THE GOVERNING BOARD

The Department for Education is very clear that the purpose of the Governing Board is to "conduct the school with a view to promoting high standards of educational achievement".

Specifically, the Governing Board must have a strong focus on three core strategic functions:

• Setting the school’s vision, ethos and strategic direction;
• Holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school, pupils and the performance management of staff;
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure money is well spent.

There are 12 governors who meet regularly and make frequent visits to school to monitor progress against the school improvement plan and targets. All governors are volunteers serving a period of four years and the Governing Board meets formally six times per year. The role of the governor is largely a thinking and questioning role, not a doing role; therefore, a governor does not:

• Deal with day-to-day operation of the school – this is the responsibility of the Headteacher and senior leaders;
• Undertake audits of any sort – whether financial or health & safety – even if the governor has the relevant professional experience;
• Spend much time with the pupils of the school – if you want to work directly with children, there are many other valuable voluntary roles within the school;
• Fundraise – this is the role of the school or PTA – the Governing Board should consider income streams and the potential for income generation, but not carry out fundraising tasks;
• Undertake classroom observations to make judgements on the quality of teaching – the Governing Board monitors this by requiring data from the senior staff and qualified external sources;
• Do the job of the school staff – if there is not enough capacity within the paid staff team to carry out the necessary tasks, the Governing Board need to consider and rectify this.