Development Governors’ Seminar
Monday 27 January 2014
Overview of the seminar
Facilitated by Madeleine Carrington (Governor Services and Development
Officer) and Penny Giraudeau (Governor Development Officer)
Many thanks to Development Governors who were able to attend on Monday
evening and for those of you who could not, I hope you find this summary
useful when feeding back to your governing bodies.
Madeleine Carrington welcomed governors to the spring term Development
Governors’ seminar and introduced the speakers below:
GovernorHub
Neil Collins and his colleague Alex Robbins (both governors in Norfolk with
extensive IT knowledge and experience) presented their purpose-built web
based product that aimed to improve the provision of information from
Governor Services to governing bodies while at the same time providing
school governors with their own private system for governing body
communications, record-keeping, calendar, secure document storage and
one-click access to key information about their school and similar schools.
During their presentation Neil and Alex demonstrated the simplicity of the
system and how it could be used to link calendar dates with groups of
governors (e.g. GB / committee) and meeting papers. They showed how
governors could discuss comments using a Facebook style format and how
they could link with other external agencies such as Governor Services.
Madeleine explained to the meeting that Governor Services were looking for a
number of schools to pilot GovernorHub. There would be no cost to the school
but an agreement about sharing governor personal data (name and email
address) would be required. Expressions of interest in becoming part of the
pilot should be emailed to Penny (penny.giraudeau@milton-keynes.gov.uk) by
Friday 14 February 2014.
Governors wishing to look at GovernorHub can do so buy accessing the
GovernorHub website and viewing the demo site that they have set up for us:
Log in as follows:
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Go to www.governorhub.com
Press "Sign into GovernorHub"
Use Email address of "miltonkeynes@governorhub.com" and
Password of "governorhub"
Governor Mark
Lisa Lever delivered a presentation on a quality mark for school governance
called Governor Mark. Governor Mark allows governing bodies to evidence
their own process of self-evaluation and assess their impact upon school
improvement. At its core is the work and expectations of Ofsted towards
governing bodies.
A copy of Lisa’s presentation can be found on the Development Governor
page of the Governor Services website.
Governors noted that there was a cost to undertake Governor Mark; however
Penny explained that if enough schools were interested then she would
negotiate with Governor Mark for a reduced fee. Penny invited expressions of
interest in undertaking Governor Mark to be emailed to her
(penny.giraudeau@milton-keynes.gov.uk) by Friday 14 February 2014.
Governor Development News
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Spring Courses
There are still places available on the following courses:
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Preparing for Ofsted – 5 Feb
Advanced Schools Finance – 11 Feb
Children in Care – the Governor’s Role – 27 Feb
Safer Recruitment – 4 March
Induction Day on 7 February is full. The next Induction Day for new governors
will be held on Saturday 10 May 2014.
Penny informed the meeting that the training session on “The National
Curriculum, Assessment without levels” would be re-run on 19 May 2014
(4pm-6pm)
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Governor Development Programme 2014-15
Penny was currently working on the development programme that would start
in April 2014. Governors noted that it was anticipated that the following
courses would be run as part of this programme:

Every term:
o Induction Day for new governor’s
o Safeguarding Children – the governors’ role
o Safer Recruitment
o Preparing for Ofsted
o Development Governors’ Seminar
o Refresher training for re-appointed governors– please can you
actively encourage your re-appointed governors to attend (they
will be invited to do so in their re-appointment letters).
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Throughout the financial year 2014-15:
o SEN – training on the new SEN Code of Practice and
interagency planning and implementation
o Health and Safety – the Governor’s Role
o Managing your Governing Body Membership – emphasis on
recruiting governors, induction, skills auditing and succession
planning
o Performance Management
o Barriers to good governance
o Appeals and hearings – the process and practicalities
o Admissions Appeals
o How to challenge your school on pupil progress and attainment
o Data resources and how to understand them
o Finance – for both Academies and maintained schools
o Succession planning –appointing senior leaders
o Annual conference
Further topics will be added to the programme both before it goes on the
website and during the year. It should be noted that the programme is a
working document that has flexibility built into it to ensure that we can respond
to local and national agendas that affect school governance.
It is anticipated that the summer term courses will be available via the
Governor Services website by the end of February half term.
Any questions about the new programme or suggestions for the new
programme should be directed to Penny (01908 253787 email
Penny.Giraudeau@milton-keynes.gov.uk)
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Chairs’ training 2014-15
We are currently in the process of receiving expressions of interest from
governors who would like to undertake the Chairs’ Leadership and
Development Programme starting in April 2014. If your Chair/ Vice Chair or
Chair of Committee would like to take part in this training then please inform
Penny as soon as possible. An information evening to provide more
information to those governors that have expressed an interest will be held on
Tuesday 4 February 2014, from 7pm-8.30pm at the National Badminton
Centre.
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Annual Conference
The Annual Conference will take place on Saturday 15 March 2014 at the
Christian Centre in Oldbrook. Keynote speakers include Professor Brent
Davies and Dr Elizabeth Sidwell. Key themes will be developing strategic
leadership and raising standards. A flyer will be sent to all governors during
the coming week.
In the first instance there will be a limit of 2 governors per governing body. We
do however have a bigger venue this year therefore we hope to be able to
accommodate everyone that wishes to attend – so remember to add
additional governors to our waiting list.
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Online Survey
Madeleine informed the meeting that a link to a short on-line survey about the
services provided by Governor Services would be emailed to all governors the
following day. The survey would only take a few minutes to complete and
would provide information to help shape the services in the future.
Development Governors were asked to encourage their governors to
complete the survey by the deadline of Friday 14 February 2014.
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Services for Schools
The schools had been notified that the services they could buy from Milton
Keynes Council were now live online. Governors were reminded that the
decision to purchase services could be delegated to a group of governors or
an individual.
Development Governors were informed that all the services offered by
Governor Services had increased by an inflationary rate of 2.4%. It was
however pointed out that the penalty for booking on a governor training
session and then not attending (without submitting apologies in advance) had
increased from £25 to £50.
OPEN FORUM
There were no further items for discussion.
DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING
The next Development Governors’ Seminar will be held on
Tuesday 6 May 2014 at 7pm at the National Badminton Centre.