Heads and governors: a critical friendship

Governing bodies are there to act as a critical friend, holding schools and academies to account as well as supporting them, and the chair of governors plays a key part in leading the drive to improvement. But what does that mean in practice? Julie Nightingale finds out.

Gary Holden is executive principal at Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School, a boys’ grammar in Rochester, Kent, known locally as ‘the Math’. Rated outstanding by Ofsted, it became an academy in 2011 and also sponsored the academy conversion of a neighbouring non-selective secondary school, the Hundred of Hoo.

Gary and chair of governors Michael Costello have worked together for over three years, but the relationship is not founded on “cosiness” but rather on mutual respect and appropriate challenge and support, says Gary. The governing body has itself instigated several school improvement initiatives. Most recently, at the behest of the curriculum committee, governors carried out a work scrutiny exercise and were able to suggest useful tweaks that could be made to the school's marking and assessment policy.

“One of the things we found was that there were some inconsistencies in the way books were marked,” says Michael. “Most of the marking and feedback was exemplary, but in a very few instances the standard wasn’t as high, and, as an outstanding school, we want all aspects of our practice to be outstanding."

A review of the marking and assessment policy has been incorporated into the school improvement plan and another work scrutiny exercise will be carried out in the new year to gauge the impact.

“But that is exactly what governors are there for – to provide challenge and support,” says Michael.

Gary is very clear that this kind of input from governors does not cross the line from their strategic role into the operational realm but brings extra insight for the teaching staff.

“When governors look at children’s work, they are not doing so in order to mark it or to moderate the teacher’s marks or to make Ofsted-style judgments but they are lay governors coming at the work with lay eyes,” he says. “That’s valuable in itself because governors can put themselves in the pupils’ position and ask how the teachers' feedback would have helped them to improve. It complements the monitoring that the senior and middle leaders do in the school and adds to the richness of the narrative that we are able to build up about how well are we doing and what we need to do to improve. The teachers are on board with that. They don’t feel threatened by the governing body because they know and trust them.”

Karen Stainsby has 15 years’ experience as a school governor and chair of governors. She is currently vice-chair of Heathside, an outstanding secondary school in Surrey, and is also a clerk to governors at four other schools. At Heathside, she and the chair of governors share the senior leadership duties, each playing to their strengths.

Four years ago with the arrival of a new head and as part of a drive to raise the school from good to outstanding, the governing body committee structure was refocused more directly on both supporting and holding the school to account. The school development plan areas are now included in the terms of reference for each committee – so monitoring quality of learning and teaching is reviewed at the curriculum and achievement committee and implementation of electronic registration is reviewed by the committee on student welfare – and there’s an expectation that each committee will review them regularly.

The changes are enabling governors to challenge the head and senior leadership team more effectively in key areas. Governors now have a greater involvement of governors in the discipline process, for example.

“We have a six-stage discipline policy,” Karen explains. “When a student reaches stage five, a governor is involved in a meeting with the parent, which hadn’t happened before. We instigated it because parents were coming to permanent exclusion hearings thinking they could talk their way out of it and that this was not the final step. We felt that having a governor involved at an earlier stage enabled us to go through the checklist of strategies to ensure that they had been tried and given time to work. We can also read the riot act to the student and make it clear to the parent that the behaviour of their child is such that the next step is permanent exclusion. That has helped to focus minds.”

The relationship between head and chair of governors is critically important to a school’s success. It helps if they like each other, obviously, but more important is the chair’s ability to keep challenging their fellow leader.

For heads and chairs who are struggling to build a relationship Karen has this advice: “Be professional. The heads I work with now are brilliant but I am fully aware that there are heads who have not recognised that the government has given governors a role that might not suit what the head wants. As a chair you need to know the rules and what is expected of you and you have to show support in terms of having time to go into school and talk to the head. Heads need to know that governors are there to help and support them but they are also there for more than that.”

Gary Holden recommends bringing in a “trusted critical friend” who could mediate a conversation with either the chair or the whole governing body.

“A good strategy would be to carry out a governors' self-review exercise and look at what’s working well and what could improve in how the governing body works. That would help bring issues into the open in a ‘safe’ way,” he says.

Nigel Gann is a former headteacher turned education consultant who specialises in school leadership and governance coaching and training. He is also an experienced governor. As a consultant he has worked as a mediator with schools, most recently at one with a newly-appointed head.

“The first thing we did was to write down sets of expectations on both sides,” he says. “We put them all in the middle of the table then talked through them so that, by the end, there were no unfounded assumptions being made on either side about what to expect.”

Policies, procedures and an agreed code of conduct that everyone abides by are also critical from the beginning.

Crucially, he says, the relationship between head and chair of governors also depends on the head’s willingness to be frank about the limits of their knowledge.

“It’s really important that heads sometimes say ‘I don’t know’ because if heads always know the answer then what is everyone else doing there, other than to say ‘Well done’? It is key to getting governors to engage.”

The National College’s remit now incorporates working with chairs of governors and, alongside a number of organisations such as the National Governors’ Association (NGA), a suite of leadership development opportunities for chairs of governors is being created to help them develop their leadership skills.

A booklet, Leading governors, outlining the role of the chair of governors in schools and academies was published in October. A grant scheme enabling groups of chairs in the same area to come together in workshops to share best practice is also underway. And later in 2012, a leadership development programme for chairs will be launched.

There is also a new national leaders of governance programme in which effective chairs of governors will help support and develop others in the role. It will follow the system leadership model already used successfully in other initiatives such as national leaders of education.

The notion of system leadership and leaders working with other schools beyond their own is integral to the College’s approach to leadership development and is seen as key to raising standards – a point which College chief executive Steve Munby emphasised in his speech to the annual NGA conference in November 2011, urging governors to support the notion of their headteachers and senior leaders sharing their expertise with others.

“The national leaders of governance programme brings home the message that collaboration is the key to raising standards and it’s important that governing bodies understand why their heads need to engage in it and that their chairs of governors can share their expertiseusing the same model,” says Sarah Ray, senior manager, chairs of governors training and support programme.

Applications for the national leaders of governance programme are open until 16 January 2012. Applications for the one-off grants are open until 24 February, with the leadership development programme expected to be available from April. More information is available on the chairs of governors web page.

Published January 2012