It’s been six years since the Education Reform Act, but many governors and heads continue to dispute who runs our schools. Bob Doe reports. Who ultimately is responsible for running a school? What part should governors play in overseeing the work of the headteacher? Long after the 1986 Education Act made governors responsible for the conduct of schools and the 1988 Reform Act gave them powers to hire and fire and spend the school budget, doubts remain about exactly what the roles and practical responsibilities of governors are - or ought to be.
In response to continuing complaints from headteachers about interference in what they regard as day-to-day management decisions, David Hart, leader of the the largest headteachers’ association sets out his new formula for the division of responsibilities (below) .
There are signs too that not all governors are content with existing arrangements. Some complain that they are not able to fulfill their responsibilities because they have neither the skill nor the time. Others that they cannot do the job because headteachers fail to inform or consult them as they should.
David Hart’s National Association of Head Teachers, which represents most primary heads in England and Wales, has been concerned for some time about the numbers of disputes breaking out between governing bodies and headteachers, a few of which have made headline news. The Secondary Heads Association has tended to be less concerned, which may suggest perhaps that such disputes are less common in secondary schools. But research into the development needs of secondary school managers reveals uncertainty and discontent about the governors’ role (see School Management page opposite).
The author of the report, Dr Derek Lewis, a former head and now a consultant with SHA, reports that some of the heads and chairs of governors were uncertain “as to the precise nature of their respective roles and responsibilities”.
“There appears to be an unwillingness to accept their roles as defined by law. Some chairs of governors place total reliance on the head, not recognising their own legal accountability for the conduct of the school,” Dr Lewis concludes.
“Working with governors” tended to get low priority among the heads questioned on the management activities most important to them. Though the governors saw some value in joint training with senior managers, half of them said they did not want, and had no need for training.
How representative such views are is hard to judge. Though questionnaires were sent out to 1,100 schools, only a quarter of heads replied and half as many chairs of governors. It may be significant too that Dr Lewis found some evidence that heads had not passed on the questionnaire to the chair of governors.
Nevertheless, the comments from those who did reply “suggest that a significant minority reacted against a questionnaire thought to condone a central government policy to make governors assume unwanted additional responsibilities,” says Dr Lewis.
Objecting to new duties for governors is not necessarily the same thing as wanting heads to have more powers, of course. Many chairs of governors are also local authority councillors and may believe that the education authority should have retained some of the responsibilities given to governing bodies.
The National Association of Governors and Managers has just rejected a plan to make governors responsible for the training of new headteachers. Governors are not competent to decide what training a new head needs or to choose who can best provide it, NAGM says in response to plans for the new headteacher induction scheme called Headlamp, put forward for the Government by its recently created quango, the Teacher Training Agency.
NAGM suggests instead that local education authorities - or the Grant Maintained Schools Centre in the case of GM school heads - should have this responsibility.
In fact, it emerged last week that funding for the Headlamp programme will be found by removing Pounds 2.7 million from local authority budgets. Local authority leaders say this will stop them providing headteacher training.
Walter Ulrich, NAGM’s information officer, says the induction of new heads is an important activity of great concern to governors. “But the scheme envisaged by the Teacher Training Agency is fundamentally misconceived: it assigns a role to governors, and indeed to newly-appointed heads, which they are not competent to perform.”
