Maximising Governor involvement in small schools

Focus: Supporting governors in assuming greater responsibility, thereby freeing the Head for his/her key tasks

Person with overall responsibility: Clive Williams, Area Education Officer, Gloucestershire LEA

Keywords: joint working; cluster; sharing governor work; best practice; improved LEA support to clerks; Improving communication between LEA, clerks and governing bodies

Read Project Plan (what are we trying to achieve?) : Read Progress Report (what did we achieve?)

Project Progress Report

Focus: Supporting governors in assuming greater responsibility, thereby freeing the Head for his/her key tasks.

The project set itself two tasks:

• To pilot improved LEA support to governing body clerks, by facilitating a clerks’ network, by developing a clerks’ pack and by using governors pages on Glosnet to provide the above.
• To facilitate joint working between a group of small school governing bodies, focusing upon work which all governors have to do (e.g. agreeing and reviewing policies) and by sharing best practice in various areas, including communication with parents.

Considerable progress has been made in improving LEA support to clerks. Since the Spring term 2001, termly briefing meetings for clerks have been held in various locations across the county. Fifteen briefing meetings have been held in two terms and 172 clerks have attended.

Evaluation of forms completed at the end of each meeting of the first series were universally favourable. Clerks particularly valued briefings on legislative changes and other initiatives about to impact on schools. They also valued greatly the opportunity to network and to share good practice among themselves.

Some essential information for clerks is provided free to every school by the DfES (e.g. “School Governors – A Guide to the Law”). Other information is provided free to every school by the LEA (e.g. the schools’ Personnel Handbook).

The LEA has also bulk purchased on schools’ behalf commercial guidance of particular value (e.g. A Manual for Clerks and Governing Bodies). All these publications have been recommended by letter to clerks and listed in the LEA’s revised “Keystone Manual”.

Less progress has been made in facilitating joint work between governing bodies. Consultation with Headteachers’ Cluster Groups has identified no previous instances of governing bodies working together.

The difficulty in establishing a Governors Forum for Gloucestershire has demonstrated governors unwillingness to attend an additional layer of meetings. Headteachers’ own views of ways by which governors could be supported in relieving the Headteacher of some responsibility include

• Better filtering of information sent to schools, so that they are not overloaded with paperwork
• The provision of draft policies for schools.

The LEA is already committed to improving its communication with schools, and has adopted a similar system to that used by the DfES. Model policies, including those for equal opportunities and sex education, were provided in the 1995 LEA publication “Making Sense of Curriculum Policies”.

Other model policies, including those concerning charging for school activities and handling complaints have been issued to schools in the past in different formats. All those policies which are required by statute are listed in the LEA’s Keystone Manual.

Small schools and others will therefore be assisted best if the LEA’s Governor Services Team:

• updates LEA guidance on all policies required by statute
• issues this guidance in standard form
• emphasises governors’ responsibility in reviewing policies at the termly Clerks’ Briefing meetings.