Parent Governor Representatives

I have been a Parent Governor Representative on Surrey's Educational, Development & Learning for over just over one year now.

I recently reviewed a policy statement from the National Governors Association (NGA) on PGR's.

http://www.nga.org.uk/pol-PGRs.aspx

The NGA policy says:

'The NGA does not believe that the office of Parent Governor Representative is properly defined. The lack of clarity leads to varied practice throughout the country.

Parent Governor Representatives were set up to provide parents with a voice at local authority education committees and to disseminate information to parents. Many parent governors have found this latter part of the role very challenging and almost impossible to fulfil.

In some cases there has been little interest in the role and many local authorities have carried vacancies for PGRs for a considerable length of time.

In some local authorities PGRs have been ‘used’ as representatives of local governors rather than representative parents. PGRs are elected as representative parents and not representative governors and the NGA is concerned that some local authorities confuse the two.

If the role of the PGR is to be a one then the NGA would like to see it more clearly defined and local authorities’ responsibilities to PGRs clarified. There is little value in PGRs having a dissemination function if they lack the means to carry this out.'


The NGA make a good point that the PGR role is representing parents and not governors and that is sometimes missed by some local authorities.

The Parent Governor Representatives Regulations 2001 can be found linked below

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/478/contents/made

I also agree that it is very difficult to communicate and represent views of parents while sitting as a PGR on a select committee. I have a web page on the Surrey County Council website with my email contact details but I rarely receive any correspondence from parents.

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Parent+Governor+Representatives?opendocument

I also try to use social media such twitter, facebook, linkedin and blogs to communicate to Surrey parents but without a doubt it is difficult task.

Sometimes parent groups lobby me with their particular problem but this can be a one sided view.

Earlier this year I did a guest blog on PGRs for the Modern Governor website.

http://www.moderngovernor.com/2010/04/parent-governor-representatives/

I am interested to here from other Parent Governor Representatives or Surrey parents.

Elected as Parent Governor Representative

In October 2008 I was elected as a parent governor at my daughter's school called Polesden Lacey Infant School in Bookham, Surrey. In February I decided to stand as a Parent Governor Representative on Surrey County Council's Schools & Learning Select Committee. I was duly elected and my first select committee meeting will be on 16th July 2009.

Parent Governor Representatives (PGRs) are elected from serving parent governors to represent the views of all parents on local authority committees dealing with education matters. PGRs were established in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, amending section 499 of the Education Act 1996, and are subject to their own Regulations, the Parent Governor Representatives (England) Regulations 2001 (SI 478/2001) . PGRs have speaking rights on any issue under discussion by the committee, but may only vote on issues relating to education. The role of the PGR is, primarily, to hold their local authority to account by consulting with and feeding back to parents on discussions and decisions relating to education.

Details including committee papers for the Schools and learning select committee can be found http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Schools+and+Learning+Select+Committee?opendocument

I plan to blog about my good & bad experiences as a Parent Governor Representative on a select committee and give parents in Surrey the opportunity to give feedback.

I also run a twitter micro blogging service with School Governor related news items at http://www.twitter.com/schoolgoverning