Meet the Governors

Contact Details:

C/o Brooklands Primary School, Medebourne Close, SE3 9AB

COG@brooklands-maritime.org 

Resignations in the last 12 Months:

Daniel Fritz, Jo Watkins, Eliza Pullan, Sharon Tavakkolizadeh, Carole Hornsby (now working for the trust) 

Nominated Governors Committee Allocation: 

See above

Register of Interests Downloadable

For more information on our Governors Register of Interests, click here

The Role of School Governors

School Governing Bodies

All state maintained primary, secondary and special schools, are accountable to their governing bodies, which in turn are accountable to parents and the community. Parent and staff representatives are elected to the governing body; the local authority appoints governors to the governing body and the relevant faith bodies appoint foundation governors in faith schools. In addition the governing body can appoint its own community governors, and it is traditionally these posts which the governing body uses to cover skills gaps, hence these posts often being offered to governors from the business community. Increasingly local authority appointment panels also look to the skills set of their appointees.

The Role of the Governing Body

The governing body is responsible for the conduct of its school, and must promote high standards of educational achievement at the school. It is the school’s accountable body and as such:

• provides a strategic view of the school by establishing a vision and setting the putpose and aims of the school within an agreed policy framework. It appoints and performance manages rge headteacher, agreeing the school improvement strategy which includes setting statutoty targets with supporting budgets and staffing structures;

• monitors and evaluates the work of the school by reviewing the performance of the headteacher, the effectiveness of the policy framework, progress towards targets, and the effectivesness of the school improvement strategy;

• signs off the self evaluation process and responds to school improvement service and Ofsted reports as necessary. In addition, it holds the headteacher to account for the performance of the school and ensures that parents are involved, consulted and informed as appropriate, with information to the community being made available as required.

In order to do this, governors need to gain knowledge of how their school operates throughtraining, by attending meetings, and by getting to know their school community, for example through a small number of visits to the school during the school day Governors need to work together as a team, under the leadership of the Chair of the governing body. Most governing bodies require their governors to sign a code of practice.

As part of the governing body team, a governor is expected to:

1) Contribute to the strategic discussions at governing body meetings which determine:

• the vision and ethos of the school;

• clear and ambitious strategic priorities and targets for the school;

• that all children, including those with special educational needs, have access to a broad and   balanced curriculum;

• the school’s budget, including the expenditure of the pupil premium allocation;

• the school’s staffing structure and key staffing policies;

• the principles to be used by school leaders to set other school policies.

2) Hold the senior leaders to account by monitoring the school’s performance; this includes:

 agreeing the outcomes from the school’s self-evaluation and ensuring they are used to inform the priorities in the school development plan;

• considering all relevant data and feedback provided on request by school leaders and external sources on all aspects of school performance;

• asking challenging questions of school leaders;

• ensuring senior leaders have arranged for the required audits to be carried out and receiving the results of those audits;

• ensuring senior leaders have developed the required policies and procedures and the school is operating effectively according to those policies;

• acting as a link governor on a specific issue, making relevant enquiries of the relevant staff, and reporting to the governing body on the progress on the relevant school priority; and

• listening to and reporting to the school’s stakeholders : pupils, parents, staff, and the wider community, including local employers.

3) Ensure the school staff have the resources and support they require to do their jobs well, including the necessary expertise on business management, external advice where necessary, effective appraisal and CPD (Continuing Professional Development), and suitable premises, and that the way in which those resources are used has impact.

4) When required, serve on panels of governors to:

• appraise the headteacher;appoint the headteacher and other senior leaders;

• set the headteacher’s pay and agree the pay recommendations for other staff;

• hear the second stage of staff grievances and disciplinary matters;

• hear appeals about pupil exclusions.

The role of governor is largely a thinking and questioning role, not a doing role.

 A governor does NOT:

• Write school policies;

• 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 voluntary valuable roles within the school;

• Fundraise – this is the role of the PTA – the governing body 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 body monitors the quality of teaching in the school by requiring data from the senior staff and from 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 body need to consider and rectify this.

As you become more experienced as a governor, there are other roles you could volunteer for which would increase your degree of involvement and level of responsibility (e.g as a chair of a committee). This document does not cover the additional roles taken on by the chair, vice-chair and chairs of committees.

 In order to perform this role well, a governor is expected to:

 get to know the school, including by visiting the school occasionally during school hours, and gain a good

• understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses;

• attend induction training and regular relevant training and development events;

• attend meetings (full governing body meetings and committee meetings) and read all the papers before themeeting;

• act in the best interest of all the pupils of the school; and behave in a professional manner, as set down in the governing body’s code of conduct, including acting in strict confidence.

Time Commitment:

Under usual circumstances, you should expect to spend between 10 and 20 days a year on your governing responsibilities; the top end of this commitment, which equates to about half a day per week in term time, is most relevant to the chair and others with key roles, such as chairs of committees. Initially, we would expect your commitment to be nearer 10 days a year. However, there may be periods when the time commitment may increase, for example when recruiting a headteacher. Some longstanding governors may tell you that they spend far more time than this on school business; however, it is fairly common for governors to undertake additional volunteering roles over and above governance. Under Section 50 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, if you are employed, then you are entitled to ‘reasonable time off’ to undertake public duties; this includes school governance. ‘Reasonable time off’ is not defined in law, and you will need to negotiate with your employer how much time you will be allowed.

Expenses:

Governors may receive out of pocket expenses incurred as a result of fulfilling their role as governor, and NGA recommends that a governing body should have such an expenses policy. Payments can cover incidental expenses, such as travel and childcare, but not loss of earnings.

Scheme of Delegation

Scheme of Delegation

Decision Matrix

Local Governing Body Code of Conduct

Terms of Reference

Governor Job Description

Committee Terms of Reference

Transition Board Terms of Reference