Role of the Governors

Some of the key functions of a school governor:

• Working at a strategic level helping formulate and approve school policies providing a broad framework within which the head teacher and staff run the school
• Focus on raising standards and promoting effective teaching and learning
• Ensure financial and other resources are managed effectively
• Ensure school complies with laws and regulations such as Health and Safety

It is important that the GB is not there to run the school on a day to day basis, that is the job of the head teacher and senior leadership team who make the necessary decisions. A Governors role is to ensure accountability to all parties who have an interest in the school, especially you the parents and your children.

 

Who appoints the Governing Body?

The Governing Body consists of four different types of Governor. You are probably familiar with parent-elected Governors as you no doubt will have seen requests for nominations and subsequent voting papers going out to you via pupil post. This group of Governors should make up at least one third of the governing body of a school.

However in addition to this there are LEA appointed Governors; Community Governors who are appointed by the Governing Body to represent the views of the local community and finally teaching and non teaching Staff Governors.

The period of office is 4 years after which time you are eligible to be elected or appointed for a further 4 year period.

 

How do Governors get involved with the school and how could I meet or even be one?

Governors do this in a variety of ways which includes:

• A programme of school visits often to look at specific aspects of the school reporting back to the Governing Body.
• We have recently introduced a presence at parents’ evening to enable parents to talk to us and find out more of what we do. –Involvement in the School Improvement planning day along with the school staff.
• Using our outside knowledge and skills for the benefit of the school.

If you want to be a Governor then ask for more information from the school office or have a chat to one of the Governors at parents evenings. It may seem a bit daunting at first as there is an awful lot of jargon to get through but it is very rewarding to give a little back to the school that has given a lot to our children.

 

How does the Governing Body operate?

The full Governing Body meets twice a term after school. A formal record of these meetings in the form of a written agenda and minutes are publicly available and can be requested via the school office. Topics on a typical agenda would include correspondence to the Governing Body from outside organisations, Headteacher’s report, School Improvement Plan, approval of school policies and reports from different committees and working groups. At Cupernham Junior School we have two permanent committees; Finance and Personnel and the School Improvement Committee.

 

Working Groups

Working Groups are set up by the Governing Body to tackle specific issues relevant at the time and report back to the Governing Body.

They are not permanent like the other committees and once the objective of the group has been achieved, they will be disbanded

The minutes of the Full Governing Body meetings are available for you to see upon request at the school office.

The School Curriculum and Standards Committee has a broad remit aiming to improve standards for all children and ensure that the schools curriculum is balanced and broad. This includes oversight of the national curriculum, teaching learning and assessment and outcomes for all children.

At the Curriculum and Standards meetings, the Committee monitors the attainment for children, attendance and exclusion.

The Committee also receives regular reports from the headteacher, Deputy headteacher, year leaders, inclusion leader/SENCO and subject leaders.

The Curriculum and Standards Committee consists of staff governors and non-staff governors.

The Finance and Personnel Committee is responsible to the whole Governing Body for overseeing finances and staffing at the school. The Committee meets typically twice each term. Annually it receives the school’s financial budget from the headteacher and after scrutiny, recommends the budget to the full Governing Body.

At each meeting, the Finance and Personnel Committee monitors the school’s financial performance through receiving and scrutinising the latest monthly financial statement. The Committee also receives regular reports from the headteacher on the staffing of the school and will help in the preparation of any policies that affect staffing. The Committee oversees on behalf of the full Governing Body any changes in staffing levels.

The Finance and Personnel Committee consists of non-staff governors.