Leadership

What do we mean by governance?

Ministers have announced a review of school governance - but will it be a review of governance or of governors? It's sometimes taken for granted that 'governance' means the same thing as what a governing body does...

Ministers have announced a review of school governance – but will it be a review of governance or of governors? It seems sometimes to be taken for granted that ‘governance’ means the same thing as what a governing body does (or what it ought to do).

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      string(331) "governance that other leaders canmake? Should the governance of our schools be largelyin the hands of teachers (as is the case in one of Caldwelland Harris’s case study schools) with governors forminga ‘supervisory board’, only there to monitor and advise?Or should we be looking at combined boards that ..."
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      string(3509) "governance that other leaders canmake? Should the governance of our schools be largelyin the hands of teachers (as is the case in one of Caldwelland Harris’s case study schools) with governors forminga ‘supervisory board’, only there to monitor and advise?Or should we be looking at combined boards that bringtogether senior executives and a number of non-executives 12TrendsManaging Schools Today    June/July 2008under a non-executive chair – a structure that has becomeaccepted as good practice in the private sector and ismandatory for some public sector organisations, such asNHS trusts?Second, who is responsible for governance whenschools federate? If there is an executive head and a singlemanagement team, the governance issues are the same asfor a single school (although obviously good governancearrangements may be more complex to implement). Butwhere schools remain separate under a shared governingbody, in what sense can there be said to be sharedgovernance? Very little, it would seem, if individual schoolsretain their own intellectual, social, financial and spiritualcapital.Third, if governors are to play a part in governance,how useful is the current ‘stakeholder’ approach to thecomposition of governing bodies? What reason have weto think that ensuring representation for the corporateinterests of parents, teaching and non-teaching staff, thelocal authority or business sponsors will promote bettergovernance? Should we be looking at selecting non-executives on merit, as we do senior executives? Or isthere scope to have governors elected, either by the wholecommunity or by those members of the community whohave registered an interest in education matters (after themodel of NHS Foundation Trusts)?It is clear from the case studies in the SSAT report thatthere are schools in England with outstanding governance.It is not, however, clear whether this has come aboutbecause of or despite the current English model ofschool organisation. Do these schools succeed becausedetermined heads and chairs of governors simply find waysof getting round the restrictions imposed by the currentorganisational structure? If so, do we need to be bolderin encouraging experimentation with different ways ofmanaging the governance function?These are all issues that a thorough review of schoolgovernance would address. It would be nice to thinkthat the ministerial working group might open upthis debate, rather than just looking at how existinggoverning bodies might be modified. A lot of work isrequired if good governance is to be as well embeddedin the majority of schools as it is in the SSAT’s casestudy examples. A willingness to try out some differentorganisational models might make the task moremanageable.Martin McNeill is chair of governors at a large WestCountry secondary school and a school improvementpartner. He works as an independent managementconsultant and was formerly director of managementservices with the Audit Commission.Enhancing Assessment for Learning through Carol Dweck’s Self-TheoriesA conference for everyoneinvolved in teaching childrenNovember 14, 2008Marriott Victoria & Albert Hotel ManchesterFor full conference detailsand an application formcall 0191 383 1640/45go to www.neconsortium.org.ukor e-mail esp@durham.gov.ukKey Note Speakers:Ruth SuttonGerry Miller& Carol Dweck-via recorded interviewCMYCMMYCYCMYKad 2 half page [Converted]2.pdf   23/04/2008   22:42:24"
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Leadership

Whose business is governing?

14 Jul 2008

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      string(396) "... Four’ or ‘senior clique’ – who tend to lead strategic planning and exercise ‘hardand fast’ influence over decision making. ■ The structures and limitations around participatory governance mean that many governing bodiesconsist of peripheral governors who exercise minimal or ‘soft’ influence over decision making,especially in the case of multi-academy ..."
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Leadership Briefing 9.05(101)"
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      string(5669) "Leadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.GOVERNING SCHOOLS: THE ROLEOF COMMUNITY AND PROFESSIONALVOLUNTEERSKeywordsGoverningSchools,community,professionalvolunteers,academyschools,high-calibregovernors,management,professionalskillsSummaryThe rapid expansion of academy schools has seen increased demand for high-calibregovernors with management and professional skills. This research by the Economic andSocial Research Council outlines the findings and recommendations of a recent studyon school governance. It indicates how a skills-based model of governance is necessarybut not sufficient to enhancing accountability and highlights the challenges and benefitsof professional and community volunteers working together to make schools publiclyaccountable institutions.The ESRC research found strategic planning in governing bodies was often controlled by a ‘big four’or ‘senior clique’ who tended to exercise ‘hard and fast’ influence over decision-making. In somecases, amateur governors interviewed for the research said decisions were presented to the widergoverning body as faits accomplis rather than being debated first to arrive at a consensus.Core ‘technocrat’ governors are often skilled in project management, business, accountancy,marketing and risk management, and focus on efficiency and accountability to the Department forEducation and Ofsted. These people are needed in schools, especially academies, as expectationsrise. However, the need for non-experts willing to ask ‘the stupid question’ has become even moreimportant.The researchers call on central government to pay disadvantaged schools a ‘governance premium,’which they could use to buy in consultants to assist with legal or financial issues. This would reducelocal discrepancies in access to networking and ‘high calibre’ governor recruitment.Key Findings: ■ At the heart of a governing body is a group of 3-4 core governors – sometimes called ‘heavyhitters’, ‘the Big Four’ or ‘senior clique’ – who tend to lead strategic planning and exercise ‘hardand fast’ influence over decision making. ■ The structures and limitations around participatory governance mean that many governing bodiesconsist of peripheral governors who exercise minimal or ‘soft’ influence over decision making,especially in the case of multi-academy trust (MAT) schools where governors, if they exist, haveno statutory rights to influence policy. ■ The pressure on governors to maximize market efficiency and minimize risk means that valueconflicts – disagreements about priorities or preferences – are subsumed within the prevailingWeek Commencing 15th December 2014https://www.academia.edu/8901867/Briefing_Paper_for_ESRC_SASE_project_-_findings_and_recommendationshttps://www.academia.edu/8901867/Briefing_Paper_for_ESRC_SASE_project_-_findings_and_recommendationshttps://www.academia.edu/8901867/Briefing_Paper_for_ESRC_SASE_project_-_findings_and_recommendationshttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359483/DFE-RR286_-_Are_free_schools_using_innovative_approaches.pdfLeadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.market rationality. ■ Schools possess differing and unequal levels of social, cultural and economic capital includinggovernor recruitment power and networking capacity, an instance of governance inequity. ■ The generation of cluster governance setups to replace the diminishing support from localgovernment – schools informally linked through mutually supportive arrangements to share goodpractice and resources – is often hindered by the vagaries of market competition: branding,reputation and a cost-benefit analysis. ■ Constructive challenge and support is strongly linked to social context (e.g. good chairing andopen deliberation), formal and informal socialization (e.g. appropriate training and mentoring),language skills (e.g. skilful and purposeful communication) and logical reasoning (e.g. the use ofevidence to support arguments). ■ Meetings are tempered by a formality, rhythm and pragmatism which means that influence overdecision making is linked to governors adhering to a set of implicit and explicit rules aroundprofessional engagement and accountability. ■ Governors often conflate effective challenge and support with middle-class attitudes andorientations or people who are sufficiently educated with a professional background. ■ Desirable governors tend to be those who possess ‘hard skills’ in project management, business,accountancy, enterprise, marketing, data analysis and risk management, as well as ‘soft skills’ incommunication, networking and negotiation. ■ The least valued governors – sometimes called ‘local worthies’, ‘passengers’, ‘deadweight’ or‘hangers-on’ – are judged to be hangovers from the old culture of school governance and lackingexpertise, commitment or confidence. ■ The role of school governor is subject to conflicting and seemingly contradictory demands andexpectations, in some instances blurring the boundaries between strategic and operationalduties. ■ Many parents/carers are unaware of the purpose and impact of the governing body, to the"
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Leadership

Governing Schools: The Role Of Community And Professional Volunteers

11 Dec 2014

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      string(320) "The English education system is experiencing an era of unprecedented change, at least as significant as the move to Local Management of Schools after 1988. Nowhere are these changes more keenly felt than amongst the leadership teams and governing bodies of the country’s schools. This research offers a fascinating ..."
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      string(380) "... s case this is becausethey include many small rural primary schools.33 © National College for School LeadershipTable 3.3: Structure of leadership teams by governance typeAcademy Community Foundation VoluntaryaidedVoluntarycontrolledMean sd Mean sd Mean sd Mean sd Mean sdSecondary schoolsNumber of heads 1.16 (0.79) 1.00 (0.31 ..."
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      string(535) "The English education system is experiencing an era of unprecedented change, at least as significant as the move to Local Management of Schools after 1988. Nowhere are these changes more keenly felt than amongst the leadership teams and governing bodies of the country’s schools. This research offers a fascinating consideration of the schools’ landscape and clearly highlights how it has evolved over the 10 years since the first review of school leadership in England in 2002. By the National College for School Leadership - 2012"
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      string(5644) "record for everyindividual working in a school. In this chapter the particular focus is on senior leadership, ie headteachers,deputy heads and assistant heads. The age, sex, ethnic and subject background of senior leaders in schoolsare examined. Also explored are the differences in their tenure in their current school, promotion rates andchoices of school to work in. This analysis of school leadership demography provides a description of thestate of the current teacher labour market, relative to trends over the past decade or so.The teacher labour market and school leadership teamsTable 3.1 shows the numbers of teachers within each post for 2010 and 2011. However, although thisis a census, the data is not complete and it is not always possible to use the teacher numbers to linkteachers across the two years accurately. This should be borne in mind throughout the chapter (see also theappendix).Table 3.1: Post transitions between 2010 and 2011Post in Nov 2011 SWCHead Deputy Assistant Classroom Not in 2011dataTotalPost in Nov 2010 SWC:Heads 18,474 241 66 164 2,470 21,417Deputy heads 1,190 14,880 379 673 1,861 18,983Assistant heads 182 1,018 15,726 1,156 2,138 20,220Classroom teachers 231 1,499 3,212 347,645 68,172 420,759Not in 2010 data 959 874 1,108 69,283 0 72,224Total 21,036 18,512 20,491 418,921 74,641 553,601Table 3.2 shows the numbers of headteachers, deputy heads and assistant heads across secondary schools,primary schools and special schools in England, as at November 2011. Secondary school leadership teamstend to reflect a classic management hierarchy or pyramid, with more deputies than headteachers and moreassistant heads than deputies. By contrast, primary school leadership structures are reversed because manysmall primaries have no senior leadership roles below that of headteacher.Where leadership structures appear to be unusual in the SWC it is possible that this simply results from themisclassification of teachers to posts. For example, within the sample, 496 headteachers are not the highestpaid person calling themselves a headteacher within their own school, so some of these may be incorrectlyclassified.Chapter 3: The demography of schoolleadership32 © National College for School LeadershipData reliability is particularly low for middle and other management positions in schools, such as financemanagers/bursars, heads of department or years, and special needs co-ordinators. For this reason thisinformation is not used in the chapter.From the November 2011 SWC data, 410 executive headteachers can be identified, which is fewer than arecent estimate of 450 executive heads based on a sample of data (National College, 2010). Where a schoolhas an executive head, in the vast majority of cases (99 per cent) they are clearly also the substantiveheadteacher. According to guidance from the Department for Education, schools should only use thisclassification if the headteacher in question directly leads two or more schools in a federation or otherpartnership arrangement. It is therefore possible that the SWC is failing to count executive heads who are notdirectly employed by a school or local authority.Table 3.2: Size of leadership teams by phase of schoolingNumber of schools with an SLT size of:0 1 or 2 3 or 4 5 or moreSecondary schools (n=3,129):Number of headteachers 129 2,982 14 4Number of deputy heads 323 2,326 421 59Number of assistant heads 252 826 1,161 890Primary schools (n=16,571):Number of headteachers 833 16,132 9 0Number of deputy heads 5,895 11,036 42 1Number of assistant heads 11,980 4,641 325 28Special schools (n=942):Number of headteachers 57 887 1 0Number of deputy heads 181 747 17 0Number of assistant heads 359 495 83 8There is relatively little variation in the average structure of leadership teams by school governancetype. However, Table 3.3 shows that academies do tend to have larger leadership teams overall and thatvoluntary-controlled schools tend to have the smallest leadership teams. In the latter’s case this is becausethey include many small rural primary schools.33 © National College for School LeadershipTable 3.3: Structure of leadership teams by governance typeAcademy Community Foundation VoluntaryaidedVoluntarycontrolledMean sd Mean sd Mean sd Mean sd Mean sdSecondary schoolsNumber of heads 1.16 (0.79) 1.00 (0.31) 1.02 (0.34) 1.02 (0.39) 1.01 (0.23)Number of deputies 2.40 (2.24) 1.60 (1.04) 1.75 (1.19) 1.56 (1.00) 1.49 (0.95)Number of assistants 4.36 (3.81) 3.62 (2.37) 3.92 (2.56) 3.35 (1.91) 3.16 (2.09)Primary schoolsNumber of heads 1.25 (0.5) 0.97 (0.27) 0.96 (0.24) 0.97 (0.27) 0.97 (0.27)Number of deputies 1.00 (0.82) 0.77 (0.57) 0.72 (0.58) 0.68 (0.54) 0.48 (0.56)Number of assistants 4.50 (1.73) 0.50 (0.86) 0.58 (0.98) 0.36 (0.68) 0.26 (0.59)sd = standard deviationAge profile of school leadersThe age profile of school leaders, relative to others in the teacher workforce, is now described along with theimplications for future supply in the labour market. Studying the age of teachers is particularly interesting inthe absence of a measure of years of teaching experience. The average age of headteachers at November2011 was 50 years old (51 years for executive headteachers). Assistant and deputy headteacher averageages were 44 and 45 years respectively. The average age of classroom teachers was 39 years; those whoappear for the first time in the 2011 SWC are younger at 35 years; and those who are paid at the lowestpoint on the pay scale are younger still at 34 years. Figure 3.1 shows the age profile for teachers byleadership grouping, separately for secondary and"
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Leadership

Review of the school leadership landscape

6 Jul 2017

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      string(327) "... about the intrusion of profit making into schools.Uncertain times aheadWhile nothing is certain in these times, the likely pause in new education policy makingwill mean that the main focus of school governance in the next few months will be in thedevelopment of the RSC’s intervention in failing and ..."
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      string(5671) "tipping point ‘where it is clear that the LA can no longer viably support itsremaining schools because a critical mass of schools in that area has converted’. AnLA can also volunteer for this; or■ In the event of systemic failure: ‘where the LA consistently fails to meet a minimumperformance threshold across its schools’.There are no immediate LA candidates for this treatment, but we can expect theDfE to be determined in focusing on under-performing LAs and probably trying outthese powers (if enacted in law) on the smaller, less successful LAs—particularly in the‘Achieving Excellence Areas’ that will be targeted by the DfE under the White Paper.‘A straw in the policy wind’Another interesting aspect of the DfE’s climb-down on compulsoryacademisation was the perhaps rather hasty indication that LocalAuthorities may be able to set up their own MATs. This was a changefrom the White Paper’s anticipation that certain individuals might leaveLAs and set up MATs, although that might be how things turn out inpractice as LAs shrink their school functions.There are, however, two legal impediments to LA MATs being set up.One of the underpinning DfE principles regarding academy governanceis that less than 20 per cent of members and trustees of academy trustscan be ‘Local Authority Associated’ (i.e. employed by LAs or elected to localoffice). It would be a major concession for the DfE to permit LAs a higherdegree of control of any LA MATs than this, and any lesser level of controlwould not really make such trusts ‘LA MATs’ in any meaningful sense.There are also considerable potential legal complications for LAswho would seek to continue to make commercial supply to their ownLA MATs, because of the rule that members and trustees of MATs canonly make such supply on an ‘at cost’ basis. Although here at Stone Kingwe have heard of a handful of LAs making serious efforts to explore theoption of their own LA MAT, we suspect few will actually happen. Whatthis straw in the policy wind has done, however, is to give primariesreluctant to engage in academisation another reason to put theacademy question off until and if an LA MAT becomes available to them.So, overall, we can expect to see a considerable increase incompulsory academisation which may counteract the continuingreluctance of many maintained schools to academise, especially in theuncertain world of Brexit. It is likely that the DfE’s ambition will still beto drive towards MAT units of at least ten schools, although it may be along time before that level of aggregation takes place on the ground, if it ever does, asschools settle into their local academy clusters.The speed at which academisation can and will take place continues, however, to beconstrained by the capacity of the system to produce enough volunteers prepared totake on the more elevated role of being a MAT trustee and a sufficient pool of ‘executiveleaders’ to develop MATs.Could paid governance be on the horizon?The White Paper states that ‘Governing boards need to be skills-based and focused onthe strategic functions of setting a vision and holding school leaders to account for theeducational and financial performance of their schools’. That has been the tenor of allschool governance for a number of years and is already set out in current governanceregulations for maintained schools2 and in the governance handbook3.Part of the regulatory change that took effect by September 2014 was to36Vol 7.5School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comCommentLawandpolicy radically reduce the minimum proportions of elected or ‘representational’ governors inmaintained governing bodies (both parents and staff ). This focus on skills is also logicalin Academyland given the corporate governance requirements of an academised systemorganised in relatively large and complex MAT units.However, the White Paper then goes on to exclude any value in any parentsperforming a function for their community though ‘symbolic representation on agoverning board’. This is cast in language which can and has been interpreted to set adichotomy between the required governance skills and parents. That is potentially hugelylimiting to the academy programme. The large proposed increase in MATs means a largeincrease in the need for volunteer governors, and parents provide one of the most obviousrecruitment pools for those roles.While there is some evidence of a broader recruitment pool beginning to operatefor MATs, given the White Paper’s proposals to introduce compulsory training andcompetency testing for governors, there is a real risk that insufficient volunteers willcome forward quickly enough to provide the corporate capacity to allow the MAT systemto grow. The White Paper nods at this by acknowledging that MATs may seek morepermission ‘to offer payment to attract the very best people into key positions such as thechair of the board’. Justine Greening will need to decide whether to cross the Rubicon thatnot even Michael Gove crossed and allow paid academy trustees, which really will be asea change from the entirely voluntary ethos of governance which currently sustains thesystem and gives some political comfort about the intrusion of profit making into schools.Uncertain times aheadWhile nothing is certain in these times, the likely pause in new education policy makingwill mean that the main focus of school governance in the next few months will be in thedevelopment of the RSC’s intervention in failing and ‘coasting’ schools. This will result in alarge increase in compulsory"
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Leadership

Beyond Brexit: All quiet on the education front?

4 Oct 2016