Thematic report |
School Governors - Acting as critical friends and the impact of governor training
This report is written in response to a request for advice from the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language in his remit letter to Estyn for 2022-2023. It concerns the work of governing bodies in maintained primary, secondary, all-age and special schools. We focused on what makes a governing body effective.
Recommendations
Governing bodies and schools should:
- R1 Improve governors’ ability to challenge senior leaders about all aspects of the school’s work
- R2 Ensure that governors have regular and worthwhile opportunities to observe first-hand the progress that their school is making towards meeting its priorities
- R3 Undertake regular self-evaluation of the work of the governing body to identify strengths and areas to improve
- R4 Evaluate the impact of governor training on their role as effective strategic leaders and identify future training requirements
Local authorities and school improvement services should:
- R5 Evaluate the quality of their governor training more rigorously to make improvements where needed
- R6 Collaborate to ensure greater coherence and consistency in high-quality training opportunities between different parts of the country
- R7 Provide more effective support and advice to governing bodies to help them in their role as effective strategic leaders
The Welsh Government should:
- R8 Update the guidance for local authorities on what to include in training for school governors on understanding the role of data in supporting self-evaluation and improvement in schools in line with national changes to assessment practices
- R9 Produce information on the important role of parent governors to help encourage parents, particularly those from different ethnic minority backgrounds, to apply to become a parent governor
- R10 Create a competency framework to assist governing bodies improve their effectiveness