Steve Gulluck, the Director of the All Wales Centre for Governor Training and research provided an informative lecture about Governors within schools
I am going to explain the information Gulluck talked about and explore in more detail about governors within schools from research which I found.
School governors make combined decisions to help increase educational standards and performance of a school by standing alongside the head teacher and staff. Governors help to provide answerable information to parents and the wider community and their aims are to:
1) Promote high standards of achievement
2) Budget, allocate and control
3) Plan the school's long-term future
4) Set the school's aims, values and ethos
5) Appoint senior staff
To become a governor, volunteers will need specific skills which will meet the criteria. These include
• Willingness to challenge assumptions they may not agree with,
• Work in a team,
• Inspire and promote improvement; and
• To contribute to decision-making.
Steve suggested that there were 4 types of governing body. These include:
1) The Abdicators- the Abdicators do not have much input within the school and leave a lot of the decisions to the head teacher or the experts.
2) The Adversaries- have high standards and watch the school carefully to see if there are any improvements needed regarding how the school is run and make the decisions surrounding the running of it.
3) The Supporters club- The supporters club work together to establish and observe how the school is spending their funds and offers advice on what to spend their expenses on, for example, sports equipment or school dinners.
4) The Partners- These governors work alongside the head teacher and staff. They have equal responsibility in making decisions and ensuring the importance of team work by communally respecting each other’s views and opinions.
Steve went into a lot of detail on how to become a governor. It was an interesting discovery to find out how much determination and effort it takes for someone can become a governor. Steve mentioned how long someone can become a governor for before their ‘term of office’ time ends, this is about four years.
Steve Gulluck stated that only those who are related to a member of the school are allowed to become a governor, for example, parents, staff and those who live within the community who portray ambition for the job. He stated that there are round about twenty-three thousand governors and that they are required to meet three times a year to discuss factors of improvement and decisions.
In Wales it is compulsory that you are eighteen before you can become a school governor however those who attend schools in England are able to become school governors from ages sixteen to eighteen.
Steve’s lecture was very useful in helping me to determine the ambitions which people have and the skills needed to become a governor of a school. I have learnt that even though it is down to volunteering, it gives people a chance to be heard and to give their input into what they think needs improving, providing and changing within schools.
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