Governors
Area / Patch Meeting Update
We would like to extend a big thank you to those governors and clerks who attended the Area / Patch meetings this term and we hope you found the meetings worthwhile.
Unfortunately attendance at the meetings was down this year compared to last year, with only 54 people attending with 48 schools / academies being represented throughout the county.
Dates for the Area / Patch Meeting Spring Term 2018 are as follows:
Tuesday 24th April 2018 - Stratford Upon Avon School (Stratford Upon Avon)
Tuesday 26th April 2018 - Brooke School (Rugby)
Thursday 1st May 2018 - Nicholas Chamberlaine School (Bedworth)
Thursday 3rd May 2018 - Aylesford School and 6th Form Centre (Warwick)
All Area / Patch meetings will take place at 7.00-8.30pm.
How many is the Quorum? – In response to questions received...
The quorum is the number of governors who must be present to validate the proceedings of a governors’ meeting.
In Maintained Schools - for a full governing board meeting the quorum must be half or rounded up, excluding vacancies.
Example: If the full membership of the governing board is 15, the quorum is, therefore, 8. However, should there be 3 vacancies the quorum is now 6. The quorum for a committee can be found in the terms of reference for the committee which are agreed annually; the majority of governing boards have a quorum of 3 for committees.
Quorum in Committee Meetings (Academies)
Academy trusts should ‘satisfy themselves’ that they are meeting the requirements set out in their articles of association as this will set out the rules around the governance of the trust, including around delegating to committees and voting on proceedings.
No Set Quorum for Academy Committees
Articles 100 - 104 of the model articles of association for academy trusts deal with committees and local governing bodies.
They do not mention a specific quorum for academy committees, but say that a vote on any matter can only take place if a majority of those present are trustees. However, this requirement does not apply in local governing bodies.
Specifically, the articles say:
- The trustees may establish any committee
- The constitution, membership and proceedings of any committee shall be determined by the trustees
- The establishment, terms of reference, constitution and membership of any committee of the trustees shall be reviewed at least once every 12 months
- The membership of any committee of the trustees may include persons who are not trustees, provided that, with the exception of local governing bodies, a majority of members of any such committee shall be trustees
- Except in the case of local governing bodies, no vote on any matter shall be taken at a meeting of a committee of the trustees unless the majority of members of the committee present are trustees
The latest version of the model articles can be viewed here.
Code of Conduct
The Governance Handbook (Section 4: People 4.1.2 Conduct) states: ‘Effective boards set out clearly what they expect of individuals, particularly when they first join. A code of conduct should be maintained and communicated to all prospective appointees…’
We have revised and updated our Model Code of Conduct which is available for subscribing schools / academies to download from the WES document library or from GovernorHub.
The document can be easily amended to ensure it reflects your specific governing board and school structure whether that is a maintained school or an academy; it applies to all levels of school governance.
We recommend that the Code of Conduct is thoroughly discussed so the governing board, as a whole, has ownership of it. Once adopted, governors should be asked to review and sign it on an annual basis, ideally at the first meeting in the autumn term.
WES Document Library & GovernorHub Resources
We are proud of our document / resource library and intend to continue to develop and expand the resources / information both on WES and GovernorHub as we want to ensure we provide governors and clerks with the latest guidance. To help with this, we will be thoroughly reviewing our current documents to ensure they are the most recent and up to date versions and in turn archiving any documents that have been superseded with a later version.
Following feedback received, we have updated the ‘Notification of an Appointment / Reappointment / Change to the Governing Board’ form to enable you to tell us if the governor has held a previous governor appointment or is currently supporting another governing board. Please can you delete any versions of the ‘old’ form that you may have and now use the revised form?
Learning Link Update
As we have mentioned previously, “Learning Link” is the new e-learning system for governors which replaces the GEL online e-learning that some governing boards subscribe to.
You will find a “Learning Link Access” button on the NGA website home page (underneath the Login / Logout button) which will take you into the Learning Link area.
This will enable you to access your Learning Link subscription and also find out general details about the whole system.
If your governing board does not have access to Learning Link and you think it would be useful, please contact gurbydhesi@warwickshire.gov.uk to discuss your requirements.
Analyse School Performance (ASP) – do you have access?
The new service allows governors to have their own user accounts to easily identify the data that frames discussions around school performance and priorities. It is also the same view of annual performance that Ofsted inspectors use.
It has also been announced that KS1 and Phonics data for 2017 is now available in ASP and that provisional KS4 data will be added at the end of November/first week in December.
In order to get access to ASP, you must ask the ‘Approver’ of Secure Access accounts within the school to set you up with a governor role account. If the approver is unsure, guidance is available here. Once your account is set up, a short demonstration video is available here.
Inspection Data Summary Report (IDSR) - Ofsted
Ofsted have published guidance for inspectors and stakeholders on the use of the new Inspection dashboard documents and prototypes for the new primary and secondary inspection data summary reports.
The published prototypes for primary and secondary inspection data summary reports (IDSR) show the proposed layout and context using example data.
The IDSR is a new style data report. It will replace the inspection dashboard when 2017 data is released later in the 2017 autumn term.
The guidance includes:
- An overview of dashboard data and how to interpret charts
- 2 anonymised school reports
- The ‘schools own dashboard’ to allow users to input their own data and see how its analyses would change.
Please click here to download the guidance and prototypes for IDSR.
Privacy Notice Model Documents
The DfE have updated their model privacy notice documents. These are suggested privacy notices for schools to issue to staff, parents and pupils about the collection of data and have been updated to ‘help schools comply’ with the new General Data Protection Regulations.
Under The Data Protection Act 1998, when an organisation collects personal information about an individual it must make that information available to the individual.
We will keep you notified of any future changes to these documents or any others as a result of the General Data Protection Regulations.
Technical education & apprenticeships: raising awareness
On 23rd November, the government released guidance on what schools must do to meet the upcoming requirements of the Technical and Further Education Act 2017.
The Act, which will come in to force on 2 January 2018, puts a statutory duty on all maintained schools and academies to “ensure that there is an opportunity for a range of education and training providers to access registered pupils during the relevant phase of their education for the purpose of informing them about approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships”.
To meet the requirements of the Act, a school must “explain in a policy statement how providers can get involved with your school and the opportunities you have for them to talk to your pupils”. This must be subsequently “published on the school website”. A copy of the guidance can be viewed here.
Education Select Committee Enquiry into Alternative Provision
The House of Commons Education Select Committee announced that one of the first inquiries of the new parliament will be on Alternative Provision (AP) for pupils who do not attend mainstream schools for reasons such as school exclusion, behaviour issues, or illness.
The inquiry will look at:
- Routes into alternative provision
- The quality of teaching in alternative provision
- Educational outcomes and destinations of pupils
- Safety, accommodation and provision of resources for pupils
- In-school alternatives to alternative provision
- Regulation of independent providers.
We will share the findings when available.
Consultation and Changes to the School Inspection Handbooks
Following a consultation earlier in the summer (response available here), Ofsted revised their proposals for changes to short inspections and have updated their guidance for Ofsted inspectors carrying out school inspections under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.
The changes, which took effect from 30 October 2017, include that:
- Some ‘good’ schools will automatically receive a full, two-day inspection instead of a short inspection
- Where a short inspection converts to a full inspection, this will usually continue to be within 48 hours but may take up to 7 days in some cases
- Short inspections of secondary schools with more than 1,100 pupils will be carried out by three inspectors (rather than two as is standard).
To view the all the updates and download the guidance please click here
Safer Internet Day 2018
Schools and organisations are now able to register as a Safer Internet Day supporter to share what they are doing for the day, and get more information and resources in the SID2018 campaign toolkit!
Last year 1,645 organisations joined the Safer Internet Day 2017 supporters list, making it the biggest UK Safer Internet Day yet!
Stay updated: Sign up for the Safer Internet Day newsletter and keep up to date with all the latest Safer Internet Day news and announcements!
Free entry for Education Personnel to Twycross Zoo
Warwickshire County Council cannot and does not endorse Twycross Zoo, although we thought you may like to be made aware of the following offer:
From Boxing Day until New Years Day 2017, Twycross Zoo is giving educators free entry to the zoo.
Governor Services can confirm that this offer is open to Governors and Clerks at schools as long as you can bring a letter from the school that shows your position alongside any photo ID (if your school does not provide a Staff Card for you with Photo ID).
For details see the Twycross Zoo website.
Training Opportunities
We provide a comprehensive training programme for all school governors, clerks and head teachers, whether in maintained or academy schools. Places on training sessions are available to all schools - for subscribing schools these will be free of charge and for non-subscribing schools there is a charge per delegate.
If your governing board does not subscribe to Warwickshire Governor Services and you think it would be useful to do so, please contact Gurby Dhesi to discuss your requirements:
Email - gurbydhesi@warwickshire.gov.uk
Telephone – 01926 745 137
You can view the courses that are available until the end of March by using the link to our current Training and Support Programme (April 2017 – March 2018) available here
As part of the annual subscription governors can choose to have a complimentary in-house course, delivered at a venue and time chosen by governors. Please note that all requests for in-house training courses must be received by:
- 31st December 2017 (maintained schools) and
- 31st March 2018 (academies)
If you would like to book on a course, please email your booking to governors@warwickshire.gov.uk, telephone Governor Services on 01926 745120 or book via the WES website at www.warwickshire.gov.uk/wes
Please remember to quote the course reference number, title and date when booking.
For any further information, please do not hesitate to contact Gail Evans:
Email - gailevans@warwickshire.gov.uk
Telephone – 01926 745 120