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Governor Services Offer

Quality Support for Excellent Governance – Working in Partnership

Clerking, Support and Advice

Our Governor Development Advisors are skilled professionals, selected on the basis of their knowledge and expertise in providing a comprehensive support package to Governing Bodies. A number of them have completed  nationally recognised ‘Clerks to Governing Bodies Training Programme’ as run by the National College for Teaching and Leadership and by the NGA. As a team we have regular training and briefing and are committed to ensuring our knowledge of governance requirements, regulations, procedures and requirements is up to date.

 The Head of Governor Services is full time and works all year round to support the team in giving a high quality service to our schools and providing advice and support to any Governing Body which requires it.

Support for effective meetings

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You will have an allocated Governor Development Advisor who will attend to clerk and advise at all of the meetings that you have bought into.  This service includes

  • A draft agenda based on a model carefully drawn up to ensure that you meet all of your statutory duties and are kept abreast of developments in governance and changes to legislation, tailored to meet your individual requirements and which flags up any action needed.   This is sent to the Chair (or committee Chair) and Headteacher at least two weeks prior to the meeting to allow them to discuss and amend it.
  • Papers will be collated and made available to meet the statutory deadline that governors receive their papers seven clear days before a meeting.  They will be stored securely on GovernorHub
  • Reports and information can be viewed using GovernHub and will include :
    • Governing body membership and vacancies;
    • Governing body meeting attendance;
    • Training attendance
    • Committee membership and link governors;
    • Register of Business Interests
    • A diary of meetings
  • Advice and guidance during your meeting
  • Minutes will be drafted and sent to the Chair (or committee Chair) and Headteacher within ten school days of a meeting.
  • They will be circulated to governors as soon as possible following the receipt of any comments. 
  • As well as including a clear record of all of the governing body decisions and actions, minutes will reflect the support and challenge offered to Senior Leaders, to provide evidence to Ofsted that the governing body is fulfilling this function.
  • Any actions and follow up from the meeting will be undertaken as quickly as possible. 
  • We will set an annual timetable of dates and times for future meetings. 

 

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Attendance at meetings and follow up

 You will have an allocated Governor Development Advisor who will attend and clerk all of the meetings that you have bought into.

 Advice and guidance will be given if any routine query arises regarding governance procedures or statutory requirements.

 Minutes will be drafted and sent to the Chair (or committee Chair) and Headteacher for comments within ten school days of a meeting.

 They will be circulated to governors as soon as possible following the receipt of any comments.

 As well as including a clear record of all of the governing body decisions and actions, minutes will reflect the support and challenge offered to Senior   Leaders, to provide evidence to Ofsted that the governing body is fulfilling this function.

 Any actions and follow up from the meeting will be undertaken as quickly as possible.

 If advice or information can not be provided during the meeting this will be followed up and given as soon as possible after the meeting.

High quality advice and support

 The Governor Services team is available to answer any queries that you may have and give advice, guidance and support on a range of governance issues and the latest regulations, policies and procedures. We are available to you via e-mail or telephone during term throughout the school year.

 We will support and advise schools who are going through major change such as considering entering a Federation or MAT, or recruiting a new Headteacher.

 We can provide advice on a range of issues such as managing conflict and problems, dealing with complaints, and can support schools on a range of issues such as setting up panels.

 An induction pack is sent to new governors including the NGA Welcome to Governance booklet.

  Our website includes a wide range of information, news, guidance and policies including termly news and updates

This includes a range of model procedures, policies and templates, for example parent and staff elections, equality information, charging policy.

360 support 

  • 3600 support – Governor Services are part of the Standards Team and our service is part of the complete support package available to schools.
  • Southwark Standards Team are committed to working in partnership with all schools to improve outcomes for young people and families by strengthening our collaborative, collegiate and inclusive approach to high quality informed and effective school improvement.
  • The close partnership working between Governor Services and colleagues in the Standards Team contributed to effective school improvement and improved outcomes for pupils.

 

Governance Development

The Governor Development Advisor will work closely with the Chair of Governors and Headteacher to support the development of the Governing Body and promote good governance.

  • We will signpost tools for carrying out a skills audit of the governing body and advise on considering the outcome.
  • We promote regular self review and provide on our website key resources includining a self evaluation template
  • We provide guidance on link governor visits to help governors to get to know their school better.
  • We can advise on reviewing the structure of your Governing Body and assist with reconstituting.
  • We support and promote regular review of your committee structure to ensure it is effective and there are clear term of reference.
  •  We will keep track of policy review and ensure that statutory policies have been adopted, and are reviewed when required
  • We review and improve our range of model policies and procedures that are available to governing bodies to ensure they are compliant.

We provide a termly “news and updates” section on our website to provide information, guidance, news and policies all in one place