governors - Doubled Up

I've managed to raid the car and get my paperwork from the finance training out and I was pleasantly surprised to read my last blog and see that I had remembered most of the training points. One or two I didn't cover are below:

1) Governors SHOULD ask questions about the budget - look in particular at where numbers are very different to previous years. Ask why numbers have gone up or down.

2) This is important, and is difficult to describe without a budget plan in front of you. However, I'll try! In the left hand column of the plan, there is a list of letters and numbers - the important ones are I (Income) and E (Expenses). Now, the key thing to look for is this... Add up I1, I2, I3, I4 and I5 (this is your main income) then divide them by E1+E2+E3+E4+E5+E6+E7 (these are your staffing costs) and you will get a percentage. This is the percentage of your school's money that is being spent on staffing. This percentage should be around 85%. That is healthy. However, if it is 90% or more, then your school is in grave danger of going into deficit. Told you it was complicated, but it will become clear if you have your budget plan in front of you and it is really good advice.

Anyway, that's it. The sum of my knowledge of money (except for the fact that I know I never seem to have enough left at the end of the month!).

It seems rather odd to have come to the end of my blogging here.

I am now in my third year as a governor and feel that I now really understand the school and am able to make a valuable contribution. And my eldest will be moving to a new school next year! I am hoping that I will be able to continue to work as a governor for them and maybe stand again when my term runs out. So far, it has been a great learning experience for me and I would recommend it to anyone who may be considering becoming a governor. If you are - here are things you need to know:

1) Don't be afraid to ask questions - if you aren't sure, chances are at least 10 people will be as confused as you are.

2) Go on training. You won't just pick things up as you go.

3) Commit fully - visit the school. Offer to help (particularly if you are a governor at a small school)

4) Get the most out of it for yourself - go to the performances, the assemblies etc. Get to know the school - that's the best bit - in comparison the meetings are dryness itself!

5) NEVER forget the following: EVERYTHING YOU DO SHOULD BE IN THE INTERESTS OF THE CHILDREN AND THEIR LEARNING AND WELL-BEING. If you remember that, you can't go wrong!

That's all folks!

It’s incredible. Things had gone really quiet on the governor front. No meetings until February, no policies to read, school profile completed, SEF summarised. I was beginning to a) relax and b) wonder just as what I could blog about next week, when last night there was a knock at the door and who should be stood there when we opened it, but our chair of governors.

It turns out that we have had a letter from the men (and women) in suits and that we are due our Ofsted inspection early next week. It also happens to be a day on which our chair is in Newcastle with work and can’t exactly pop back down south to meet the inspectors. Consequently, as the governor who summarised the SEF, I have been nominated to go to the meeting.

I had a lovely chat with the head this morning in which she expressed her faith in me that I wouldn’t let the school down at the meeting – “you know everything because you did that work on the SEF. You know our strengths and what we are doing towards improvement. You’ll be fine.” And she refused to listen when I admitted that I can’t remember what I had for breakfast by 1pm each day, let alone the work I did on the SEF, so it looks like I have been well and truly roped in.

In fairness, I am quite looking forward to it. There is so much good about the school and plenty that I can say that is positive. I’m slightly nervous about what questions they may ask, but am resolved to have another thorough look at the school development plan, that SATs results and the SEF between now and Monday.

I feel pretty confident that all things are pointing to the school being outstanding, but I really, really don’t want it to be governors knowledge of their responsibilities that lets everyone down.

We’ll see, I guess!

With schools being warned of the credit crunch hitting them,  I wondered what 2009 may bring for English education generally.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

• More pupils. It has been predicted that people who would otherwise send their children to private school will cut back by sending their children to state schools instead.

• Less money for building. Building works are often initially financed by the private sector, which is finding it difficult to get credit these days.

• Another potential disaster regarding SATs marking. Although this is wishful thinking on my part as the prediction is that if Edexcel muck up in the same way as the previous contractors did, then SATS may be dumped altogether.

• Reviews of potential changes to the primary curriculum. Personally, I find this really exciting, so long as it will allow greater flexibility. At last, it seems that the people in charge are looking at skills as well as content.

• Moving towards on-line, real time reporting to parents. Secondary schools should really be getting going with this in 2009. (My previous blog was on this topic.

• Change in legislation to give schools the power to search pupils for drugs and alcohol.

• School reports. By this I mean giving schools grades. There is talk of giving schools an overall grade of A-F as a means of giving parents another way to judge schools (as opposed to just looking at exam results). The grade will cover all aspects of school life such as exam results, attendance, wellbeing of pupils, progress of pupils etc.

• Developments in getting parents more involved in their children’s learning. This seems to be an important issue to Jim Knight, and not before time in my humble opinion. I’m looking forward to seeing how schools will do this.

• Changes to governing bodies. I remember hearing rumours last year that GBs will become smaller and be more answerable to schools’ stakeholders
  

• I am absolutely sure there is more. Feel free to add anything I’ve missed.