School Governors

The role of the Governing Body

The responsibilities of the governing body are defined by legislation. The DCSF Governor’s Guide to the Law addresses governors’ responsibilities in detail. However, simply the governing body has three main roles:

1. Strategic -The governing body sets the general direction of the school, looking at how it should best develop. This is done by reviewing and agreeing policies, targets and priorities and monitoring and reviewing aims and objectives.

2. Critical Friend – A governing body should work with the Head teacher and create a clear understanding of the challenges face in managing a school.

3. Accountability – A school is a business and its stakeholders are the learners. The governing body must have a professional attitude and use its collective skills to benefit the learners. It must gather views, ask questions and decide what is best for the school. The governing body is answerable to parents, the wider community and the local authority.

School governors are drawn from different parts of the community, such as: parents, the staff, the local authority (LA), the community and other groups. This helps to ensure that the governing body has sufficient diversity of views and experience but does not mean that governors of a particular category “represent” that group on the governing body. Although elected by parents, parent governors are not mandated to express any views apart from their own. They are ‘representative parents’ not ‘representatives of parents’.

2019 Instrument of Government (IOG) – Sealed Copy – Alexandra Park