Quick Links

Our Governors

Introduction

Governing bodies are the key strategic decision makers and vision setters in every school. They are also a key part of the overall system for school accountability. Governing bodies have a vital role to play in driving up school and pupil performance and ensuring that resources are used well to give every child the best possible education.

Governing bodies have a strong focus on three core strategic functions:

Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
Holding the head teacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils; and
Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.

In practice, governors are a group of volunteers who include parents, staff and members of the local community who act collectively to make decisions that matter to the school. They are motivated to do the best for the children of the school.

Governing bodies help set the school’s aims and values. They also make decisions on matters such as performance targets, school policies, and the school’s development plan. They oversee the use of the school’s budget, and have responsibility to obtain value for money for that budget, and are responsible for the appointment of the head teacher.

In addition, governors monitor, support and challenge the head teacher and staff on how well those policies and targets are followed through. They do this by visiting the school, getting to know its strengths and weaknesses, and asking useful questions that foster an ethos of continuous improvement. A more detailed account of how we work can be found below.

Governance Structure Governors' Information and Business Interests

Contacting the School Governors

If you wish to contact the Governing Body, please use the following email address: clerk@fulbrook.school

Approach of Governors and Governing Body

Governors act according to particular values:

Mutual respect and trust between staff, pupils and governors
Shared (with staff) common purpose and collective responsibility for the school
High expectations for the school – pushing for change and striving for better

Governors commit significant amounts of time and energy to their role and supporting the school and its development. This involves attending meetings, getting to know the school and keeping up to date with its activities (attending activities where appropriate) and taking up additional tasks as and when required.

Governors’ core focus is what is in the best interest of the school, pupils and staff and the aim is to ensure that the school is outstanding.

Governors focus on the broader picture and provide a general steer for the school and do not generally become involved in the detailed day to day running of the school.

Governors work to build constructive working relationships with staff at the school and other governors.

Governors are critical friends – supporting the school and challenging the school to improve its performance; asking difficult questions and working with the school to make difficult decisions as and when this is necessary.

Governors understand the boundaries of their role – they are not inspectors.

Governors know when to speak and when not to and when to give advice and when not to

Governors work to add value to the school.

Specific Roles & Responsibilities

Governors oversee and support the strategic development of the school in the following areas:

School achievement - this is holistically (including academic and moral development of children) and in line with every child matters
Financially
Staff development
Operating as a school and a business

Governors have statutory duties:

These relate to how the school is constituted
Particular areas are finances and safeguarding

Governors oversee and support the work of the Head Teacher.

Governors ask questions, monitor and focus on change – a key part of this is monitoring evidence and data.

Where possible governors are aware and consider past activities to ensure changes suggested are relevant and not re-inventing the wheel.

Governors bring in outside expertise and use their skills and knowledge from their professional lives to support the school, this is in particular areas such as finances, areas that the staff do not always have experience of.

Governors are a link to the community where the school is based.

Governors take up specific roles where necessary:

Individual governors take up specific roles – in particular Safeguarding, Finance, Data, Legal, Human Resources, Commercial Management and other strategic areas deemed appropriate
At times there are specific areas that governors will oversee/work with the school on – this will tend to be one-off and short to medium term and relate to the changing needs of the school
This necessitates having a group of governors with a range of background and experiences

Governors have a self responsibility to ensure that they are effective governors – building their awareness of school issues, attending meetings and updating their own training and learning and assessing their own performance on a regular basis.

Governors should be a physical presence at the school and where possible interact with staff and pupils – this helps make the teachers and pupils aware of the governing body and where possible get a better sense of their role.

Preparing & Training Governors

This is an initial and ongoing process and involves governors learning about their role and how they can add value to the governing body and the school.

Learning takes place through:

formal training sessions (mainly offered in the county)
attending meetings
reading relevant internal and external documents
learning through doing – through the experience of being a governor
attending activities at the school – this is seen as important as formal training - it includes attending open days and attending ongoing activities at the school (super learning days, strategic planning days, sports days etc)

Several key activities are put in place to help new governors learn about their role:

A system of mentoring - where the new governor is paired with an existing governor. They are encouraged to meet to review governor activities, such as meetings, training and the general development of the new governor.
Meeting with the Head Teacher
Attending both types of committee meetings
A formal session(s) inducting new governors
Reading key documents

Governors have a pro-active approach to learning and organise their own learning plan.