Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Reverend Tony Shutt
Chair of Governors
The Federation of Send Church of England Schools
Comprising Send Church of England First School and St Bede’s Church of England Junior School, Send, Surrey also Priest-in-charge, Parish of Send (Church of England)
Background
I have been a Church of England foundation governor of three schools in the primary sector since 1989 (23 years).
I am currently Chair of Governors of a Federation of two schools, infant and junior. St Bede’s is among the 261 schools in the first phase of the current government’s Priority Schools Building Programme. So plenty to manage yet to come.
I seem to spend most of my time on school governance. I do my best to squeeze in my “day job” as a Church of England parish priest.
I have willingly and enjoyably spent much of my life attending governor training, briefings, conferences and meetings over the years. Less enjoyably I once spent 17 hours chairing four sessions of a complaint appeal against a school.
I am a Surrey Additional Skills Governor, meaning I am available to assist other governors and schools.
I took part in the pilot National College leadership development programme for Chairs of Governors in July 2012. But I can’t afford the time and the school can’t afford the money (over £400) to take part in the full course that is now available.
The purpose, roles and responsibilities of school governing bodies, within the wider context of school governance and leadership
1. In my experience, the key to school improvement and success inheres mainly in the quality and capacity of the head teacher and the school leadership team to lead and sustain school improvement. And incidentally, compared to me, some of them are paid very well to do so. It’s frustrating when they don’t.
2. It seems to me that even outstanding or good governance can come to nothing, or can only bring about slow insecure change, when it is trying to interact with weak and insecure school leaders.
3. Even the most perceptive, clued-up, challenging, analytical, supportive and compassionate offering of governance can be wasted on a head teacher who either will not or cannot effect the required improvements. Long-running, powerful waves of buoyant good governance either break like surf upon an intransigent head teacher or, however supportive and sensitive, contribute only to the erosive undermining pressure the head teacher already feels because of their weaknesses and insecurities.
4. However, the outcome is perhaps not the same when the balance of capacities is the other way round. I imagine strong and effective head teachers and school leaders can manage to a large extent to make schools good and outstanding even with weak governors and governance. With some canny resolve and low relational viscosity, strong and effective head teachers can flow around and past weak governing bodies to bring their generative influences directly to bear on school staff, pupils and their performance. Such a dynamic may not be what head teacher’s want or think is structurally best for the leadership and community of the school, but the alacrity and quality of outcomes are what matter. Needs must.
5. In the present structural dynamic of the governance-leadership configuration, it seems to me that when governance and leadership find points and periods of synergy, great things can be achieved, and quickly—and everyone is content. But too often, as in a floundering friendship or a marriage perhaps, when each party to the relationship misses the others intent and contribution to a greater or lesser extent there can be failure to progress and frustration all round.
The implications of recent policy developments for governing bodies and their roles
6. No comment.
Recruiting and developing governors, including the quality of current training provision, and any challenges facing recruitment
7. Training is too dependent on the effectiveness of individual schools and governing bodies to organise. There should be standard high-quality induction procedures, even if only an essential core of procedures and training. To this, local provision can be added. Governors might reasonably be licensed or authorized in some commonly accepted way to practice.
8. Recruitment challenges seem to come and go. Recruitment can be problematic for all kinds of governors for different reasons. Governing bodies tend to be more representative of committee types than the wider community. SGOSS has been useful to us in finding introductions to some governors, but the matching of candidates to our needs has not always been suitable.
The structure and membership of governing bodies, including the balance between representation and skills
9. I sometimes think a few governors who really know what they are doing and who get on and do it would be far more effective than a ragbag of disparately informed and motivated people some of whom take too long to evolve from their primordial clueless form. It is too readily possible for people without effective skills to become governors. However, too few governors could be problematic. There is a lot to monitor and evaluate as a statutory requirement. I’ve heard governors who have been involved in interim executive boards say the model of only a few governors working intensely is unsustainable because of burn out.
The effectiveness and accountability of governing bodies
10. See paragraphs 2–6.
11. I am a Church of England foundation governor, so I am accountable in some sense, I suppose, to the Diocesan Board of Education (DBE). But although the DBE provides a wide variety of training and support for governors, and governors of all kinds, I am never called to account by the Diocese for my role as a foundation governor. That is left to the processes of personal responsibility, school and governing body self-evaluation and periodically Ofsted. Similarly authority governors seem not to be held to account by their appointing local authority, neither staff governors by staff, nor parent governors by parents.
Whether new arrangements are required for the remuneration of governors
12. I doubt whether the passion and commitment of volunteers can be bought. The voluntary ethos is an important and characteristic ingredient in the maintained school community, in which many people volunteer and work willingly, effectively and lovingly alongside salaried staff and advisors.
The relationships between governing bodies and other partners, including local authorities, Academy sponsors and trusts, school leaders, and unions
13. No comment.
Whether changes should be made to current models of governance
14. In many schools it seems that the present arrangements work well, perhaps surprisingly. In my opinion, changes should only be based on thoroughly researched objective evidence. There should be far more well focussed, planned and calibrated research on what successful governance looks like and how it can be replicated.
January 2013