What is School Governance?

Before we had school governors the Local Authority was responsible for ensuring that each individual school was meeting the needs of the school’s stakeholders. There were prescriptive policies and procedures that schools followed and it was almost a one size fits all scenario. The local school community had little or, in most cases, no say in how the school should be run. Indeed even head teachers had little say in policy, procedures, staffing levels, how the budget was to be spent etc.

These days it is very different. The power the Local Authority has over a school has been drastically reduced. Schools now have their own delegated budget, they decide how many staff to employ and have strategic responsibility for how schools function. This has been a massive positive step; schools are better equipped to meet the needs of their stakeholders and the local community that they serve.

However, as a public service they do need to be held accountable to their stakeholders (e.g. parents, pupils, community, local authority and staff and as a Catholic School to their local parish, their diocese and the wider Church community). This is the main reason why each school has a governing body.

Categories of Schools

In England and Wales we have a number of different categories of schools. As a consequence we also have a number of different categories of school governors.

St Augustine’s is a Catholic co-educational state school established by the Archdiocese of Birmingham and offering education to boys and girls with no charge to parents.

There are four categories of state-funded mainstream schools.

• Community
• Foundation
• Voluntary-controlled
• Voluntary-aided

..and two categories of state-funded special schools for children with special educational needs:

• Community special
• Foundation special

St Augustine’s is a Voluntary Aided School ie the governing body is the employer of the school staff.  The governing body is also the admissions authority, having prime responsibility for determining arrangements for admitting pupils.  St Augustine’s land and buildings are owned by the Archdiocese of Birmingham.  The governing body is responsible for ensuring that funds are raised, which will contribute towards the capital costs of establishing/maintaining the school buildings.  They also have two prime responsibilities in law:

• To promote high educational standards
• To ensure that our school is constantly seen to bear witness to the Catholic faith in every aspect of its work

To be an effective Governor at St Augustine’s it is expected that Governors will:

• Apply common sense
• Be enthusiastic and committed
• take a share of the workload
• give time to preparation
• work as pare of a team
• stand by collective decisions
• visit the school
• promote the school to the community
• attend relevant training
• keep up to date with developments in education
• BE A CRITICAL FRIEND – monitoring, evaluating and supporting the work of the school

Types of Governor

At St Augustine’s we have the following categories of School Governor:

• Parent Governors                              
• Staff Governors
• LA Governors
• Foundation Governors
• Sponsor Governors

PARENT GOVERNORS
Parents, including carers, of registered pupils at the school are eligible to stand for election for parent governorship at the school.  Parent Governors are elected by other parents at the school.  If insufficient parents stand for election, the governing body can appoint parent governors.

Schools must make every reasonable effort to fill parent governor vacancies through elections.  Only if insufficient parents stand for election can the governing body appoint:

• A parent of a registered pupil at the school, or if that is not possible;
• A parent of a former pupil at the school, or if that is not possible;
• A parent of a child of or under compulsory school age.

STAFF GOVERNORS
Both teaching and support staff paid to work at the school are eligible to be staff governors.  Staff governors are elected by the school staff and must be paid to work at the school; volunteers are not eligible.  Any election, which is contested, must be held by ballot.

At least one staff governor (in addition to the Principal) must be a teacher, but if no teacher stands for election a member of the support staff can be elected to take that place.  If a governing body has three or more staff governor places, at least one staff governor must be a member of the support staff, but if no member of the support staff stands for election a teacher can be elected to take that place.

Mrs Brennan is a member of the governing body by virtue of her office and counts as a member of the staff category.  If the Principal decides not to be a governor she must inform the clerk of that decision in writing.  The Principal’s place remains ring-fenced and cannot be taken by anyone else.

LA GOVERNORS (LOCAL AUTHORITY GOVERNORS)
The local Authority appoints LA governors.  LA’s can appoint any eligible person as an LA governor.

FOUNDATION GOVERNORS
Foundation governors are appointed by the school’s founding body, church or other organisation named in the school’s instrument of government.  At St Augustine’s the Archdiocese of Birmingham appoint the Foundation Governors. 

Foundation Governors have the same responsibilities as all other Governors and must also ensure that the religious character of the school is preserved; that the school is conducted in accordance with its trust deed; that the Religious Education curriculum is in accordance with the bishop’s policy for his diocese and that the aims of Catholic Education inform all that happens in the school (see page 9 of the booklet ‘Governing Catholic Voluntary Aided Schools – A guide for Governors’.)

SPONSOR GOVERNORS
The governing body sometimes appoints sponsor governors.  It is at the governing body’s discretion whether they choose to appoint sponsor governors or not.  If the governing body wants to appoint sponsor governors it must seek nominations from the sponsor(s).  The governing body can appoint a maximum of two people as sponsor governors, or where the school is a secondary school, up to a maximum of four sponsor governors.

People who give substantial assistance to the school, financially or in kind, or who provide services to the school can be appointed by the governing body as sponsor governors.