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GOVERNORS' NEWS
NASG (formerly NAGM) members receive the in-house journal, Governors' News, five times a year. As well as the latest news and reviews on the latest developments across the profession, every issue contains special features designed to help support you in your professional capacity

GOVERNORS' NEWS - February 2005

CONTENTS PAGE

A VIEW FROM THE CHAIR
KEEPING ACCOUNT

School Governors, we are frequently told, are responsible for strategic direction, being a 'critical friend', and for monitoring and accountability. The last of this list brings to the fore another set of questions: accountable for what, how, and to whom?

Most people, I imagine, would have least problem with the first of these - school governors are responsible for the quality of the education provision in 'their' school. But even here there are issues of how to balance the quality with the breadth of the provision, and a possible trade-off between the present provision and that of the future.

However the questions of how are we accountable and to whom appear much more problematic, and are given point by the developments prefigured in the Government's new 'Five Year Strategy for Education'.

School Governing Bodies are accountable to a whole raft of interests often amorphously referred to as 'the community'. They include: parents; the staff at the school; the Local Education Authority (in some cases); local employers; other local interests, including the immediate neighbours of the school; parents of pre-school children; etc, etc. In principle, this list could go on and on, and certainly include 'the State', which funds the vast bulk of the provision, and thus tax-payers in general. Indeed, given the link between education and economic performance, every member of society has a real 'stake' in the quality of education that our children receive.

Governing body compositions have emerged to reflect this 'stakeholder' concept. Community schools are required to have a mix of parent, staff, Local Authority and 'community' governors to represent the diverse groups that have an interest in the school's success. Voluntary Controlled and Voluntary Aided schools have a different governing body composition to reflect their different 'community'. Foundation schools and Academies also have different compositions. Indeed we have a plethora of structures accountable in different ways to different audiences.

In a recent article*, Joan Sallis, the perennial champion of school governors, has referred to accountability as the "heart and soul of any good public service". Many would agree, but the ability of a Foundation to appoint up to a quarter of the governing body, and of an Academy to appoint 'sponsor' governors raises the 'to whom' question. If a sponsoring body can nominate the majority of the governing body they are then, presumably, accountable to that body, i.e., to themselves. This is a very long way from the concept of public accountability which many would support. Indeed an Academy is directly accountable, not to the local 'community', but to the government, ('To us', as a Minister of State recently said to me).

This is not to say that the method of holding governing bodies to account has been entirely successful. Indeed many have struggled with the problem of how to get their local community involved with the activities of 'their' school. The 'how' question often has involved reports to parents and annual meetings that have been so poorly attended that they are now being withdrawn. It is hard to claim that a governing body is truly accountable when no-one attends the annual meeting and the governors' report to parents receives few, if any, comments.

But the essence of accountability is not in reports or meetings; it is in the democratic process. It is in the ability of 'stakeholders', whoever they are, to decide who will represent them and, more importantly, how to get rid of those who (in the opinion of the electorate) are not fit to continue to serve. This, in my view, is a critical issue, and it is the litmus test by which we should judge future developments in the model of school governance.

John Adams, NASG Chair

* Sallis J, 'A School's Best Friend', Times Educational Supplement, October 15th 2004.

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Another Education Bill!

Just when many school governors thought education law was settling down, the Government has produced a massive Education Bill - the fifth largest ever at over 150 pages. And there is much in it for school governors. To be fair, a third of the Bill is devoted to Wales and all the main elements have been subject to some form of consultation. Ofsted consulted on changes to the new, school inspection system prior to the June 2004 DfES/Ofsted publication New Relationship with Schools. The school organisation and finance proposals were announced in the July Five-year Strategy for Children and Learners.

The Bill's theme is the implementation of the New Relationship with Schools which comprises 'shorter, sharper' school inspections, new arrangements for schools causing concern and the school profile. The Five-year Strategy's proposals include three-year guaranteed budgets for schools and greater diversity for new secondary school provision.

The key proposals for England are:

School Inspection

Many aspects of the new school inspection system did not require an Act of Parliament, but the Bill rewrites completely the existing law and repeals the School Inspections Act 1996. All school inspection will be done by teams appointed by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools (HMCI, the head of Ofsted, currently David Bell). The Register of Inspectors is deleted as is the requirement that school inspection teams include a lay member. This will support the new arrangements: there will be smaller inspection teams with many led by one of Her Majesty's Inspectors (HMI), HMCI will be responsible for all inspection reports, the period between inspections will be reduced to three years, schools will receive much shorter notice of inspection and the inspection will start from the school's self-assessment of its performance with an emphasis on assessing the overall work of the school rather than, for example, assessing the quality of teaching of National Curriculum subjects. Contracted inspectors will be appointed as additional inspectors which will support Ofsted's plans to reorganise into three regions and appoint two companies in each region to supply inspection staff.

Changes include a duty to report, in addition to existing requirements, on the contribution made to the well-being of the pupils and how far the education provided by the school meets the needs of the range of pupils at the school. Under the Bill, there will be no formal meeting with governors, and no requirement to produce an action plan. Parents must be informed of the inspection, but there will be no parents' meeting or parental questionnaire.

Schools causing concern

Although the 'special measures' designation will continue, those of 'serious weaknesses' and 'underachieving' will be replaced by 'requires significant improvement'. There are changes to the definitions: for a school to go into special measures, the school must be failing to give pupils an acceptable standard of education and the school management is not demonstrating the capacity to improve the school. The LEA has to prepare an action plan, not the school.

School Organisation

Currently, LEAs have to hold a competition to find the provider of a new secondary school where the school is to meet a growth in population. The Bill extends competitions to cover all cases where a secondary school has to close prior to a merger with another secondary school as part of a school reorganisation plan. The final decision will be taken locally by the School Organisation Committee, with appeal to the Adjudicator, and not, as at present, to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State will continue to have a role on schools with a religious character.

School Finance

The Bill presumes that school expenditure will be transferred from the global local government fund to the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. The Secretary of State gains a power, in granting the money to local education authorities, to require that the money is spent as directed on the authority's schools budget. This will enable the Government to meet its commitment to provide schools with three-year budgets. Schools will be funded according to the 'funding period' which need not be the current financial year. Schools Forums gain a power to vary the Secretary of State's direction, with the agreement of the LEA, over the split between direct school resources and services provided by LEAs to schools.

School governance

The Annual Parents' Meeting and Governors' Annual Reports are replaced by the requirement to have a School Profile, in which the majority of the information will be supplied by the Secretary of State.

School powers

Schools gained a power to provide higher education: this will enable schools to provide HE modular courses to sixth formers. The law on school attendance is clarified to make it clear that schools can require registered pupils to attend other places for alternative educational provision. Eligibility for free school meals claims will be streamlined and data requirements on all school staff will be nationalised in order to reduce burdens on schools and increase efficiency.

School workforce reform

The Teacher Training Agency will be replaced by the Training and Development Agency for Schools which will cover all members of the school workforce. The new body will take on the management and funding arrangements for the professional development of the whole school workforce.

John Fowler

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DfES sees a key role for governors in the exclusion process...
Exclusions from School - The Last Resort

Governors have a number of key roles to play in helping to shape a school's behaviour policy and headteachers' use of exclusions.

Every school must have a behaviour policy, agreed by the governors, which sets out the school's approach to behaviour and provides a framework which helps pupils do well at school and supports teachers and parents. One of the tools available to headteachers is exclusion, either for a fixed period of up to 45 days in a year, or permanently.

In (2002/03) there were 9,290 permanent exclusions from school and something like 240,000 fixed period exclusions. The decision to exclude a pupil from school is a serious one for the headteacher to take, and in the case of a permanent exclusion, usually comes after many other approaches to tackling bad behaviour have been tried. Sometimes a one-off incident is serious enough to warrant permanent exclusion. The majority of fixed period exclusions are for under a week and cannot be overturned, but governors have a crucial, legal role in reviewing longer fixed period exclusions and all permanent exclusions.

Governors must be notified of all exclusions over five days within one school day (and all other exclusions at least once a term) and they are required by law to review these decisions by the headteacher and to have regard to the DfES guidance (see below). Part 4 sets out the responsibilities of the governing body. To be able to carry out their responsibilities effectively, governors need a thorough understanding of the school's behaviour policy and to be trained in the exclusions process. Training is usually arranged by the local education authority and DfES has recently provided additional training materials for clerks and chairs.

In the case of a permanent exclusion, parents have the right of appeal to an independent appeal panel which is organised by the local authority (but not usually by the education department). One of the panel members will be a governor from another school. This panel will look critically at whether the headteacher and governing body complied with the law and had regard for the department' guidance; the school's published behaviour policy, equal opportunities policy, and if appropriate anti-bullying policy, Special Educational Needs policy and race equality policy; and the fairness of the exclusion compared with the treatment of any other pupils involved. This underlines how important it is to review the headteacher's decision to exclude and for governors to be fully trained in this specialist role.

Exclusions are an indicator of the school inclusion policy and in many LEAs comparative data is shared across schools. Governors may wish to compare their school's use of exclusions with other schools in the area.

The Government is committed to reducing the number of exclusions and is therefore investing in a wide-ranging programme of measures to improve standards of behaviour and to develop and encourage the use of alternatives to exclusion. But exclusion must continue to be one of the sanctions for serious misbehaviour available to schools and when a head excludes for good reasons, that decision should not be overturned. That is why the legislation governing exclusion appeal panels was changed in January 2003 to strike a better balance between the interests of the individual pupil and those of the school community as a whole.

As well as excluding pupils for fixed periods or permanently, and involving parents, we are aware that some headteachers exclude pupils unofficially, perhaps by suggesting that the parents withdraw their child and look for another school. There is no legal basis for this and heads should be challenged if this happens. We have drawn attention to this in the latest version of the exclusions guidance (see paragraph 22) and are working with headteacher associations, governor associations, local education authorities and Ofsted to make headteachers aware that this is wrong and to find ways to tackle this practice. There is further information on unofficial exclusions on governornet at www.governornet.co.uk

We know that managing behaviour is a challenge facing all schools and the most successful schools are those that work closely with each other and with their LEA to make the best use of available resources. Following informal consultation, which included governor organisations, we published on our website (see website address below) a paper in October encouraging groups of schools to work together to manage the behaviour of pupils at risk of exclusion and provision for them, with shared budgets and responsibilities. We know of two groups of schools that are working in this way already and there may be more. This approach has proved to be cost effective, has helped to keep more pupils in schools and has considerably reduced levels of exclusions. We are hoping that governors will support headteachers in working collaboratively as this will benefit both pupils and teachers.

For more information on exclusions and good practice see our website at
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/exclusions/ and for the exclusions guidance see
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/exclusion/.

For training for clerks and chairs of governor exclusion panels please see
http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/behaviour/exclusion/gettingitright/

Mark Stockdale
Department for Education and Skills Improving Behaviour and Attendance

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