Do you think there are barriers which deter people from becoming a school governor?
Lord Hill has called for governors with ideas on how we can remove any barriers which may prevent people from becoming school governors.
He has set up the email address school.governors@education.gsi.gov.uk to which people can email suggestions.
My own thoughts which I have emailed to Lord hill are:
1) Get employers firmly on board. Many public bodies already allow employees to serve civic duties up to 5 days without any financial penalty to the individual. i.e The employee does not take these days as holiday or unpaid leave. They continue to be paid for their time serving as a school governor.
It would be good to extend this to all public bodies and private companies above a certain size, say over 250 employees.
2) Reward employers whose employees gave their time as school governors, public recognition or possibly tax rebates for the amount of time employees spent on civil duty.
Hampshire County council already do a good job recognising employers. See link with story below.
http://www3.hants.gov.uk/communications/mediacentre/mediareleases.htm?newsid=434029
3)Encourage more young people to get involved with School Governing by giving away music concert tickets in a similar scheme to Orange Rockcorps
http://www.orangerockcorps.co.uk/
4) Encourage single parents to become School Governing by paying for Child care provision. Single parents could be encouraged to join governing bodies if baby sitting or child provision was paid for without financial penalty to the school. At the moment it is down to each school what they allow under their governor expenses policy.
5) Review the criteria for being a school governor. There are many limitations which might scare some members of the community away from becoming a School governor.
What do others think?
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Monday, 29 November 2010
School Governors seek judicial review to prevent part closure
School Governors have a High Court date set to challenge the Welsh Assembly’s handling of the proposed closure of their sixth form.
A judicial review sought by Brynmawr Foundation School’s governors will be heard in Cardiff in January next year.
The School governors are challenging whether the Welsh Assembly’s delegation of powers to Blaenau Gwent council to propose and consult on closing their sixth form was legal.
They claim the school’s foundation status, which means it is run by its own governing body but funded by the state, prevents any authority but the Welsh Assembly from proposing a closure of any part of the school.
Full Story at http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/8707321.High_Court_date_for_school_campaigners/
A judicial review sought by Brynmawr Foundation School’s governors will be heard in Cardiff in January next year.
The School governors are challenging whether the Welsh Assembly’s delegation of powers to Blaenau Gwent council to propose and consult on closing their sixth form was legal.
They claim the school’s foundation status, which means it is run by its own governing body but funded by the state, prevents any authority but the Welsh Assembly from proposing a closure of any part of the school.
Full Story at http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/8707321.High_Court_date_for_school_campaigners/
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Review of the Schools White Paper
I am still re-reading the Schools White Paper to understand the full picture.
A colleague in Surrey's education world described the white paper this week as "an interesting collection of ideas which weren't necessarily joined up" I would agree with this sentiment. We will have to wait for further legalisation to work out how many of these ideas could be implemented.
A Summary from the NGA can be found below:
Accountability
The National College to offer high quality training to chairs of governors.
Legislation will be passed to relax the requirements on size and proportionality of governing bodies, allowing schools to alter the constitution if they wish from early 2012 (there will be a requirement of a minimum of two parent governors, and in governing bodies where a foundation body appoints the majority of the governors it will continue to do so).
Governors will be given easier access to data in order to determine how their schools compared with others.The requirement for every school to have a school improvement partner will be removed. The recently introduced option for parents to refer to complaints to the Ombudsman will be repealed and a yet to be announced ‘route to complain in the most cost effective way’ will be introduced
Performance tables:
The current contextual value added (CVA) measure will be abolished. More emphasis will be placed on progress.
Will report specifically on pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium in the Performance Tables.
Review performance measures for Special Schools
The ‘floor standards’ of acceptable performance for schools is to be raised:
Secondary schools - if fewer than 35% of pupils achieve 5 A*-Cs including English and Maths (and going forwards in Science) and fewer pupils make good progress between key stage two and key stage four.
Primary schools – if fewer than 60% of pupils achieve level four in English and Maths and fewer pupils than average make the expected levels of progress between Key Stage 1 & 2.
Teaching and Leadership – the Government will:
Cease to fund initial teacher training for graduates who do not have at least a 2:2 degree
Will expand Teach First and offer financial incentives to attract the best candidates into shortage subjects
Create a network of Teaching Schools – on the model of teaching hospitals – to give outstanding schools the role of leading the training of teachers
Increase the number of Local and National Leaders of Education
End centralised (including Local Authority) target setting for schools
Behaviour
independent appeals panel to be retained, but without the power to require a pupil’s
reinstatement
Curriculum, Assessment and Qualifications.
Introduce the English Baccalaureate – (students who achieve A*-C I/GCSEs in English, maths, the sciences, a modern or ancient foreign language and a humanity such as history or geography will receive a certificate)
Once the Professor Alison Wolf has reported on vocational qualifications, make any necessary reforms
The new National Curriculum will be ‘slim, clear and authoritative’
A levels – Ofqual to be asked to change the rules on resits of modules to prevent students from re-sitting large numbers of units.
GCSEs – to reverse the trend towards modular courses, Ofqual to be asked to review GCSEs with a view to reverting to end of course exams
Ofqual have been asked to revisit marking schemes with a view to re-introducing separate assessment of spelling, punctuation and grammar into all GCSE’s.
On the issue of grammar, perhaps the DfE could also do with a little lesson – the NGA is name checked in paragraph 6.29; unfortunately someone failed to notice that Governors’ should have an apostrophe.
New Schools System
This covers the expansion of the Academies programme and the presumption that all new schools will be Academies
School Improvement
Makes clear that schools –‘governors, head teachers and teachers’ have responsibility for improvement. If schools are providing a good education they will be free to set their own targets and improvement priorities.
Schools below the floor standard and which are not progressing, or are judged inadequate will be subject to intervention with the presumption they will be converting into Academy Status.
If Academies or Free Schools fail to meet the floor standards they will also be subject to floor standards they will also be subject to intervention.
School Funding
A national funding formula is to be introduced, but local authorities would still be responsible
for distributing funding to maintained schools.
The YPLA will be abolished, but replaced by the Education Funding Agency
A colleague in Surrey's education world described the white paper this week as "an interesting collection of ideas which weren't necessarily joined up" I would agree with this sentiment. We will have to wait for further legalisation to work out how many of these ideas could be implemented.
A Summary from the NGA can be found below:
Accountability
The National College to offer high quality training to chairs of governors.
Legislation will be passed to relax the requirements on size and proportionality of governing bodies, allowing schools to alter the constitution if they wish from early 2012 (there will be a requirement of a minimum of two parent governors, and in governing bodies where a foundation body appoints the majority of the governors it will continue to do so).
Governors will be given easier access to data in order to determine how their schools compared with others.The requirement for every school to have a school improvement partner will be removed. The recently introduced option for parents to refer to complaints to the Ombudsman will be repealed and a yet to be announced ‘route to complain in the most cost effective way’ will be introduced
Performance tables:
The current contextual value added (CVA) measure will be abolished. More emphasis will be placed on progress.
Will report specifically on pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium in the Performance Tables.
Review performance measures for Special Schools
The ‘floor standards’ of acceptable performance for schools is to be raised:
Secondary schools - if fewer than 35% of pupils achieve 5 A*-Cs including English and Maths (and going forwards in Science) and fewer pupils make good progress between key stage two and key stage four.
Primary schools – if fewer than 60% of pupils achieve level four in English and Maths and fewer pupils than average make the expected levels of progress between Key Stage 1 & 2.
Teaching and Leadership – the Government will:
Cease to fund initial teacher training for graduates who do not have at least a 2:2 degree
Will expand Teach First and offer financial incentives to attract the best candidates into shortage subjects
Create a network of Teaching Schools – on the model of teaching hospitals – to give outstanding schools the role of leading the training of teachers
Increase the number of Local and National Leaders of Education
End centralised (including Local Authority) target setting for schools
Behaviour
independent appeals panel to be retained, but without the power to require a pupil’s
reinstatement
Curriculum, Assessment and Qualifications.
Introduce the English Baccalaureate – (students who achieve A*-C I/GCSEs in English, maths, the sciences, a modern or ancient foreign language and a humanity such as history or geography will receive a certificate)
Once the Professor Alison Wolf has reported on vocational qualifications, make any necessary reforms
The new National Curriculum will be ‘slim, clear and authoritative’
A levels – Ofqual to be asked to change the rules on resits of modules to prevent students from re-sitting large numbers of units.
GCSEs – to reverse the trend towards modular courses, Ofqual to be asked to review GCSEs with a view to reverting to end of course exams
Ofqual have been asked to revisit marking schemes with a view to re-introducing separate assessment of spelling, punctuation and grammar into all GCSE’s.
On the issue of grammar, perhaps the DfE could also do with a little lesson – the NGA is name checked in paragraph 6.29; unfortunately someone failed to notice that Governors’ should have an apostrophe.
New Schools System
This covers the expansion of the Academies programme and the presumption that all new schools will be Academies
School Improvement
Makes clear that schools –‘governors, head teachers and teachers’ have responsibility for improvement. If schools are providing a good education they will be free to set their own targets and improvement priorities.
Schools below the floor standard and which are not progressing, or are judged inadequate will be subject to intervention with the presumption they will be converting into Academy Status.
If Academies or Free Schools fail to meet the floor standards they will also be subject to floor standards they will also be subject to intervention.
School Funding
A national funding formula is to be introduced, but local authorities would still be responsible
for distributing funding to maintained schools.
The YPLA will be abolished, but replaced by the Education Funding Agency
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