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What is effective school governance?: The Late Late Show with Lee Pace · Teachers Talk Radio

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Good evening everyone and welcome to the Lake Lake Show with myself Lee Pace
1:23
and I have a special guest tonight Andy Char.
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Hi Andy, how are you? Gary, good are you?
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I'm very good thank you, I'm very good. I'll just do a quick readout from our
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Thank you to that. I actually met the company, not the company,
1:58
the people from the company, Teachers Talk Connect.
2:00
And it was nice to put a face to these readouts that I've been doing for a few
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months now. So that was really, really good.
2:07
So tonight we're going to talk about governance. And I think when we came up
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with this idea, I thought, oh, what can we talk about governance? And then it took me back.
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It took me back to when I started teaching a long, long time.
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We were 24 years ago in 2002.
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And when I started teaching, a governing body was a bit of a mystery to me.
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All I knew was I had on a deputy. I had to go to this meeting at night.
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And I said, when you start teaching, you start September, so the nights are
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getting dark. So it was in the dark.
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And they tend to start the meeting at 7 o'clock back in those days.
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And my experience, I was a bit earlier.
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And then they wouldn't come away until 10 p.m. because I knew that because in
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the morning the head and the deputy would be complaining,
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and then a couple of years later I was the the head of maths at the school so
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they invited me to to a governance meeting and I did my input about you know
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I was a new head of maths and,
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it's such an important role and it'd been ahead of a core subject and I went I went to the meeting and.
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I did my bit. Then it just seemed to me like three hours of just chit-chat and having a bit of a laugh.
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And somebody brought biscuits, and that was really funny for some reason.
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And then I thought, is it me just being miserable? Because I said,
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can we just get on with this?
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Because I've just seen their agenda, and it's 17 pages. It wasn't 17 pages. It's probably 17 items.
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Yeah, yeah. That's my initial experience of governing bodies.
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So over to you. Do you want to introduce yourself first?
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And then we'll crack on with what we're going to talk about.
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I will. Well, that's a really interesting intro, actually. We'll get on to that
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subject. But yeah, thanks for inviting me, Andy Chell.
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Been involved in governance for about 25 years now. He's been the one constant
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throughout all my career.
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Career has been mainly in engineering actually going to
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be an apprentice right through to be managing director of
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a manufacturing business got really
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disillusioned with the whole engineering side i went into education
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became chief exec of a multi-academy trust for a
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couple of years and then joined fe and he is
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director of curriculum for leadership management for level
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six and level seven programs but i say governance has been
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the one constant throughout my whole career the one thing
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i've really believed in so the one thing that uh whatever
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changes in your life it's the one thing i've always
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done and the reason is because i'm passionate about it i'm passionate about
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giving every child the best educational experience possible and i believe that
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governance is a method not the only method but a method of doing that yeah thanks
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for that and thanks for going on and i just want to let the viewers know that
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when i first went on to linkedin which was about 2020. I know we talked about
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this in the day, didn't we?
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People who were warned me about LinkedIn didn't be people on there selling you snake oil.
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You're the first ever person to direct message me, I think.
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Definitely the first person to direct message me. You said you're fancy having a Zoom call. I thought,
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what does want to sell me? That was the initial thing.
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Then we just chatted and I thought, oh right so there's normal people here as well.
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Well it's fair to what you call normal i guess but yes but linkedin's not quite
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everything i thought it's going to be so much better than matching amazing people
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through linkedin so look you you helped me get over that fear the thought of
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social media and now look at me now and,
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It's just social media, Lee. This is social media. And I love on my own show.
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And I've even got a T-shirt today. You can't. Oh, wrong way.
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I can't see that. I have got T-shirt jealousy, as you can see.
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Now, the first time I said to my staff, I've got my own radio show,
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they said, what music did you play?
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No, it's not quite how it works. Not quite how it works.
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So going back to my original sort of story about a governing body,
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I had no idea what it was. So, can you just tell us what the governing body is?
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Well, in effect, the governing body is there to set the strategic direction,
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to oversee the data and oversee the finance.
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That's very much an oversimplified view of governance.
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But they're not there to run the school day-to-day. They're there to challenge, to ask questions.
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And the experience that you had, Lee, that you mentioned, is typical.
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It's typical. Not so much these days. I've got to say, governance has got more
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professional over the years.
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But certainly, the experience that you had is what I used to find 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
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I spent, when the Department of Education introduced the National Leaders of
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Governance, I became one of the National Leaders of Governance.
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I was in the fifth cohort quite early on and did training to do external reviews of governance.
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So I used to go around lots and lots of schools. And one example I'll share
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with you, very small rural primary school in the deepest, darkest Worcestershire, I think it was.
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And it was a lovely school. And the meeting itself was lovely.
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It really was. But it wasn't effective. You know, it was as you described.
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It started at seven o'clock, went on for goodness knows how long.
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Somebody had baked a cake. Somebody had made an elderflower cordial.
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And it was lovely. But really all right.
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Well, actually, I didn't try, but I'm sure he was, actually. I'm sure he was.
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But the chair of governors, no, she was a lovely lady, but she hadn't got a computer.
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She hadn't got the internet, so she couldn't communicate with governors at all.
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And during the meetings, and this, I'm not exaggerating here,
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during the meetings, the head teacher, his tactic was to drop a book on the
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floor every now and again to wake her up.
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And that's what used to happen. It probably ran more like a PTA,
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it's a parent-teacher association more than a governing
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board more than a governing board yeah it's just a shame
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you know because they were great they're really willing and they really want
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to do the best for the school and best for the children they absolutely did
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but they didn't understand what being a governor was all about and being a governor
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is about asking questions that's really what it's about and that's not asking
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questions so much that you don't trust the head teachers not that in the slightest
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it's asking those challenging questions because.
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Headship could be quite a lonely place really it's
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quite a lonely role being a head yeah and you
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know because being a head of a school no matter what size the school then
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you're in charge the boss so there's lots of
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things that you can't share with people around you unless you've
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got a close network of other head teachers your
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only network really is the governing boards and so
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it's easy to have that become a
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friendly relationship with the governors and that's
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when governance goes wrong you've got to keep that professional distance and
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and have that challenge ask questions you know
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and you want to ask questions i think seeing it through the eyes of
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my very first experience so there's a challenge would be if you
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think of a multi-academy trust now they have trustees and they
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also have a central team that will do really you know good quality quality assurance
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why do we still need governing bodies at local level then if you've got trustees
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at the trust level and you know quality assurance and now our director of education
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does quality assurance physics to.
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To our schools and they're excellent and really challenging
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and bring us on but why why do
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we still why do we still need governing bodies i think
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that's an interesting question because in law in governance law
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in the dfe you don't because the only
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legal form of governance is the trust board
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level so in theory you could you know you could
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do away with them with guns at school level at academy level
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and the schools would still run my argument is
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that the schools would still run but they'd
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still run better with governments because they'll ask that those
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questions and they might depend on the scheme of delegations to
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handle that powers you give to the local governing board because the you've
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still got to retain the overall control at trust board level you can't get away
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from that because the only legal entity is is the trust board but the local
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governors they're the hiding these they're the boots on the ground they're the
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ones that are going to ask the questions about standards,
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about questions about where do we want this to go, the vision,
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and ask those challenging questions.
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Be able to triangulate the data. They're the ones that are going to be able
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to go into the school, talk to the children, talk to the staff.
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You know, not to interfere, not to run it operationally, but to ask those questions
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just to help steer the ship.
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Yeah, I know. I suppose my experience of really, really effective governance
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is when I meet with my link governor.
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Yes. You know, she's a teacher, So she knows schools really, really well.
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And I think when I've been challenged by her, it kind of reaffirms if I'm doing it okay.
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Or actually, you could improve this bit as well. Or it makes you really, really take a back seat.
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And I think they ask questions you're not expecting sometimes.
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You know i think that's that's it and sometimes the
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questions are more specific so they might ask about you know
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you might get asked about pedagogical curricula she might
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be asking what's that look like in your suits and are
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you making sure about it to getting good such results and so it's
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it's probably a bit more targeted i think that they
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are you're right they are i only
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think you could you could pick up my um reluctance about
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about that because i i have maybe at
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times a bit of a controversial view about the role of lean governors because
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lean governors have got to add value otherwise
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there's no point in in having them and uh when i
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first became a governor i said 25 odd years ago i
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was i was i can't remember what what subject it was i think
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it was geography i can't quite remember now and i went into
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the the school to meet with the geography leader
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of the school and i wasted 45 minutes of her time of her valuable time because
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i hadn't got a clue i hadn't i hadn't done geography for 20 years at school
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so i didn't you know what what did i know i didn't know what questions to ask
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and i went back to the head teacher afterwards at the end of the meeting and
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just said you know we think of a deep brief.
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And i said i was quite honest i said you know i've just wasted
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45 minutes of the the geography leads time and on
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the back of that as a governing board we revisited
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the role of linked governors and realized they weren't
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adding value you know so what we did at the
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school was change them to areas of the school development
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plan or school improvement plan so because they
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were linked to the offset outcomes so we put and link governors in with the
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areas of the school development plan and that worked that added value again
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yes you've got to be careful with link governors they go into school and they
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start talking operationally they start talking about the intent and implementation and not the impact.
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And that's the difficult bit. Governors are there to talk about the impact,
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not the intent or the implementation.
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So let's go down there a little bit then. So that's strategic versus operational.
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I think that's always tricky.
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I think particularly for governors, particularly for governors,
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Particularly for governors who perhaps don't understand the role as a really
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high leadership strategic role.
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So, again, a bit of an idiot's guide for people like me. The difference between
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strategic and operational, if you don't mind.
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Being strategic is the why we're doing things. The operation is the what are we doing.
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So there's a few grey areas, Lee, as there always are, but generally speaking…
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Well, I've got one here, don't worry.
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Generally speaking governors don't get around don't get involved with the operational
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so what's happening day to day they're there to look at the strategic so they're
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there to look at what's happening in three years time what's happening in a
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year's time asking those questions you know why are we you know why are we doing this yeah,
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The reason is that there are gray areas is, and I come back to what I said a
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few minutes ago, headship can be quite lonely.
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And so full governing board meeting, the head comes in and they want to talk
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about what's happening in the school. Absolutely natural, absolutely natural for that to happen.
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The real art there with governance is knowing when to stop that operational
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conversation and move on to the strategic.
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And what I've been doing in external reviews of governance, I tend to categorize
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them into different areas.
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And there's one category of reviews that comes. I call them the maths lesson.
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You're the maths fleet. I call them the maths lesson because that's the way I categorise them.
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And what I mean by that is when I go into the meetings, look at the minutes,
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what happens is they talk about the maths results.
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There's been a dip in the trend, whatever it is.
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Fantastic. There's some great questions. And then the conversation starts to
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move towards what they're actually doing.
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We're doing Singapore, whatever they're doing, that get involved within minutiae
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the day-to-day lesson planning and the
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governors are nodding along and you get to the end of that section and
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there's been no challenge they've got nowhere apart from
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allowing the head teacher to get that off their
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chest and there's an element of that which is cathartic it's
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great there's nothing wrong with an element of that but governors
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have got to know when okay we've now done that bit
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let's move it down to the strategic what are we doing
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about this trend you know what can we do about this trend
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yeah and that's an analogy being sorry no that's
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that's the main difference is the the governor the strategic is looking
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at the the impact you know the the implementation that's
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operational there are a few things which governors have got to get involved
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with operation they think like capability if there's a dip in finances then
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obviously they've got to get involved with that but as soon as they've solved
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those short term issues they need to step back again and go back to the strategic
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role so it's a great area I was thinking about,
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I read a really great blog the other day, actually.
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It was about why are schools so prone to fads?
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Robert Pondicio, I think that's how you pronounce the surname,
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and he talked about schools are really open to, and I'll go back to the classic
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one, visual, audio, and kind of set.
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So I suppose you could argue from a pedagogy perspective, it's an operational
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decision, but probably quite a bad one.
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So technically I'm thinking that operationally we could go and do VAC,
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I wouldn't, don't worry, and governors wouldn't be asking questions about it.
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But in the lessons, things aren't very good.
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But we can explain them through the lens of VAC because we believe in it as a staff.
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So how do governments get around that bit that we're making operationally poor decisions?
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It's just looking at the impact. That's all it is. So, governments won't get
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involved with deciding whether to use VAC, whether they're going to use White
17:05
Rose Teach or whatever. They don't get involved with that.
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All they're interested in, has it improved the educational experience of the
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children? That's all that they're interested in.
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And that's what you should be interested in. Yeah, I think that's a really good
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way of putting it. You sort of look at the end point.
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Yeah, you do. You don't look at the end point, ask the questions about the end point.
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Yes. Not looking at the data, looking at the reports, looking at if it's off-stack
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report or something like that. Yeah.
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And that's exactly what all governors should be doing is looking at that. Yeah.
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We have had a few comments come in, actually, some really good ones,
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Andy. So I can put them on.
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I don't know if you see them, but I don't see the comments, though.
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Let's have a look. that should come on the screen now so
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in terms of the role of governance can you see that i can
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yeah you know being that's a really good question to be honest and
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and yes yes it should and one of the main
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reasons for that is because we have elections for
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parent governors and yet we don't really explain
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to parents what the role actually is and i'm
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i'm a firm believer that we don't
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what we shouldn't be doing we shouldn't be recruiting any governor
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just to fill a space on the board shouldn't be doing that should
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be doing it based on the skills that are needed
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and and it's very easy to say we've got a vacancy for parent governor send out
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some elections and it might only be one one parent that uh that volunteers maybe
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it might be two it should becomes an election and that's fine but what if those
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two parents or those two people who want to put their names forward haven't
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got the skills that we need.
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That then becomes not right. So what we need to be doing is doing a job description.
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Even for a parent government, then we should be doing a job description explaining exactly what we need.
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And if they don't have the skills that we need, please don't apply.
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And be quite stern about it. Be quite stern about it. Because the composition is on the board.
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Yes, we've got to follow the scheme of delegation. We've got to follow the Articles Association.
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Of course we have. But it's the skills that we need. And gone are the days where
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when Ofsted come in, if you hadn't got a full governing board,
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they were unhappy. Gone are those days.
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All they're interested now, have we got the right skills around the table to do the job?
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And explaining it to parents would be absolutely 100% we should be doing that.
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Explaining what the roles of the parents and the parent governor.
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Because parent governors aren't the parent representatives.
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They're not there to report back to the parents the next day,
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which has happened in the past.
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Lee, I know when we spoke about this last week, same with the staff governors.
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The staff governors aren't there to the staff representative,
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and that's happened in the past.
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The governing board meetings happened at seven o'clock on a Monday evening,
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next morning in the staff room, then the staff governor is reporting back to the staff.
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They can't do that, because it's confidential until the minutes have been signed
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off as a true record, which might take three months, depending on the cycle
20:03
of governing board meetings. So that's a great question.
20:07
And the other one, this might want us to unpick a little bit,
20:11
which is Josh, do you recommend cross-phase governance?
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So, for example, say I could be a teacher looking for some leadership experience
20:18
by joining a primary governor.
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Can that type of governance provide good challenge and insights to the other phase?
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Yes. My hesitation, Josh, was that I'm a believer in having through education.
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I would love to see through education from two to two to 18 for example you
20:38
know it won't happen perhaps not well i hope it might be wanted probably not
20:42
in my lifetime but i'd like to see i'd like to see that so having that that
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that experience across phases yes i think it's it's
20:51
ideal because unfortunately when you get so um in
20:54
primary they'd like to think what what skills
20:57
they need to give to the children once they reach middle in
21:00
your case or secondary but they don't
21:03
really and the same as that secondary secondary always moan
21:06
that primary sector don't give them the skills that they need so having that
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cross fertilization of ideas i think it's absolutely idea i'm big yeah big believe
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in that i think i'm quite lucky with this one you know we don't go all through
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of course but i'm in a middle school and we got some really good questions from
21:24
governors about transition,
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not from the first schools to us, but from years six to seven.
21:31
Right, because in five and six, we run a primary model, but in seven and eight,
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we run a secondary model.
21:38
It's really tricky, but it really, really worked for our students.
21:41
It helps us transition. It helps us transition. It helps us transition.
21:44
Help that enormously, yeah.
21:46
And also how different teachers see their role.
21:51
On one end of the school, you've got a science specialist, the other end of
21:55
the school, a year five primary teacher. Yes. It's very beautiful.
21:59
Generalist skills. Yeah, very difficult. So thank you for that,
22:02
Josh. Yeah, thanks, Josh. Yeah, great question. I know.
22:05
There's another great question. Sorry?
22:08
From Mabin as well, another good question. Yeah. So I'm just looking at,
22:12
there's quite a few comments.
22:14
I've never had so many comments, Andy. You must be inspiring people.
22:18
Oh, this is an interesting one. I'm inferring now. I'm a LinkedIn user, so there's no name.
22:24
I think that's a popular person, wins usually.
22:27
I assume this is Lyds, the parent governance.
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I'm assuming so as well. And yes, I 100% agree.
22:34
And that's why I think that there should be job descriptions for parent governors.
22:40
And if they haven't got the skills that they need, then they don't go through to that election.
22:44
So you're absolutely right. They're the ones that's most popular in the playground,
22:49
historically, are the ones which win the elections. I agree.
22:52
And if you just do it to fill vacancies, okay.
22:58
But it's not the right way of getting government it's not professional you wouldn't do that,
23:02
I often liken governors to being a non-executive director
23:05
of a company a big organization because they are really because they're non-executive
23:10
directors are the ones that look at the strategic side and if you want to be
23:14
a non-executive director or a trustee of a charity I'm a trustee of two charities
23:18
you know I had to go through a rigorous interview process to become a trustee of a.
23:25
Pretty small to be honest but you know so let's
23:28
go through a rigorous interview process and quite rightly
23:31
you know and the questions were around what skills have you
23:34
got what skills will you bring to us as a you know as
23:36
a charity absolutely the right questions do
23:40
you think that kind of question is that reflective of the
23:43
status of governing bodies that actually you get
23:45
on because you're popular in any other role you simply
23:49
wouldn't get a job would you have not seen it as job
23:52
a voluntary one it is a job of work yeah we're
23:56
effectively we're public servants you know we're unpaid public servants.
23:59
As governors but it is a job of work and you're absolutely right i
24:02
think the interesting thing that people perhaps don't understand about governance it's
24:06
the largest volunteering organization in england people think
24:09
about scouting and guiding bigger than that
24:12
there's something like i don't know the exact figures something like
24:15
300 000 school governors and trustees that
24:18
give their time selflessly to help in
24:21
the educational experience of children but you're right it doesn't
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it doesn't get the attention it deserves i agree no and
24:27
i just it's just something that pops in the head as well because my degree
24:30
is in law so i go back to things like that but if you think about
24:33
a magistrate yeah they wouldn't get a
24:36
job because they're popular that's a voluntary role it is
24:39
so obviously a very important role
24:42
but so is being a member of a governing body yeah it is important okay right
24:48
let's let's let's move on challenge so you took you briefly took strength you
24:53
know a governor a governor's role is to ask questions so how do we know they
24:59
can ask good questions what's that even look like.
25:03
It's one of my pet subjects effective challenge it really is i love talking
25:07
about effective challenge because well a great a great friend of mine well i'll
25:13
i'll tell her a name she might be listening fiona stag she came with a phrase
25:17
a few years ago called curious questions count.
25:21
Fantastic phrase i just think it's a fantastic phrase i do every time i say
25:26
i do name checker So if you're on this, I do name check every single curious questions count.
25:32
It's having that natural curiosity.
25:35
Challenge isn't all about not believing. It's not about that at all.
25:41
I did an external review of governance at a school a few years ago and spoke
25:46
to the head teacher on her own, actually, without the chair of governors,
25:49
and she broke down in tears.
25:52
She broke down. She got really upset during the meeting because
25:55
the governors questioned everything everything and
25:59
she said they don't believe me they don't believe what i what i say you
26:02
know and that that was her perception the governors thought they
26:05
were doing everything right when i spoke to the governors they generally thought
26:08
that that's what was needed was to question everything but it
26:12
isn't so that getting that balance right
26:15
is quite difficult i've got to say and there's no
26:18
there's no silver bullet if you like that says
26:21
this is how you how you challenge because sometimes what
26:26
you're given the data if it feels right then
26:29
you've got to make that judgment call sometimes well don't challenge
26:32
it don't ask the questions but having said that when i was doing the work for
26:36
national leaders of government leader of government quite a few years ago now
26:39
i had a phone call for chair of governors and the open i'm not joking when i
26:43
say this the opening comment was we want to sack the head teacher how do we
26:47
do it that was the opening statement so.
26:51
Talk through. And basically what happened, I won't divulge what the school quite
26:55
obviously, but what happened was the head teacher, primary, the head teacher
27:00
told the governors that predicted such results, fantastic, you have a great year.
27:06
You probably even know where this story is going already, Lady Perfie,
27:08
as such results came in, it wasn't a great year, you know, by any way, or form.
27:14
Next year, the head teacher is saying, but next year, the current year five,
27:17
are they're amazing they gel together well so predicted
27:20
results going to be great following july course same
27:24
thing happened again third year very much now three
27:27
years the third year the governors thought perhaps we
27:30
ought to go and talk to the year six teacher maybe that's what
27:33
we ought to do so i went into the school year six teacher
27:36
perplexed wondering how they
27:38
don't know about the contextual information why governors
27:41
don't know that in traditional language why there's high
27:44
scnd why there's high mobility why they
27:47
don't know that why they don't know that sat results are never
27:50
going to be at national and um i
27:53
did say to the governor i'm sorry but it's your fault it's your
27:56
fault you haven't challenged you haven't asked questions you've
27:59
not done your job in triangulation all they've
28:02
done is they've accepted the head teacher report at face value and
28:06
unfortunately it got to the stage where it
28:09
was career change of the head teacher it was career change there was no
28:12
way back there's no way back but it was the governor's fault
28:15
because they weren't challenging weren't challenging and
28:18
i mentioned before that when i
28:21
look at schools and i've got various categories i've also got a category for
28:26
reviews of groups i call the silent board because you talk to them you say yeah
28:30
yeah we challenge yeah we ask questions but it's not in the minutes and if it's
28:34
not in the minutes it didn't happen it's as simple as that if it's not But in
28:38
a minute, it didn't happen.
28:40
You know, but I think they're challenging. And they might be having a conversation.
28:44
But, and I'm sure that we'll get on to this subject at some point,
28:48
the clerk hasn't recorded it. Hasn't been the challenge.
28:52
So that challenge is really important, but it's a fine balance between asking
28:57
questions out of curiosity, asking questions about what's happening with the
29:01
impact versus coming across as not trusting the headteacher.
29:06
And that's a really good balance.
29:07
I think on the flip side of that, again, I remember I've lived a career for
29:12
20 years. That's how old I am.
29:14
And early up in the first or second school of work there, I felt the opposite.
29:20
It i felt that there's kind of some good questions coming at me but i could tell them anything,
29:27
and i suppose it's that art of questioning and it's it's
29:30
it's yeah and that's hard isn't it
29:33
that must be hard for the government as well because i'm you know
29:36
it's not saying that doesn't mean
29:38
i was crap i don't think but he's
29:43
triangulation that's that's the key thing is triangulation if
29:46
if what you're being told is the
29:50
same as what you're seeing to what you
29:53
know what you're reading then generally it's right it's right but yet the common
29:57
message then generally it's right triangulation is the the real key skill of
30:01
of governors just and i know i've not really thought about this one but it's
30:06
something i'm always very wary of this is and that's Governor Learning Walks,
30:12
whilst we're on the subject of triangulation, because it's for me.
30:17
Governor Learning Walks, fine, of course, it's their school.
30:20
They should be able to go and walk around.
30:23
But I don't think they should be judging teaching. And I've heard stories,
30:28
not our governing body, because they were really lucky, but they're going around
30:35
and sort of saying, this teacher's okay, this teacher is not okay.
30:39
I don't like the way that teacher approaches that.
30:42
To me, that's not their job. So I think we need something better than saying,
30:47
governors are going today for a learning walk.
30:49
Well, they're not really, because
30:50
that's not their job and they're not qualified. I'm going to drunk it up.
30:55
What are your thoughts there? 100% agree.
31:00
Governors need to go into school because they need to see the impact of the
31:03
work they're doing. They've got to do that.
31:05
Some will be working full-time, obviously, so some can't do it.
31:08
But there needs to be representation of governors going into school.
31:11
I always say to governors, going into school, leave your notepad at home.
31:16
Don't go into a lesson with your notepad because it looks like
31:19
you're inspecting it looks like you're judging and that's absolutely
31:22
fundamentally wrong go into school and be
31:25
in the world of the children talk to the children now what are
31:28
you learning now what are you really enjoying talk to the
31:30
teacher about their teaching style but don't come
31:33
come out and go to the head teacher and say well i
31:36
don't know if you've heard this i don't know if this is one of these urban myths
31:39
or what i don't know but story i heard years ago
31:43
was ofsted went into two schools and
31:46
did their lesson observations as ofsted do and the
31:49
first one children were all engaged absolutely fantastic
31:53
lesson plan was in place teacher was
31:55
doing a great job but when they did the book scans then
31:59
the books haven't been marked there's graffiti all over
32:01
the books you know so so what they were seeing wasn't triangulating
32:06
with what they were you know what they were being told conversely
32:09
another school where during an offset inspection the
32:13
teacher planned to do silent reading would
32:16
you believe so during the during the inspection now i
32:19
don't say this might be an urban myth i don't know but it's a story i was i
32:22
was told from a reliable source but you know the inspectors went with it and
32:26
did all their checks and everything was absolutely perfect so which is the better
32:30
lesson yeah yeah which is which is why now of course offset don't give a judgment
32:35
on the day You know, they do it over time.
32:38
Yeah. And so governors can't go into a lesson and give a judgment on the day.
32:41
If AFSA don't do it, governors can't. No.
32:44
I'm fundamentally wrong they can't do that.
32:47
No, it's highly operational, isn't it? Actually, the nitty-gritty of teaching
32:51
math lesson two, algebra, is very, very operational. It is. But I still do it.
32:57
And a vast majority of governors aren't educationalists. They're not academics.
33:02
You know, they might be from...
33:05
Non-working parents they might be from the business world you
33:07
know from all sorts of backgrounds which is what which
33:10
is what gives governance its value is those different perspectives
33:13
so they can't go in when you've
33:18
got governors who are from the educational sector then they're
33:21
doing learning walks it becomes trickier because they
33:24
can't help but look at it through an educationalist's eyes
33:28
so that becomes tricky that's why i generally
33:31
say governors who are from education probably
33:35
aren't the best to do learning walks probably not the
33:38
best just because they would find it too difficult to
33:41
detach themselves from the operational yeah so i've
33:45
i've i've heard this again it's that great area isn't it so when i hear a girl
33:50
from a go around the school and they'll just say it feels really purposeful
33:54
i thought it's okay yeah i think that's okay that's a really that's like a feeling
33:59
isn't it it feels really purposeful it feels like everyone knows what they're doing,
34:04
it feels dynamic so I think the children are happy.
34:10
They engage with the learning they're more talking to the team,
34:15
So I think that's what I look for. Right, before we get on to the role of the
34:18
clerk, I'll just do a quick ad read.
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35:02
Thank you to AQA for that. Okay, the role of the clerk.
35:07
I was going to ask you, but you've already said it. Is it clerk or clerk?
35:11
I worked for a head teacher once, and she always said it was a clerk.
35:15
And I noticed it looks like that. I've heard both. I say clerk. I do.
35:20
Others say clerk. I don't know which is the correct pronunciation.
35:24
I'm going to go with clerk because I'm too old to change now,
35:27
and I've been saying that for so many years now.
35:29
So what do they do other than take a few minutes? Seems easy.
35:36
Well, if you break it down, that's what they do, is they take the minutes.
35:39
So they sit there and they write down what's been going on.
35:43
I tend to, more and more, the clerks have been coming probably leaning towards
35:50
government professionals over the past few years.
35:53
And I think that probably started about 2021-ish when the competency framework
35:59
for clerking came out from the Department for Education. I think that's when...
36:03
The industry of clerking probably became more professionalized
36:07
if you like clerks governance professionals
36:10
i class them as the uh the quiet engine
36:14
room behind governance because they're there to
36:17
keep things legal and i mentioned about non-executive directors before
36:20
i would class the clerks or the governance professionals
36:23
being the company secretary it's those people in the
36:26
background that are sitting there that are just watching what's
36:29
going on advising what's going on and
36:32
really you know if you think about the taking the minutes minutesly
36:36
what the clerking's also doing they're looking
36:38
for evidence of challenge as well they're also looking
36:42
for evidence of where the meeting's becoming too operational
36:45
and stopping the meeting and say we need to
36:48
move this to strategic i've done clerking in
36:50
the past and i work now as a government professional in two months
36:53
and and i'm quite happy stopping a meeting
36:56
and say we're having this discussion we need to
36:59
turn these into questions yeah we need to turn these
37:02
into challenge we need to do that because it's
37:05
very very easy to get involved with a conversation and.
37:08
Not realize that i hate
37:12
to say ofsted's a game i hate to say that to a certain
37:15
extent it is because when offset come in they've only
37:18
got a limited amount of time to look at governance so they
37:21
look at minutes the challenge has got to shout at them
37:23
so i will say to clerks comes professionals put
37:27
challenge in bold or put it in red do something
37:30
that makes it stand out on the page and make
37:33
sure that challenge is really effective you know
37:36
it's not just not just well what
37:39
maths are we doing this week you know or or why you know why why do we do french
37:45
on a friday afternoon you know it's not those sort of sort of questions it's
37:48
that challenge what impact is this having on the education experience of the
37:52
children what impact is this having on the financial side of the business consortia of businesses.
37:59
So clerks are doing more now than just sitting there and taking minutes.
38:03
And again, external reviews of governors, one thing they do is look at the minutes.
38:07
That's what you analyse the minutes and you look for evidence of effective challenge.
38:11
So also it's a compliance role then, or it's developing into a compliance role.
38:16
Is that fair to say? More and more. Yeah, more and more. Yeah,
38:18
historically it wasn't.
38:19
Historically, the clerk was there to sit and take the minutes,
38:22
but more and more now becomes a compliance role.
38:26
Just making sure that the meters are focused making sure that
38:29
they're strategic making sure they're they're effective making sure
38:32
you've got that procedural integrity the legal compliance
38:35
making sure it's correct making sure you've got enough governors
38:38
there to actually make a decision you know if you haven't if you're not caught
38:42
typically core it might be depending on the scheme of delegation or the um after
38:47
the the articles typically 50 of governors plus one so if you've got 10 on your
38:52
governing board six governors less than that you can have the meeting but you can't make decisions.
38:57
Yeah. I don't know what they know. So we've got governance professional.
39:02
It comes to our government, Bobby Jancho, I'm sure she might mention her name.
39:07
It's that legal compliance and real technical stuff that's operating about it.
39:11
How do they know this stuff? I suppose.
39:14
It's experience. Yeah.
39:17
Some of it's like, I've never thought of that. So they need some depth to their
39:22
knowledge. It's incredible, really.
39:24
They do. They do, yes. Yeah, it's not something that you can just say,
39:28
oh, I fancy being a government professional.
39:30
Which is one of those things that you've got to have the experience to do it.
39:34
There's no other way of saying you've got to have the experience to do it. Yeah.
39:39
So we're going to move on now. And I know we talked about this phrase.
39:43
And I actually made you think, I think, before the show, horizon scanning.
39:48
Yeah. It's a phrase that you talk about all the time. I know now,
39:52
of course, we talk about all the time. I'm at leadership. I don't know how to talk about it.
39:56
I know we talk about it in our network meetings because I lead the network meetings.
40:01
But then I said to you, I wonder how many girlfriends know what that means.
40:04
And that was something you'd perhaps not thought about as much as I think about,
40:09
because I had done lots of work on it through an MBA. Yes.
40:14
So what kind of, well, what is horizon scanning and what should governors be doing?
40:19
It's really interesting, and you're right, I made an assumption wrongly that
40:24
people understood the phrase horizon scanning.
40:26
And like you, my role as director of curriculum, have
40:29
I been writing about horizon scanning so I made an assumption wrongly
40:33
that it was a common phrase so horizon scanning is
40:36
just looking what's happening out there what's what's the
40:39
next thing we need to be looking for and there's two big things
40:42
recently that governors need to be looking at
40:45
on the horizon the new offset framework what
40:48
does that mean for governors and the white paper what does
40:51
that mean for governors I've written two articles governor's guides to
40:54
the offset framework and a governor's guide to the white paper just
40:57
what they need to know because it's not something that's happening here
41:00
and now it's something that's going to be happening but what's going to
41:02
be you mentioned the word fad before what's the
41:05
next fad yeah it's the next big what's the next shiny thing that's uh that's
41:09
around the corner that's really what horizon scanning is just looking at that
41:13
horizon not looking at now looking at what's going to be happening in the next
41:17
year or so or six months yeah i know i know curriculum level we're looking at
41:21
a the curriculum an assessment review,
41:24
what that means for our subjects, even though it's not written yet. You know.
41:31
Obviously the Ofsted, the White State. What's that mean for our curriculums?
41:35
And whilst you can't actually put concrete structures in place now,
41:39
it's having an eye on the future, I think.
41:42
It is. That's exactly what it is. It's exactly what it is. Because HEP teachers are so busy,
41:48
probably possibly haven't got the time to do that
41:51
until it comes across their desk and that's one area
41:54
where governors really can add value is looking at
41:57
that horizon it's a job we said it's a
41:59
job of work and one of the jobs of work of a
42:02
governor is looking at things like the times
42:05
educational supplements looking at things like the school bus
42:08
look at things like the key look at all these documents to
42:11
understand what's going to be happening what's going to be impacting education in
42:15
the future that's what the search needs to be doing and should
42:17
be doing yeah i mean what i think horizon scanning
42:21
is best yes you can go away and read and then
42:23
all the stuff there because i was just about to ask what you
42:27
know you don't know what you don't know but if you if you read the test so you
42:30
know get on linkedin or if you really do acts you can you can go and find out
42:36
stuff can't you however my experience with horizon scanning because i've just
42:40
done a kind of a round of it with the pestle analysis so yes yeah and i remember
42:44
it and it's political, economic, and things.
42:48
Looking through those lens, and I've done it with departments across the troughs.
42:52
Really powerful done in collaboration. However, it takes time.
42:56
I'm thinking, you know, when we looked at that, and we probably spent 45 minutes,
43:01
maybe looking at Pestle, and then reading some documents together,
43:07
discussing, you've got 45 minutes.
43:09
Where would I find the time of 45 minutes?
43:12
And what are, what are agendas? Because when I look at a government agenda, it is pretty packed.
43:18
It is, yeah. A dozen items at least.
43:21
Do you think we should have something separate?
43:25
It's because I know we've got something coming up on our governing body.
43:28
We're going to have half a day looking at this and we're going to plan and really
43:32
think about our rising scouting because we're going to give it time.
43:36
It's importantly, and some trusts have governor away days.
43:40
Some trusts have a whole mass away day where governors come along and there
43:43
might be various workshops.
43:44
That strategy meeting for governors and trustees is crucial.
43:49
It's crucial to give them that time to look what's going to be happening next,
43:52
what is going to be the next big thing that's going to impact on
43:55
on the children the personal analysis is
43:59
it's a fantastic tool before we started lee
44:01
you mentioned that the swath analysis they were even starting with something
44:05
fairly basic ish of like the swath analysis so the strengths the weaknesses
44:09
the opportunities and the threats just looking at looking at that and for governance
44:14
it's governance it's fairly straightforward tool to use so the strengths and
44:18
the strengths and the weaknesses. They tend to be internal factors.
44:22
Opportunities and threats tend to be external factors. But I encourage governors
44:27
to not look at it that way. Look at them vertically.
44:30
Look at the strengths. How can they turn those into opportunities? Look at the weaknesses.
44:35
What can they do to make sure they're not threats? So I always think the SWOT
44:38
analysis is wrong. I think it's outdated.
44:41
I think it should be looked at vertically, not horizontally. Yeah, I think I did one.
44:46
Yeah, it's usually a strength to tackle their weaknesses, isn't it?
44:49
And I remember looking at it in that way, it kind of had like eight boxes rather than four.
44:55
I like it because I'm a maths teacher and looks at it like a Carroll diagram.
44:58
So I really do quite a lot of SWOT analyses.
45:02
Well, it appeals to my engineering mind as well. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
45:06
The other thing is just, and I wrote this down just before the show,
45:09
and we talked about strategic versus operational, which I think we've kind of
45:14
established where out of there and governors look at the outcome.
45:18
So they're looking at the impact that the headteacher, the rest of the headteacher
45:22
staff, all the leadership, or all the teacher assistants, everyone in the school,
45:28
really, all the adults in the school, what impact are they having on the students?
45:32
But what if we turn that around, what impact should the governing body have on the students?
45:36
What's their duty to the students? The duty of the governors,
45:41
in my eyes, is very simple.
45:43
It's to prepare the children for the next stage of their education or career, so if they're primary,
45:49
to make sure they're best prepared to transition to secondary
45:52
then from secondary to sixth form maybe sixth
45:55
form to to jobs make sure they're not doing needs sixth
45:59
form to university that's the main job and i i do i've mentioned this phrase
46:03
a couple of times the educational experience i'm a big believer in governors
46:07
need to focus on the educational experience because i don't know if you're the
46:11
same me but when i think back to when i was at school i don't remember paying
46:16
76 of the textbook on the Romans.
46:18
I don't, and I'm sorry, perhaps I should, I don't. I remember the experiences.
46:21
I remember the teachers that knew me as a person.
46:25
And if governors, if that's the one thing they do, then they'll find that the
46:28
SATs, the GCSEs, the ALAPs, they'll come naturally. They'll just follow naturally.
46:33
Because children, what they remember, they remember sleeping under the stars.
46:36
They remember the trip to the zoo. That's what children remember.
46:39
So that's the biggest priority of the governors is getting the right educational
46:42
experience for the children, making sure that's in place.
46:45
I would love to debate this with you, but it's very operational because I think,
46:49
yes, they remember that.
46:52
But I'm just thinking now, because this is tapped into my pedagogy in curriculum
46:56
thinking, because people always say, we remember the experiences,
46:59
we remember the residential, we remember the days out, we don't remember that lesson on algebra.
47:03
Yes, you must have done because you passed the GCSE.
47:06
I just don't remember the lesson. No, you're right, because that's the operational bit.
47:11
That's the operational bit. And so governors have got to do that strategic bit
47:15
and trust that what they're doing strategically is impacting what the teacher's
47:19
doing operationally to make sure that that is embedded.
47:22
You know, it's not just surface level learning. It's embedded in what they do.
47:27
And we can talk all day long about pedagogy.
47:30
I think education is changing. You know, it's changed from when I was at school,
47:35
it's almost becoming a bit more like adult learning and pedagogy as much as pedagogy.
47:41
And for governors to be thinking about that, thinking about how education is
47:44
changing over the years, I think it's fascinating.
47:48
Yeah. Do you think it's, it's that great area, is it?
47:52
Do you think governors should be, so I lead Teach and Learn,
47:55
I have my philosophy of Teach and Learn, and obviously that permeates the school then. Yes.
48:01
Should they be challenging me and saying, Lee, how have you come up with this philosophy?
48:05
Why have you chosen this as your predominant approach to Teach and Learn?
48:11
Is that an operational question? Is that a strategic question?
48:15
Well, it depends how much phrase, because if they're asking you that at the
48:20
time of implementation, that becomes operational.
48:22
If they're asking you that because it hasn't had the impact,
48:25
because maths, for example, the results haven't increased over time,
48:29
then they're quite right to ask that.
48:31
Why did you choose that? Because it hasn't had the impact that we expect.
48:36
We expected yeah i get that i say yes i got that so you look at the impact of
48:40
saying this looks good that looks good that looks good there's a bit of a dip in that subject there.
48:47
Why as simple as that i suppose it is yeah yeah again my hesitation there was
48:52
that i always encourage governors to look at trends not blips because it might
48:56
just be a blip for a year or a term so look at the trends that look at the trends
49:01
over time that's the that's the important bit yes Yes, of course.
49:05
And OST did that as well. Yes, they do. Why are there trends over time?
49:09
So, I'm thinking as a governor, because I'm being a governor,
49:14
and I know you wanted to talk about communication between governors and schools
49:18
or governors and senior leadership teams or leaders in school and governors.
49:23
What I found, and I think I'm working really hard to get better at this about
49:28
my relationship with the governors and how we communicate data.
49:32
Yep. So I could easily just send them the whole of the IDSL.
49:39
Inspection, data, some of the reports.
49:42
I think that's really cool. If I print it all off, 76 pages.
49:48
And some of it's really complicated stuff. So I've condensed it down into four,
49:54
the big highlights for governors. Yep.
49:59
So governors are expected to digest quite a lot of data, but I don't think they're
50:02
always giving the data in the format they need. That's what I'm saying.
50:07
How should school leaders approach that? I'm just thinking, many,
50:11
many years ago as a governor, I
50:13
think mid-2000, 2005, 2006, and I read the headteacher report in 96 pages.
50:19
It's in print in my head, 96 pages. It's a book, really. Yes. And I can't read it all.
50:25
So how could school leaders improve there?
50:29
I think the headteacher report is an interesting document. And what Ofsted's
50:34
saying is that if governors only ever read one document, if they read the headteacher
50:39
report, that should get them through an Ofsted inspection.
50:42
Marginally, don't get me wrong, because we know triangulation, but
50:45
it should get them to an officer inspection the head
50:48
teacher report should be owned by the governors so they
50:52
should dictate what goes into the head teacher report in
50:55
practice it doesn't in practice the head teacher puts that
50:58
in there and that's generally considered to be absolutely fine the length of
51:02
the report though lee in my opinion doesn't matter as long as it gives the governors
51:06
what the governors want it doesn't matter and if it's if it's two sides of a4
51:10
or it's nine to six pages long as long as it gives the guns the information
51:14
they need that's fine now when it comes to data.
51:18
A few years ago, the DfE made a statement that every governor should have a
51:22
deep understanding of data. So that was quite a wise statement.
51:26
And in theory, what they said was right.
51:29
But what they meant was every governor should be able to look at data and know what questions to ask.
51:34
That's what they actually meant by it. So look at the IDSR, then you're right.
51:40
It's really complicated.
51:42
Okay, it's simpler than it was because it's color-coded. did you know so and
51:47
that's what i provided for the headlines with the color code and a key.
51:51
Yes right yes yes as long as they can look at that and know
51:54
what questions to ask because data for governors in theory shouldn't
51:58
give many answers it should give you as a senior as a
52:00
senior leader in the school it should you give you the answers but for
52:04
governors it shouldn't really give them the answer it should give them questions to
52:07
ask but i do think that
52:09
at times senior leaders are a little bit
52:12
guilty of giving governors too much data too much information
52:15
because they think that's what the governors want
52:18
and also because the heads the deputy heads
52:22
they understand the data so they give the governors the data making a bit of
52:26
an assumption that governors understand that understand the data as well so
52:30
it's getting that balance right and that comes down to communication comes out
52:33
that communication between the governors and the senior leaders and for the
52:37
governors to be able to go to the senior leaders and say,
52:40
we don't understand this. We need it to be in simpler form.
52:43
We need more information, less information.
52:46
I used to be a chair of governors.
52:49
It was a school, a part of a large mat a few years ago.
52:52
And they did something for governors. It was called a soap school on a page.
52:57
And it was two sides I made for.
52:58
And that gave governors everything they needed to know. Just headlines.
53:02
To report back to everything up.
53:05
I love it. I love stuff we do in school now. We do on one page.
53:11
And I think I've been inspired by the... I've seen the Jamie Clark stuff. That's all pedagogy.
53:15
Just one page is getting started. Perhaps, like you said, even those don't give
53:21
you the answers. They really make you think about your practice.
53:24
Right, well, before we do the last five minutes, we'll have a quick pause.
53:27
We've got a couple of readouts to do.
53:29
And then we'll try and summarise it all. There's been a lot.
53:33
There's been a lot. That's a lot. Yeah.
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54:47
Great people there as well. That was good to meet that. Really good.
54:51
So, Andy, I'm going to try and summarise this a little bit, really.
54:55
I suppose the one question we came with, So, in a nutshell, because governors
55:01
like things in a nutshell, I think.
55:02
You do, yeah. What makes effective governance?
55:06
The big thing is focusing on strategic, is focusing on that.
55:10
If there's one key takeaway from this show today, it's just focus on strategic.
55:15
Having a strong and a skilled chair is really, really important.
55:19
And if you look at the National Governance Association, they talk about the
55:22
eight key features of governance.
55:23
And having that effective chair is really up there. having clear roles and responsibilities
55:29
for the governors, making sure you've got a really effective government professional
55:33
or a strong clerk in place, you know, that's going to steer you through that legislative side.
55:39
Having a positive culture, having that positive culture is really important.
55:45
Governors set the culture, really, whether they like it or not,
55:49
they set the culture for the school quite often because they're the strategic leaders of the school.
55:54
And a phrase that, Lee, you and I spoke about last week, I think it was,
55:58
was headteachers get the governors they deserve, which is quite a controversial
56:03
statement in itself, really.
56:06
But having that real great balanced relationship between the headteacher and
56:10
the governors that can work in true partnership.
56:13
Because head teachers are in a difficult position are they because they're
56:15
strategic and operational because they're a government but also
56:18
in the school they're a really conflicting situation so having they're creating
56:23
that real positive relationship between the governors and the head teachers
56:26
is is important because what the governors will do is they will facilitate the
56:32
decision making now yes at times i'm sure there's head teachers that say well.
56:38
Decision-making is slower now because we have to take it through the governors.
56:42
And yes, it might be, but it'll be the right decision for the right reasons.
56:46
You haven't got to go back and revisit that decision because you've had that rigor.
56:51
You've had that rig. And an analogy I tend to give is the governors are like sports coaches.
57:00
They're not on the field. They're not playing the football, not playing rugby.
57:04
They're on the field. They're watching. They're asking questions.
57:06
They're seeing how things can improve. What's the marginal gains that can happen?
57:12
And that's the role of the governors is looking at that. It's looking and listening
57:14
and asking those questions, seeing how can we improve.
57:17
Yeah, I think I like that. I love the sports analogy. I use lots of sports analogies.
57:23
But yeah, they're kind of, yeah,
57:25
they're on the sidelines. Or even in the standard, they can see above.
57:29
You can see the whole game. Yeah.
57:33
And they might ask why we're winning and why we're losing. maybe so
57:37
i do want to help probably i suppose i mean
57:41
my takeaway is what's really popping up
57:44
in my head is that status of the governing
57:46
body and when when we advertise for those roles we make it really clear about
57:52
what those roles entail the kind of people we're after but when we're talking
57:57
about you know the personal specification as well so will they add to our culture
58:02
yes will they add to what we believe in our philosophy.
58:07
But then expanding what it means to be a governor, because sometimes you might
58:11
have those, luckily there are a rarity, but those horrible committees where
58:16
there's an exclusion, they're not pleasant. They're not.
58:22
So I think governance has a great, great role. And when I've been a governor,
58:26
I've really, really enjoyed it. Yes.
58:30
It's a fantastic, rewarding thing to them. It really is.
58:36
When it's done well yeah there's some tricky aspects of it but they're worth it,
58:42
there will be difficult conversations will be
58:45
difficult conversations there'll be conversations headteach performance management
58:48
you know if they if governors feel
58:51
that the the headteacher hasn't met the targets for example it's having a difficult
58:55
conversation it might be that budgets can't afford things that we need to do
59:01
having those difficult conversations there's some of the unpleasant aspects
59:05
of it but you've got to be so resolute you're making these decisions for absolutely the right reason,
59:11
which is the children. It's got to come back to the children.
59:14
Well, incredibly, we've reached the hour. It's the end of the show.
59:18
Andy, thank you so much for, you know, there's been, hopefully I've asked a
59:23
few trickle questions this time, but you've been amazing.
59:26
You've clarified loads of stuff for me, and I've been in education 24 years,
59:30
and it's like I'm governing bodies in different capacities for hours and hours
59:35
and hours, even at 10 o'clock at night, earlier.
59:39
We've all been on the car park with the headlights just pacing out the car park. We've all done that.
59:45
And I had no cape or what was the... Elderflower Cordial.
59:50
So at least you had a bit of that. But thank you so much.
59:54
Thanks for your time. I've really enjoyed it. Yeah, I'm sure the viewers have enjoyed it.
1:00:00
And yeah, lots of people will be listening back.
1:00:04
This will be a great resource, listening to you.
1:00:07
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