My local education authority delivered performance management training to all schools by recruiting experienced governors, myself included, and cascading the information. It worked amazingly well.
Participants appreciated having a trainer who was a governor like them. The LEA asked us “super governors” to be “associate trainers” and deliver existing courses and the induction.
It also wants every governing body in the county to conduct a self-review.
We were given a copy of the self-review questionnaire to try out. Challengingly entitled “How prepared are you to govern?”, its 18 pages cover strategic planning, meetings, curriculum, providing information, personnel, health and safety, inspection, and finance.
The intention is to discover the strength and weaknesses of the governing body and identify development needs.
But the effect was to make even we experienced governors feel demoralised. Individual governors can’t know everything. They need to delegate and specialise. This initiative must be handled very carefully if we are to avoid frightening governors away. Another job for super governor!
Joan Dalton
