The Governing Body
What is the Governing Body?
The governing body at Gosforth Park First School consists of people who want to make a positive contribution to children’s education. School governors come from every walk of life. There are over 300,000 school governors in England and they form the largest volunteer force in the country. They have an important part to play in raising school standards through their three key roles:
Establishing accountability, by:
• Setting the vision, values, and objectives for the school
• Agreeing the school improvement strategy with priorities and targets
• Meeting statutory duties
Ensuring accountability, by:
• Appointing the Headteacher
• Monitoring progress towards targets
• Performance managing the Headteacher
• Engaging with stakeholders
• Contributing to school self-evaluation
Ensuring financial probity, by:
•Setting the budget
• Monitoring spending against the budget
• Ensuring value for money is obtained
• Ensuring risks to the organisation are managed
The role of the governing body is key to the effectiveness of a school.
What is a School Governor?
There are many types of Governors from different parts of the school community - parents, staff, community, local authority and church. This helps to ensure that the governing body has sufficient diversity of views and experience but does not mean that governors of a particular category "represent" that group on the governing body. For example, Parent Governors do not act as representative of the parents at school and do not report back to them.
The term of office for all governors is four years. If re-appointed or re-elected governors can serve for a further term(s).
Although it is a responsible job you do not have to have a background in any particular area to be a valued member of the governing body team. What matters most is your commitment to improving what happens in school for the benefit of all the children. Training and support is available to help you understand and carry out the role.
On average duties take several hours per month. At Gosforth Park First School we have about 2/3 meetings per term, usually after school hours.
How is the Governing Body organised?
Gosforth Park First School is what is called a “Community School” and is also part of the Gosforth Schools’ Trust. We have four types of governor:
Parent
(Elected by the parents)
Staff
(Elected by the staff)
Co-opted
(Appointed by the other governors)
Local Authority
(Appointed by the Local Authority)
Foundation Trust Governor
(Appointed by Gosforth Schools Trust)
Each individual governor is a member of the governing body, which is established in law as a corporate body. Individual governors may not act independently of the rest of the governing body. Decisions are the joint responsibility of the governing body. The Headteacher is responsible for the internal organisation, management and control of the school and the implementation of the strategic framework established by the governing body. The Headteacher is a member of the Governing Body.
At Gosforth Park First School the chair of the governing body is Mr Steve Collins who can be contacted via the school office.