Do your governors have what it takes?

With governors now more accountable, having a governing body with a range of skills is key to supporting high standards of educational achievement across your school.

The latest guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) advises schools on the size, membership and skills of their governing bodies. According to the guidance, by September 2015, all school governing bodies must be constituted under the 2012 Constitution Regulations or the 2012 Federation Regulations and have no fewer than seven members.

What does this mean for your governors?

Governing bodies are expected to focus on providing strategic leadership, holding the headteacher to account, overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure the school’s money is well spent. This is a demanding task for which all governors need to have, or develop, relevant and appropriate skills. As part of this, the DfE advises that governing bodies should use a skills audit, to identify any specific gaps that need to be filled. The National Governors’ Association (NGA) has published a comprehensive Skills Audit and Matrix summarised below. When appointing governors to the governing body, they are advised to choose someone they believe has the skills to contribute to effective governance and the success of the school.

The right skillset

Not every individual governor is expected to have the skills listed below, but they should be covered across the governing body:

1. Understanding of current education policy

Remember that not all of your governors will be as familiar with current education policies as others, but it’s important that everyone on the governing body is kept up-to-date with them. As a headteacher, you’ll always be thinking of ways that you could keep your governors skilled in that area.

2. Ability to analyse data

While school leaders will always have access to data, this is something that governors may not be so familiar with. As a headteacher, you may wish to give your governors access to information on a range of measures: student and staff performance, the impact of your school’s Pupil Premium spend and financial information, most of which can be found in your school’s MIS. There are various tools in SIMS you can use to do this, without disclosing the details of individual students.

3. Performance management/appraisal of someone else

NGA guidance recommends at least one of your governors to have had line management responsibility or experience in appraising someone. This can support governors on keeping a close eye on the quality of teaching in a school and help them evaluate staff performance data - an essential part of the governor’s job.

4. Financial planning/management

With governors holding the main responsibility for finance in schools, it’s important that they’re aware of how your school is spending money. According to the NGA, it’s recommended to have someone on the governing body with experience of financial planning or management, for example as part of their job, as well as experience of procurement or purchasing. A resource your governors may find useful when looking at financial planning is the DfE performance tables. If you click on the finance tab, you can look at how your school is spending money compared to other schools across the country and then identify potential cost-savings.

5. Understanding of special educational needs

The DfE now expects at least one governor to have an awareness of curriculum for SEN children, including the outcomes in terms of their next phase of education, the impact and effectiveness of extra curricular activities, and communication for staff and classroom teachers. Your governors will need to consider what your school is doing, how the curriculum for those children is different, what support your school is offering, and how your school is dealing with it. To download the HGA Skills Audit & Matrix please visit http://bit.ly/1dcgEqO