Jonathan Ellam

In this blog I’ll explore what we mean by a team game and (cue some understandable groans!) I am going to use the analogy of football to see where the similarities lie and, how as boards, we can learn from the ‘beautiful game’!

This, and our next blog, will be focussed on supporting governors and trustees to explore the concept, challenges and benefits of flexible working in schools with a follow up focussed on taking action to embrace flexible leadership models when recruiting a headteacher.

The answer is simply everything that matters. There’s such a multitude of challenges for schools and boards currently that to divine what to focus on can be a challenge in itself. In this blog we will try to capture some of what’s currently bubbling away for governors and trustees.

The current challenges facing schools, and therefore by default governors and trustees, may at times feel hard to prioritise and manage. In this blog we will try to support with ensuring the impossible feels a bit more possible.

Effective school governance plays a major part in ensuring that schools and academies are accountable to all stakeholders, well managed and focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for all their pupils. One method of checking this is with a self-review of your governing body/ trust board. A self-evaluation enables board members to assess their performance, review governance practices, and ensure they remain on track with their strategic priorities.

As guidance for both the academy and maintained sectors on risk management becomes clearer, and further aligned, we will look beyond the traditional SWOT analysis, used by many to identify risk, to the much wider scope of a risk register and ‘emerging risk radar’ underpinned by PESTLE analysis.

What follows is neither an endorsement of the new DfE guidance or a criticism of its aims and scope but rather a piece to hopefully stimulate discussion by boards so that a new perspective can be brought to bear on this thorny topic.

This blog touches upon recent developments in safeguarding including an update from Ofsted on its approach to inspection and looks in more detail at the school Single Central Record (SCR) and the collective responsibility of governors for safeguarding.

According to the recent NGA Annual governance survey 77% of boards are struggling with recruitment and retention, up from 50% in 2015. There’s no corresponding data on succession planning but suffice to say this is having a knock-on effect on boards ability to recruit and/or plan succession to the Chairs role and as importantly the Vice chair role.

As another academic year draws to a close this is an opportunity to consider different ways of working for the new academic year, new thinking on our approach to the various challenges that lie ahead and to reflect on what worked well and areas for improvement from the past year.

Closing the gap between the disadvantaged and their peers is an ongoing challenge for many schools. One of the many damaging impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic is to widen the gap.

The experience of being Chair of the school or academy board can best be summed up by the three letters AOB – despite the best laid plans it’s the unexpected items that make the job challenging, unpredictable and occasionally exciting and rewarding.