links governors could and could not have to other organisations. After this last stint I gave up the governor thing for a while but have just be persuaded back onto the governing body of a small primary.

If you want to be a governor I'd say leave the PTA job - not just for the time reason but also because it might be thought that being a governor was not consistent with holding any office with the PTA.
 

---

Posted by busyknitter (# 2501) on :
 
I'm vice-chair at my son's school.

No two schools are the same, but the probable baseline commitment they will be looking for will be to attend a governors' meeting once a term and if there is a committee structure (depending on how they run things) some of those meetings as well.

Some schools like to use governors to sit on interview panels and they may ask you to come in for a meeting when OFSTED turn up. Occasionally governors are asked to sit on appeals panels to resolve complaints or staff disciplinaries, but that sort of thing is usually directed towards the chair.

After that, it's a matter of how much you want to get involved in the life of the school; it's lovely if governors go along to special assemblies and the nativity play, but if you are on the PTA. you probably do that already.

Oh and they may want you to attend a couple of training sessions a year as well.

[ 20. November 2014, 19:33: Message edited by: busyknitter ]
 

---

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
I spent a few years as parent governor at a Junior school (age 7-11) in Wales (things differ from England).

After a meeting early in September we met twice a term, plus the AGM which was the annual open meeting for parents. In my first year I attended four evening training sesions which I found very useful.

Participation in school training days was always welcome and the governing body's performance is also subject to OFSTED/ESTYN.

There's responsibility but if you can find space for half a dozen early evenings (my meetings were typically 5pm onwards) and possibly a couple of days, plus reading the minutes that might only be provided two days before the next meeting, I'd say it's a considerable contribution. Looking back I wasn't a great governor, but I was there for parents to refer to and I can point at a few decisions that made things better.
 

---

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :
 
Thanks for all the replies - very useful and interesting. Any more gratefully received!

Just on the point Baptist Trainfan and L'organist mentioned about being a governor and being on the PTA and leaving aside the time issue of doing both, there's certainly precedent for doing both as at least two of the current governors are members of the PTA, including the chair of the PTA. Which doesn't sway things one way or another but does suggest this school at least doesn't see it particularly as a conflict of interest.
 

---

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
I was a Local Authority Governor for my daughter's secondary school for two terms, 2000-2006 ish, around working in different school(s). Most of the meetings were geared for governors who were working, so evenings, and the training was either weekend or evening. I also became involved in reintegration meetings, interviews and observations.

I found the basic Governor training incredibly useful and worth going on.
 

---

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
I've just stepped down as vice-chair of governors at a large primary school.

What I did was: full governors meeting twice a term; committee meeting twice a term; meeting with SENCo (I was SEN and child protection governor) twice a term; visit to 'my' year group twice a term; occasional recruitment panels; chair exclusion review panel. I was chair of the committee doing the Head's performance management. I wrote a half-termly report on SEN and child protection and produced agendas for the Standards committee, for which I was chair.

In the time that I was vice chair the school has been through 3 Ofsted inspections, and I was involved in two of those. At one point we were threatened with forced academisation and I worked at least one day a week on our response to that (which resulted in being able to stay as a LA maintained school). I have also attended an external review of governance, and numerous training sessions.

The workload that governors are expected to undertake has increased massively in the last few years. Recent legislation has meant that governors have almost unlimited responsibility for overseeing the running of the school, including setting the Head's pay and making/overseeing the policy for teachers' performance related pay. The expectation from Ofsted is that governors will be holding the Head to account for the school's performance, and this means that you need to be familiar with the Ofsted inspection framework, the functioning of the primary curriculum, national expectations about children's performance, and the extent to which the school's data matches the government's 'floor targets' in reading, writing and arithmetic. You may need to become familiar with the government's statistical tool RaiseOnline.

Of course, if your school is already Outstanding, then the pressures on as a governor are a great deal less. And you may have a less depressing sense of the pressures schools, teachers and children are under to meet externally imposed targets. But it is as well to get the chair of governors to be *really* honest with you about the kind of commitment involved. And if necessary, choose being involved either in the PTA or the governing body. Because you can get overcommitted very easily. I speak from bitter experience here.
 

---

Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :
 
Mrs Twang is on PTA and a gov of local primary school. She finds it a great way of serving our community.
 

---

Posted by Stejjie (# 13941) on :
 
Just so you know, even if I'm not posting replies I am reading them - thanks for all of them so far!
 

---

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stejjie:
Just so you know, even if I'm not posting replies I am reading them - thanks for all of them so far!

---

© Ship of Fools 2016


UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0