David Marriott
www.thegovernor.org.ok
08/04/2015
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www.thegovernor.org.ok
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 The main principles of the code
 A: Leadership
 B: Effectiveness
C: Accountability
 D: Remuneration
published by the Financial
Reporting Council in June
2010
 E: Relations with Shareholders
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 The board should present a
balanced and understandable
assessment of the company’s
position and prospects.
 The board is responsible for
determining the nature and extent
of the significant risks it is willing to
take in achieving its strategic
objectives. The board should
maintain sound risk management
and internal control systems.
 The board should establish formal
and transparent arrangements for
considering how they should apply
the corporate reporting and risk
management and internal control
principles and for maintaining an
appropriate relationship with the
company’s auditor.
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 There should be a dialogue with
shareholders based on the mutual
understanding of objectives. The
board as a whole has responsibility
for ensuring that a satisfactory
dialogue with shareholders takes
place.
 The board should use the AGM to
communicate with investors and to
encourage their participation.
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 Who are our shareholders/
stakeholders?
 What are our obligations to them
and how well do we fulfil those
obligations?
 Does the GB have sufficient
relevant skills and understanding
to review and challenge
management performance?
 Is it an adequate size and are
there appropriate levels of
independence and commitment
to fulfil its responsibilities and
duties?
 Is integrity a fundamental
requirement in choosing our chair,
vice chair, clerk and GB members
(where we have a choice)?
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 Do we clarify and make publicly known
the roles and responsibilities of the GB
and school management to provide
stakeholders with a level of
accountability?
 Have we implemented procedures to
independently verify and safeguard the
integrity of the school's financial
reporting? Should we set up an audit
committee?
 Do we receive the information we need
to carry out our scrutiny function in
good time?
 Is the disclosure of material matters
concerning the school timely and
balanced to ensure that all interested
parties have access to clear, factual
information?
 Do we ensure collectively a satisfactory
dialogue with our stakeholders and
report to them regularly?
 Do we self-evaluate regularly and use
the outcomes to improve our
performance?
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 "If local democracy had worked, if
local governing bodies had worked
in the most challenging schools
and for the most disadvantaged
children, we would never have
needed academies"
 "Often governing bodies are the
problem, actually“
 Sir Michael Wilshaw
 Head of Mossbourne academy,
Hackney
 New HMCI (Head of Ofsted)
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 “The new theology of the Coalition
government is autonomy and
choice…Governors are more
important in a more autonomous
system. Their ability to challenge
and lead is the key.”
 Sue Hackman
 Chief Adviser for School Standards,
DfE
 13.10.2011
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 The governing body examines the
impact of policies on the school's
work carefully but it does not hold
the school to account sufficiently
for its performance.
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 Being
ACCOUNTable
 Taking
ACCOUNT of
 Giving an
ACCOUNT
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 Being accountable for
 Effectiveness: school performance
 Efficiency: value for money
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Taking account of
Performance data
Feedback from stakeholders
Self-evaluation
Policies, plans, improvement
strategies
 School environment
 GB’s actions
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Giving an account
To parents and the community
To Ofsted
To Diocese
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 Effectiveness:
 school performance
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Taking account of:
Self evaluation (inc GB)
RAISEonline
Headteacher performance management
Stakeholder feedback eg complaints and
compliments
 Policies, plans, improvement strategies
 School environment
 Efficiency:
 value for money
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Taking account of
Schools Financial Value Standard (SFVS)
Financial reports to GB
Finance committee minutes
Financial benchmarking
Value for Money tools
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 To parents and the
community
 Reports?
 Regular communication:
 Newsletter
 Website
 Presence at school
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 To Ofsted
 When evaluating the quality of leadership
and management at all levels, including,
where relevant, governors, inspectors
consider whether they:
 demonstrate an ambitious vision for the
school and high expectations for what every
pupil and teacher can achieve, and set high
standards for quality and performance
 improve teaching and learning, including the
management of pupils’ behaviour
 provide a broad and balanced curriculum
that: meets the needs of all pupils; enable all
pupils to achieve their full educational
potential and make progress in their
learning; and promote their good behaviour
and safety and their spiritual, moral, social
and cultural development
 evaluate the school’s strengths and
weaknesses and use their findings to
promote improvement
 improve the school and develop its capacity
for sustaining improvement by developing
leadership capacity and high professional
standards among all staff
 engage with parents and carers in supporting
pupils’ achievement, behaviour and safety
and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural
development
 ensure that all pupils are safe.
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school
Governors’ roles
 ensure school runs effectively, providing best
possible education
 challenge and support school to do better
 take strategic view, set up policies, plans and
targets
 monitor and evaluate results
 delegate enough power to head to run school
effectively
 accountable to parents and LA for how school is
run
 appoint head and deputy
Head’s roles
 organises, manages and controls the school dayto-day
 expects GB to challenge and support school to do
better
 discusses main aspects of school life with GB
 reports to GB on how school is managed
 So…the head is the “chief executive”
 So…holding the school to account means
holding the head to account, in practice
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High support
Supporters Club
‘We’re here to support the
head’.
Partners or critical friends
‘We share everything –good or
bad’.
Low challenge
Abdicators
‘We leave it to the
professionals’.
High challenge
Adversaries
‘We keep a very close eye on
the staff!’.
Low support
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 Doing…in what sense?
 How well should it be doing?
 How do we know?
 What should we be looking
for?
 Where might we find it?
 What questions should we
ask?
 Who can we ask?
 How do we know if the
answers are reliable and
honest?
 What do we do if we find
they’re not?
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Effective governing bodies systematically
monitor their school’s progress towards
meeting agreed development targets.
Information about what is going well and why,
and what is not going well and why, is shared.
Governors are well informed and
knowledgeable because they are given highquality, accurate information that is concise and
focused on pupil achievement.
Outstanding governors are able to take and
support hard decisions in the interests of
pupils: to back the head teacher when they
need to change staff, or to change the head
teacher when absolutely necessary.
Outstanding governance supports honest,
insightful self-evaluation by the school,
recognising problems and supporting the steps
needed to address them.
Governors in the schools visited, use the skills
they bring, and the information they have about
the school, to ask challenging questions, which
are focused on improvement, and hold leaders
to account for pupils’ outcomes.
 School governance: Learning from the best
 Ofsted 2011
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What Ofsted inspectors do
 Data analysis
 Validation of self-evaluation
 Ask youngsters, parents,
teachers, governors –
triangulation
 Lesson observation
 Comparison
 Work sampling
 Discussion between inspectors
What we can do
 Data analysis
 Self-evaluation
 Ask youngsters, parents,
teachers, governors –
triangulation
 Visit school and classrooms
 Comparison
 Discussion between governors
and staff
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 Headteacher’s report
 Raw data and league tables
 Value Added (VA) data –
RAISEonline*
 Pupil tracking data (anonymised)
 Ofsted report
 Self-Evaluation
 Subject leader report
 Link governor report
 School Improvement or
Development Plan (and related
progress reports)
 School Profile
 School Awards (eg Investors In
People, Healthy Schools,
Artsmark; Basic Skills)
 Curriculum Committee minutes
 *NGA guide
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What is our vision? What are we trying to achieve?
Strategic improvement plan
What are our values? Policies
What is the
evidence?
School selfevaluation
etc
What
information?
RAISEonline
DfE school
comparisons
How do we give
an account?
How do we
know it’s
happening?
Head’s
reports;
our
monitoring
What are our
new priorities?
Narrowing
the gap?
Progress?
How do we contribute to planning for
improvement?
SDP & HT PM & resources
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Committees
 Curriculum, assessment,
teaching and learning
 Finance
 Staffing
 Premises
Full governing body
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Matters arising
Headteacher’s report
School development plan
School self-evaluation
Committee reports
Subject leaders’ reports
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 Problem: In the primary school
where I was a governor there was no
tradition of the head sharing
RAISEonline data with the governors.
The head took the view that it was
unnecessary, because by the time it
was published, RAISEonline data was
out of date. She provided governors
with lots of performance data when
it was fresh and relevant.
 Solution: Rather than bang my head
against this brick wall, I encouraged
fellow governors to undertake
training on RAISEonline, which they
did.
 As a result, they also asked to see the
data and the head agreed to share it.
 Outcome: When we all looked at it
together, the head included, we were
able to identify some areas for
improvement which had not been
revealed by all the other data we had
seen.
 Now RAISEonline is shared regularly
and its usefulness understood.
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Problem with maths results
 Problem identified through the annual
report on results
 Solution: Governors requested that the
chosen subject co-ordinator report for that
year focused on the maths faculty
 Governors were pushing at an open door. SLT
were as worried as anyone and were keen to
have governors’ support for action
 Governors, through the curriculum
committee, got regular reports on progress
 SLT were willing to take on governors’ ideas –
eg “A” half of year taught in mixed gender
groups; “B” half taught as single sex groups
 Major staffing changes took place
 “overstaffing” of maths gave small teaching
groups
 Outcome – over 3 years maths results went
from approx. 30% A*-C to 60%+ A*-C
 Governors did not manage the changes that
brought about the improvement but they did
challenge and support the changes
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 New National Curriculum
 New assessment regime and
methodology
 Progress measures
 No-notice inspections from Sept
 EBacc and its effects
 How well deprived groups do
 What happens when they leave?
 New floor standards
 Value for money – results vs
expenditure
 What are your internal school
performance indicators?
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