Non-judgemental governors' visits

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?