Whose Vision is it anyway? The Role of Governors

Whose Vision is it anyway? The Role of Governors

“The Buck Stops Here” was famously the motto on the desk of US President Harry S Truman. The staff in most schools would probably think that the rightful place for this sign was on the head teacher’s desk – but they would be wrong. Actually, the buck stops with the governors and the Coalition Government has re-emphasised and reinforced role of governors as “key strategic decision makers and vision setters”. The recently revised Handbook for School Governors identifies the core functions of the governing body (GB) as being:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;

• Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils, and the performance management of staff; and
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent

I’ve written before on some of these points, for instance, the ‘challenge’ function which many governors find, well, challenging; particularly when they were used to a more supportive, celebratory role. Better data (such as the Ofsted data dashboard) have helped the GB be more effective in its scrutiny function. But, how are we doing with ‘vision setting’?  

 The governors are enjoined by ministers and Ofsted inspectors to concentrate on vision, ethos and strategy but find it difficult to know what any of these things are. It can be a tricky line to tread and governors straying too far into philosophical, ideological or religious territory, as the recent ‘Trojan Horse’ case in Birmingham illustrates, get into trouble. A more common problem, though, is the lure of the operational – governors getting involved in the detail of running the school. Here are some examples of the kinds of thinking or actions which pull governors too far into the detail:

• “governors are ultimately accountable for everything so we need to be involved in everything”
• all the strategic stuff requires the kind of professional knowledge and understanding which the Head has and governors think they do not
• the Head, by accident or design, provides the governors with lots of information (about pupil performance, staff movements, resignations, role changes,  departmental spending on photocopying  etc) which encourages governors to plunge into the detail
• conversely the Head presents all major strategic issues to the governors after the effect for them to ‘endorse’.

So, how do governors make sure that they stay focussed on the strategic and ‘helicoptered out’ from the detail? Here are a few questions for you to ask yourself

• Do you have a succinct statement of core values for the school? Did you help write it?
• Do you see a draft of the School Development Plan in time for you to ask for changes and for the changes to be made? And, by the way, does the Plan cover at least the next two, preferably three or four, years?
• Is the school’s self-assessment routinely presented to governors (and discussed in more detail in a committee)?
• Does the majority of the documents considered at governors’ meetings address the school’s core business – the curriculum, teaching and learning, student achievement, satisfaction and outcomes?
• Do you have a pattern of governors’ business across the year which anticipates key stages in the school calendar so that you get to consider issues before it is too late to impact upon them?
• Do you get preliminary reports on key strategic issues which help define the problem or issue but don’t specify solutions – so you can contribute to identifying those solutions?
• Do you get succinct, well drafted proposals with clear options and a recommendation which is derived from the evidence?
• Are you asked to take decisions which actually matter or are you getting too many reports which simply invite you to ‘note’ them?.

You should be able to answer ‘yes’ to most of these questions. If you can’t, you might need some help – not least because the next visit from Ofsted might involve some uncomfortable questions about governance and leadership. The days when governance was a bit of an also-ran issue have long gone.  Any governor in a recently inspected school will have been given the third degree by Ofsted. We have even seen a case of a school forced to appoint an Interim Academy Board because the Education Funding Agency was not satisfied with the robustness of the governance arrangements – despite the school having good results, a good recent Ofsted and no serious concerns about finances. All this shows that governors are now undoubtedly part of the leadership of the school – and need to be equipped to play that part

Paul Crisp is Managing Director of CUREE, a National Leader of Governance and Chair of Governors of President Kennedy (Academy) School. As an NLG, he provides coaching and other support to Chairs of Governors and undertakes reviews of governance. He can be contacted at paul.crisp@curee.co.uk or on 024 7652 4036