At Purple Governance we recognise that External Reviews of Governance are an extremely powerful tool in improving governance in schools.
Jane Owens is vastly experienced in this field and as a Governance Reviewer can support your governing body in the following key areas:
- Areas of strength to build upon
- Areas for development
- Focused action plan to move forward
- Help your school move towards outstanding practice
What is an External Review of Governance?
[Information taken from the National College of Teaching and Leadership]
An external review of governance looks at how well your school’s governing body is working. An external system leader or governance professional works with the governing body, headteacher and clerk to improve the performance of your governing body.
If you’re a reviewer or want to conduct a review please read the external reviews of governance: what’s involved guidance.
Ofsted will sometimes recommend that a school has a review. In this case, the purpose of the review is to enable a school to move from a rating of ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ to at least ‘good’.
The review is offered as support to improve and develop governance, and not as an additional inspection. It will help your governing body identify priorities for improvement, and provide support on what steps to take.
It aims to help your governing body to:
- be more skilled, focused and effective
- be more aware of the freedoms that it has to work in different ways
- be clear in its vision for the school or academy and how, together with the school leadership team, it can achieve this
- be confident that it has a clear delineation of roles and responsibilities
- have the right number of skilled and committed governors to meet the needs of the school or academy
- hold school leaders to account for improving outcomes for all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged
- be clear about how it ensures that its young people are well prepared to be responsible citizens in Britain
Performance and Impact Reviews
If you have benefited from an External Review of Governance, Jane can arrange to assess your performance and impact by undertaking a short evaluation of the governing board’s progress towards meeting the objectives in your action plan.
If you would like more details about what Purple Governance can do for you, then please get in touch.
Mentoring
As part of her role as an NLG, Jane is able to offer free support to Chairs of Governors. These conversations (deployments) are confidential but, as part of the remit, The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) need to be informed that a deployment is taking place. If you need some external support please contact Jane. Jane also has other colleagues available if she is unable to assist you.
The National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL)
Further information about the role of National Leaders of Governance can be found via this link to The National College and blogs about governance.
https://nctl.blog.gov.uk/category/school-led-system/nlg/
Testamonials
Those who I have worked with have been happy to share their thoughts about my work. Equally, an acknowledgement of the work I have done with a board has been noted within Oftsed’s monitoring visits or re-inspections :
The session was useful and you put it across well in a style that delivered some hard messages in a non threatening way’ Headteacher ******** School
The school also receives support from an NLG… there are clear plans for enhanced involvement of governors in the life of the school..the school’s leaders and governors, governors in particular, are benefiting from an outside view, for example, in how information to governors is presented and how their visits to school may be most effectively arranged
Governance is more robust and rigorous than previously as a result of governors’ work with a consultant. The number of governors has been reduced, roles and responsibilities reviewed and clarified, and procedures agreed to ensure governors challenge from a well-informed position. For instance, staff with particular responsibilities are compiling updates for the governing body’ Monitoring visit July 2013
As a result, the governing body has drafted an action plan and started to increase the impact they have. The Chair of the Governing Body is determined that appropriate sub-committees will be in place by November to challenge and support the school.
Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection HMI Monitoring Report