Governor Roles and Responsibilities
School governance has clear roles and responsibilities.
The governance board plays a critical role in education. While the headteacher is responsible for the day-to-day running of the school, the governance board is responsible for strategic leadership and accountability. Some describe its relationship with the school as that critical friend.
The governance board has three key functions:
- Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
- Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils
- Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.
Governance at all levels should ensure that Church schools nurtures a vision-inspired education by developing, embedding and living out their own Christian vision for the education of the whole person. Although this is a responsibility for all governance, foundation governors/directors are guardians of this distinctively Christian nature.
In Academy Trusts there are layers of governance with directors as the accountable body. Academy Trusts have the legal status of companies and are also charitable trusts. This means directors have the responsibilities of both company directors and charity trustees. In Academy Trusts there is usually a local committee of the Academy Trust Board for each academy or group of academies. Members of the local committee will be monitoring and evaluating within a scheme of delegated authority at academy level and communicate and feedback to directors.
In maintained schools in practice, this is likely to include the monitoring of:
- Staffing – appraisals, new appointments, disciplinary issues and redundancy.
- Financial management – governance boards have a duty to set a balanced budget and to monitor and review spending. Schools usually agree a cycle of budget management linked to the School Improvement Plan. Governance boards also need to ensure financial integrity and that their school achieves value for money in achieving the school’s vision, values and aims.
- Policies – ensuring that the school has the correct policies that are approved, regularly reviewed by the governance board embedding the vision of the school.
- Performance – ensuring the timely collection and review of performance data to ensure that pupils are making the required progress, achieving good outcomes and that enable all adults and pupils to flourish.
As a school governor/director, you’ll have a wide and varied remit and will need to respond to the changing landscape of education. It can be challenging and rewarding in equal measure and you’ll always have the support of your fellow governors/directors and the Diocesan Education Team.
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