governors visits - Doubled Up

HELP!!! I had a bit of a problem this morning! One of my friends, whose daughter has just started in Reception at our school was looking upset at drop off. When I asked her what the problem was, she launched into a tirade about how awful her daughter's teacher was, how horrible her daughter, Christine, had been made to feel and how she is already refusing to come to school or to be put into another class. And, I have to say, if everything she said is true, then she has a very good point. Apparently, whenever a child does anything 'naughty', they are shouted at and/or belittled and this mum has gone as far as to ask another parent who helps out with the class who has confirmed this.

Anyway, I towed the party line , by saying that it was a bit awkward for me to comment as I am the link governor to this class, but that she must make an appointment to see the teacher and express her concerns.

"But, Libby, I'm not going to change her teaching style now, am I?" she asked.  So, I suggested that if she had no luck there, she should ask for a meeting with both the teacher and the teacher's line manager. Then, if things still didn't change, she should go to the Head.

I'm finding this a really difficult situation, because I can really empathise with my friend as far as this teacher's communication skills with parents go. But, of course, whenever I visit the class, the language used is always positive, there is no shouting and the lessons are great fun.

Because I believe so strongly in having a positive atmosphere in a school, I find it hard that I am unable to do anything about it. I wonder if anyone has any suggestions about how I could tactfully deal with this.

I have been tidying up my folders on my computer (housework avoidance tactic) and couldn't resist reading through some old governor visit reports (I really am desperate not to get the hoover out, aren't I?)

Really, some of them are utterly pointless. Despite discussing at meetings that they should concentrate on an aspect of the SDP (in particular  on writing skills amongst boys), they still just serve as a big pat on the back for the school. "Oh, what a lovely school we have" "Oh, how sweet the children are" "Gosh, they are so sweet" "Look how the children hold hands on the way to assembly"

One of them was an A4 side on how "lovely" the gardening day was and how this particular governor's family enjoyed it. It went into great detail about how the men had dug a vegetable patch, while she had cleared some weeds and enjoyed chatting with other parents at the same time. Although it didn't quite descend into the realms of ice cold lemonade and cucumber sandwiches, I found myself screaming at the computer "TEACHING AND LEARNING, TEACHING AND LEARNING".

Now, don't get me wrong. I know how valuable the gardening day is - I went myself and I too enjoyed chatting with other parents (although the absence of cucumber sandwiches was rather upsetting). I, however, saved my gushy comments for an article on the website encouraging others parents to join in on the next gardening day. And on my governor visits I concentrated on - wait for it - teaching and learning.

I wonder how other governing bodies go about getting this right? Is there some kind of training out there for whole governing bodies? I appreciate that not all members have teaching experience and I know that this has its own value, but I do think that it is a waste of everyone's time to concentrate on things such as gardening days.

Next full governing body meeting we will (hopefully) be voting in a new Chair - maybe she will make things a bit clearer to everyone.

One of the governor visit reports that we were sent prior to the last meeting has caused quite a stir! I'm not surprised really, as the governor concerned questioned whether the Learning Objectives were met and also commented on the fact that one group of children was left without help/comment for half of the lesson. Despite the fact that these comments were surrounded by praise for plenty of good practice that was seen, I am not really surprised that the teacher was upset by it.

I see that it is important that visits are not carried out as if they were a peer lesson observation or an inspection. Firstly, most governors are not teachers and are not qualified to make such judgements and, secondly, this is a public report and it must be painfully embarrassing for the teacher concerned to know that all 17 governors (including her colleagues, the head teacher and a couple of parents of children who will be in her class next year) will be reading it.

However, I also know that the governor in question is a teacher and is qualified to make such observations. I also think that it is worrying if learning objectives are not reached. I wonder how other governing bodies handle this - do they talk to the teacher concerned first, or have a quiet word with the head teacher if they see something that concerns them?

I come back to the thing that I picked up from my initial governor training - that we are there with the best interest of the children at heart. Consequently, issues have to be addressed. But how best to go about it?