Report of the Director of Education

This report outlines the support and future planned developments that the City Council will provide to assist with fostering effective school governance across the City including: governor recruitment, governor support and resources.

The Committee considered the report of the Director of Education which outlined the support and future planned developments that the Council would provide to assist with fostering effective school governance across the city.

Key points and themes in the report included:

• Governor recruitment;
• Governor support and resources; and
• School quality assurance.

The School Governance Lead expressed her thanks to all school governors across the city for their work.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• That the Council should periodically write to school governors to thank them for their work;
• Increasing the diversity of school governors, noting that most recruitment of school governors was via recommendations from people known to the current governors, which was likely to limit diversity, that some people would need more support to become a governor and that it was important to think more widely about who could become a governor;
• Improving recruitment methods, noting that it was important to communicate what a governor’s role was, the benefits for the individual and that governors could choose the degree to which they were involved; and
• Mentoring and training for school governors.

The School Governance Lead reported that the Council did try to thank school governors in the city; however, she advised that it did not hold the contact details for all governors, which made this more challenging, and the message might not be passed on to all governors and she would take on board the Member’s comments.  She informed the Committee that a session had recently taken place on diversity in governance which had included consideration of different methods of recruitment.  She informed Members about the methods the Council used to encourage people to consider becoming a governor or to find out more about what the role involved.  She welcomed the comments that Members had made in relation to recruiting governors and said that these reflected issues that were currently being discussed.  In response to a Member’s question, she confirmed that people who were retiring were approached about becoming governors. 

The School Governance Lead reported that the Council recommended that schools provide mentors to new governors and that she was currently asking Chairs of Governors across the city if they would be willing to mentor new Chairs.  In relation to training, she stated that she encouraged governors to join the National Governors Association, which had a suite of e-learning modules, and that schools could also commission their own training.  She advised that she visited schools which required additional support on governance, where this need had been identified through the Schools Quality Assurance process.  In response to a Member’s question, she advised that she could provide the Member with details of the process for becoming a school governor but that this varied depending on the type of governor and the type of school   The Director of Education informed Members that another route to recruiting governors was through large employers, including the Council and the University of Manchester.

Councillor Bell, Ward Councillor for Moss Side, suggested that officers recruit governors through the Civic Leadership programme and offered to speak with the School Governance Lead about this outside of the meeting.  The Chair suggested that the School Governance Lead also speak to Canon Susie Mapledoram, the new Co-opted Member representing the Diocese of Manchester, who stated that they had recently invested a lot of time in training and supporting the governors of Church of England schools.

The Chair emphasised the important role of Parent Governors to hold school leaders to account.  She commented that Teachers TV had provided a good source of information for governors but was no longer produced.  She requested that Members be provided with data on governor vacancies by ward.

Decision

To request that Members be provided with data on governor vacancies by ward.