1. Welcome To Being A Governor Part 2
Governor Training and Development
Shaun Smith
Sept 16 TV/AJ

2. Aims To increase knowledge and understanding of Governor role
To identify how different Governor roles contribute and support the work of the Full Governing Board
To increase knowledge of statutory responsibilities of Governors
To enable Governors to contribute to school improvement effectively
To increase networking and sharing good practice

3. Where are you now? What is your role on the Governing Board?
Full Governing Board meetings
Committee(s)
Link role(s)
In what areas are you confident?
Do you have any concerns?
Pop any questions you have on a post it – make sure you get your answer before leaving!!

4. How far have you come?
Quiz

5. Key Roles of the Governing Board
All boards, no matter what type of schools or how many schools they govern, have three core functions:
Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the performance management of staff; and
Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.
Governance Handbook (DfE January 2017)

6. Key Roles of Governing Board
School Improvement
Strategic Direction
Challenge and Support
Ensure Financial Accountability

7. Audit How have your skills and talents been used by your
Governing Board?
How have you grown as a Governor?

8. Strategic Governors…
Focus on making sure every child gets the best possible education.
Establish the long term vision for a school
Promote the character / ethos of school
Building a supportive and productive relationship with Headteacher, whilst holding them to account for the school performance
Challenge the school to bring about improvement and to hold leaders accountable for performance
Agree the strategic improvement priorities, monitor progress and impact
Making decisions in light of objective data
Evaluate their own performance and improve as a Governing Board
High expectations for all

9. Challenging and Supportive Governors
Ask the right questions to different people
Performance and progress of pupils – all pupils, groups of pupils (most/least able, LC A, PP, Free School Meals, English as an Additional Language), comparison with national and local data, trends
Quality of teaching and learning –eg: Pay awards linked to Performance Management / overall performance – outcomes for pupils
Wellbeing of pupils – positive culture, bullying, safeguarding, PREVENT, British Values, Health + Safety, listening to pupils and parents, etc.
Leadership throughout the school – Senior / Middle leaders how are they driving improvement, holding others to account
Impact of development – School development plan, finance etc.
Support the Head/ School – “Critical friend” – support, advice, expertise and information, – promotes interest of school and its pupils, commitment to raising standards.

10. Appointment of Headteacher / Senior leaders MAJOR STRATEGIC DECISION
Holding the Headteacher / Senior leaders to account
Appointment of Headteacher / Senior leaders
MAJOR STRATEGIC DECISION
Support and strengthen leadership of school – bringing skills and expertise to support school
GOVERNOR SKILLS AND EXPERTISE
Hold HT/ Senior Leaders to account for the performance of pupils and staff
REPORTING TO GOVERNORS
Performance management of Headteacher / HT performance management of other staff and management of performance throughout the school.(e.g. Quality of Teaching + Learning)
EVALUATING PERFROMANCE AGAINST OUTCOMES/ OBJECTVES /
OVERALL PERFORMANCE
Challenging Headteacher / other leaders to raise standards
COURAGEOUS CONVERSATIONS
Addressing the strategic priorities, Monitoring progress, impact and evaluating improvement over time.
MONITORING AND EVALUATING IMPACT
Monitor and evaluating effective use of school resources + finances
DECISION MAKING /MONITORING AND EVALUATING IMPACT
Sept 16 TV/AJ

11. Asking the right questions for financial accountability
• Are resources allocated in line with the organisation’s strategic priorities? • Does the organisation have a clear budget forecast, ideally for the next three years, which identifies spending opportunities and risks and sets how these will be mitigated? • Does the organisation have sufficient reserves to cover major changes such as re-structuring, and any risks identified in the budget forecast? • Is the organisation making best use of its budget, including in relation to planning and delivery of the curriculum? • Does the organisation plan its budgets on a bottom up basis driven by curriculum planning (i.e. is the school spending its money in accordance with its priorities) or is the budget set by simply making minor adjustments to last year’s budget to ensure there is a surplus?

12. Asking the right questions for financial accountability #2
Are the organisation’s assets and financial resources being used efficiently?
How can better value for money be achieved from the budget?
Is the organisation complying with basic procurement rules and ensuring it gets the best deal available when buying goods and services in order to reinvest savings into teaching and learning priorities?
Is the organisation taking advantages of opportunities to collaborate with other schools to generate efficiencies through pooling funding where permitted, purchasing services jointly and sharing staff, functions, facilities and technology across sites?
P25 Governance Handbook

13. Six key features of effective governance
The Governance Handbook
Six key features of effective governance
The features are:
Strategic Leadership - That sets and champions vision, ethos and strategy.
Accountability - Drives up educational standards and financial performance.
People - With the right skills, experience, qualities and capacity.
Structures - Reinforcing clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
Compliance - Statutory and contractual requirements.
Evaluation - To monitor and improve the quality and impact of Governance.

14. Competency Framework for Governors
The Competency Framework is made up of 16 competencies. The competencies are grouped under the headings of the ‘six features of effective Governance. It is recommended that Governing Boards over the coming months discuss and reflect on the framework section by section.

15. Activity: Governance Handbook
Read the section on the features of effective governance.
Pick 4 to 6 keywords and/or phrases.
Choose aspect that you consider to be most important.
Identify an areas that you don’t understand or would like more information about.

16. Which of these have you have been involved in so far?
Formal
Ofsted, Core group reviews, SLT meetings,
Governor reviews, FGB, Special Meetings
eg: Complaints, Appeals etc.
Less Formal
Link visits, working parties, Committee meetings,
Interviews with staff, pupils, parents.
Other
Events, Assemblies, Community, informal- staff room,
social eg: PTA

17. Documents – Which have you seen?
Statutory
Policies, procedure, Ofsted reports,
Governor minutes, Financial regulations.
School
School Development Plan, Self Evaluation,
Subject policies, guidelines, reviews,
website, Code of conduct.
Other
Newsletters, Letters, Website etc.

18. “Absolute clarity about the different roles and responsibilities of the Headteacher and governors underpins the most effective governance.” Learning from the best - Ofsted 2011.
Governors
Headteacher
Leading and directing the school strategy
Setting the values, ethos and vision of the school
Contributing to and approving the long term vision
Approving the priorities of the school – School Development Plan
Oversight and accountability of performance
Monitoring and evaluating progress of strategic plan (SDP)
Agreeing budget to support SDP and school needs including major spending decision
Agreeing the principles and strategic direction of policies
Day to day management of school, staff, resources etc.
Spending within agreed budget
Setting the SDP with reference to the governors vision to address school priorities
Implementing the actions and procedures identified on the SDP
Recruitment and deployment of staff
Discipline – staff and pupils
Teaching and learning
Performance management and appraisal of staff
Developing and implementing policies and procedure to deliver the school vision.

19. Governors must know their school well.D
Data O
Observation
Discussion
Documents
Consistency
TRIANGULATION…

20. Example: How good is teaching at our school?
What we are told:
HT report, LA report, NQT data, Performance management outcomes
Consistency
What we see/ hear
Visits to school, talking with pupils staff, parents, surveys, etc.
What the data is telling us.
Pupil outcomes, attainment + progress, different groups
Develop triangulation – not relying on any one source
Consistency between all 3 needed – same message
Reminder : Governors do not judge the quality of teaching and learning

21. Sources of Data External
Raise online, Inspection Dashboard, DFE performance tables, Ofsted Reports, FFT dashboard, Parent view, Exam Results – GCSE etc., Comparative data – school/local/national.
Internal
Attendance, Behaviour, SEN,
Assessment outcomes – achievement and progress, school monitoring
eg: Quality of Teaching, Learning and Assessment, progress tracking data, Pupil Voice, Parental surveys, etc.
Other
Finance, Behaviour Incidents , H+S
Which of the above have you seen?

22. Observations – finding out
Quality of Teaching and Learning
Learning walks, lesson observations
Behaviour, Safety and Wellbeing
School visits, assemblies, events, Health and Safety walks
Working with Stakeholders
Link visits, working parties, staff meetings,
training, events, consultation meetings etc.

23. On visits If we talk all the time we repeat what we know.
If we ask and listen, we may learn something new!

24. Governing Board Key Activities Governance Handbook
Typical Inputs
Understand our school
Pupil attainment and progress
Pupil behaviour, attendance and safety
Teaching quality and staff development
Performance Data
Ofsted reports
Self-evaluation
School visits
Set our school’s strategic direction
Champion our vision, values and ethos
Set priorities for school improvement
Consider academy data
Local aspirations
National floor standards
Parent and pupil voice
Commission action
Agree improvement targets and strategies
Agree allocation of resources
Agree how to monitor and review progress 
Improvement plans
Budget data
Performance Manage our school leaders
Appoint Headteacher and support their leadership
Hold school leaders to account for progress
Ensure financial probity and efficiency
Financial data
Check we are fit for purpose
Clarify our role and purpose
Review constitution and ways of working
Make sure members have the necessary skills
Policy context
Ofsted Criteria
Self evaluation

25. Discussion Activity Feedback
What activities have you been involved in?
How have they helped you to know your school well?
Feedback

26. Ofsted Expectations of Governors
Inspectors will consider whether governors:
work effectively with leaders to communicate the vision, ethos and strategic direction of the school and develop a culture of ambition
provide a balance of challenge and support to leaders, understanding the strengths and areas needing improvement at the school
provide support for an effective Headteacher or are hindering school improvement because of a lack of understanding of the issues facing the school
understand how the school makes decisions about teachers’ salary progression and performance
performance manage the Headteacher rigorously
understand the impact of teaching, learning and assessment on the progress of pupils currently in the school
ensure that assessment information from leaders provides governors with sufficient and accurate information to ask probing questions about outcomes for pupils
ensure that the school’s finances are properly managed and can evaluate how the school is using the pupil premium and the primary PE and sport premium
are transparent and accountable, including in recruitment of staff, governance structures, attendance at meetings and contact with parents.

27. Impact of Governance
Establishing clear vision – ambition – culture of excellence and communicating this to parents/ staff/ pupils
Safeguarding – statutory requirements, policy, practice and intervention, and safe appointment procedures.
High expectations – pupil behaviour, performance, attitudes, values,
High expectations of staff – quality performance – pupil outcomes
Challenge - is it good enough?
External evidence – what are others saying?
Monitoring and information – first hand and what you need from leaders
Taking action – making changes, getting results
Evaluative practice – knowing school and how it compares to others.
Are Governors fulfilling core functions and making a difference for the pupils in their school?

28. Discussion time – are you ready for Ofsted?
Do you know your strengths? How do you know?
Do you know your weakness? How do you know?
What are you doing about it? What is the impact of this?
Are Govs aware of Sept 14 changes?
Ofsted inspector guidance
Recent experiences of Ofsted

29. Organisation and your role within the Governing Board
FGB
COMMITTEE Standards and Curriculum
COMMITTEE Finance and resources
STATUTORY APPEAL PANELS
Curriculum
Assessment outcomes
Teaching + Learning
SEND
Pupil Premium
Safeguarding
RE + Collective worship
Leadership and Management
Performance Management
Finance
Staffing
Resources
H+S
Premises
Pay panel
Appeals
Discipline
Exclusions
Complaints
Your structure may be different

30. Non committee structure
FGB
Lead Gov
Associate Members
Statutory Panels

31. Organisation - Committees
No prescribed model – What is right for your FGB?
Growing number of schools adopting no committee structure –
more frequent FGB meetings and lead governors
Terms of reference and delegation of powers set by Governing Board
Governing Board responsible for decisions made by Committee
Chair / Clerk/ minutes – Agenda / minutes – IMPORTANT!
Quorum – at least 3 Governors
Reporting back to and accountable to Full Governing Board
Purpose
Terms of reference
Remit – delegation of powers
Feedback to FGB

32. Designated Governor Roles
Responsible for
Working closely with
SEND
Liaising with SENCo / School leaders to ensure all Special Needs and disabilities are identified, provided for in accordance with legislation.
Head
SENCo
Child Protection/ Safeguarding
Ensuring legal requirements are in place eg: Central Record, Policy, Child Protection procedures, training, Appointment checks. PREVENT + curriculum development
Designated teacher
Looked After Children
Ensuring LAC children are known and provision made for additional needs
SENCo /LAC teacher/
Link
A specific subject/ aspect/ class – teaching and learning, standards, subject leadership etc.
Subject /Class leader
IMPORTANT to have clear remit of responsibilities and powers on behalf of FGB

33. Link Governors - examples
Year / Class/Phase
Subject
Pupil premium/Sports premium
Health and Safety
Policy review
Website
Assessment / data
Extra curriculum
Early Years (Governor Managed Provision)
Training + development
Finance
Community
IMPORTANT to have clear remit of responsibilities and powers on behalf of FGB

34. School Visits / Monitoring
Policy
Informing, not inspecting
Finding out for the Full Governing Board
Reporting back to Head and Full Governing Board
Purpose of visit
Protocol for visit
Reports and records
Policy
Record/ report

35. Policies Policy - Guiding document – the principles
Usually drafted by school leaders
Supported by in school procedures that guide practice
Statutory policies
Review dates varied
Availability of policies – Governors, Staff, Parents
Governor role to monitor policy is in place, up to date and in use.
Policies can be delegated to Head / other leaders

36. Effectiveness How well is your Governing Board doing?
How well are you doing as a member?

37. 20 Key Questions (revised Feb 2015)
Right skills on the GB?
Effectiveness?
Leadership of Chair?
Vision and strategic priorities?
Engagement with school community and beyond?
Accountability of school leaders?
Governor impact on outcomes for pupils?

38. 21 Questions for MAT boards. (NGA March 2015)
Vision, ethos and strategy
Governance structures
Board effectiveness and conduct
Trustee performance
Engagement
Effective accountability of the executive leadership
Impact on outcome for pupils

39. What is your contribution to your Governing Board?

40. Will it make the boat go faster?
The theory of marginal gains…
Will the decisions you make and activities you are involved in make outcomes for pupils better?

41. Action Planning
To be an even better Governor over the next year, I need to…
Action
How I can achieve it
What support / training do I need.
My long term goal is to: