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Toby Salt on why school governance is in need of a shake-up.
There are more than 300,000 school governors in England and they represent probably the largest volunteer workforce in the developed world. Rooted in their communities and giving freely of their time and expertise, their contribution to school life and leadership is something to cherish.
That said, and as many headteachers know, the current model of school governance is faltering.
The quality of governors varies widely. There are highly effective governing bodies who get the balance of strategic governance and core school business right. But there is also a minority who get caught up in minutiae or try to exercise too much control over day-to-day management and fail to address the long-term needs of their schools and communities.
For parent governors and others representing a specific group, meanwhile, although they bring an invaluable perspective, it can be difficult to maintain a focus on the strategic picture.
There is a further question mark over how well the existing model of governance allows schools to seek knowledge of HR, law or finance in their governors or to capitalise on other skills and experience that they bring to the table.
For some schools, however, these issues are arbitrary when they are struggling even to recruit enough governors. There is a huge number of vacancies nationally, especially in schools in challenging circumstances. According to a survey by the National Governors’ Association (NGA) in 2005, a significant disincentive to people interested in becoming governors is the time commitment it demands, which is, of course, unpaid. (And even where governors are entitled to claim expenses, evidence suggests that many do not.)
The volunteer ethos is a great asset (and fascinates other nations) but it may now be time to look seriously at professionalising governorship, at least to the extent of remunerating people for their time and expertise.
These are all practical problems with the existing set-up but they are germane to changes happening at the system level.
The expanding range of new models of leadership and the necessity now for collaboration between schools will make a governing body which embraces more than one school increasingly common. Rather than artificially conjoining two separate boards of governors, it presents an opportunity to review the skill set of their governors, determine where they could be harmonised and whether they might share responsibility and accountability in a different way.
Take children’s trusts, for example. Currently, they tend to be LA-dominated, which is not necessarily a bad thing but I don’t think we are realising their true potential. I’d like to see groups of schools in a locality forming a new level of accountability with other agencies and taking corporate responsibility for all the well-being and outcomes for all the children in that area.
A new, slimline executive could deal with day-to-day management in schools, with its key members being members of the trust, but strategic issues could be dealt with in another forum.
This kind of small governance in community settings is one of the approaches I hope will be examined by the Ministerial Stakeholder Group on Governances which was set up under the DCSF Children’s Plan to reshape school governance.
NCSL has an observer on the group and we are also working with the DCSF, NGA and other partners to develop new training for chairs of governors. It is part of our commitment to supporting new models of leadership and governance, helping to make them sustainable and effective in tackling the strategic challenges of succession planning, a fast-moving policy agenda and the increasing need for schools to work together.
As headteachers know better than anyone, a competent and committed governing body is a prerequisite for high achievement; it is impossible for a school to be rated as outstanding in leadership and management by Ofsted if the governing body is not up to scratch.
I have been fortunate to work with some great governors and I am presently a governor of a federation of schools and a local FE college and like to think I am effective. However, I think there is now an appetite to challenge an essentially Victorian model that relied on patronage and test alternatives that allow a community to continue to lead but in a more collaborative and strategic manner. ldr
Toby Salt is NCSL’s Strategic Director for School Leadership Development. He was speaking to Julie Nightingale. |
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