It’s time for a revolution in School Governance, one that is driven by us, and our communities, rather than politicians.
It seems that changes to the governance of schools are coming, whether we want them or not. As a new parent governor, I have been both shocked and disappointed by the proposals by Nicky Morgan to ditch us mere parents on governing bodies, for more professional governors. I am disappointed, not just because the politics behind, and of this policy are bad, but because they miss a chance to bring real accountability to our schools – from representative democracy towards direct democracy. It is time to make school governance more open, to make better use of technology and to be run for the children and local communities they are part of.
On my induction training as a new governor, I questioned how the role of parent governors related to the views of the parent body. What responsibility do we have to gather the views of parents, communicate with them, or even bring parent concerns to Governors meetings?
The answer is none. Like MPs, parent governors, once elected, are free to apply their own views to the governing body. Like MPs, they are held to account after 4 years. But, although all governing body papers are available, most of what school governing bodies do is in the dark; in the evenings, and out of view. Made worse, by terrible school communication and the transient interests of parent bodies, parent governors often fail to effectively represent their constituents.
Like traditional democracy, the representation in schools is due disruption, by technology and the communication tools and challenges to openness it affords.
Schools should be better at communicating the work they do, as I’ve argued before, and to being more open.
Schools should be governed for the community they serve, in the context of that local area. As we see the final stages of the destruction of local authorities, it is even more important that schools (especially those smaller academies and MATs) to investigate how they can demonstrate their work matches their communities.
Schools should be using services like Loomio, where a community can respond directly the issues that relate to them. Even the UK Government allows us to petition for issues to be discussed. Many councils are now inviting local residents to vote topics into agendas and this is as it should be.
Image from Buzzle.com – no attribution or licencing found, so I am happy to remove or cite, if this information is provided.
While I do not think we can move to direct democracy overnight, I would like to see our schools (including the one I help govern) to move towards making use of all available communication channels to help the breadth of the school community have a voice at the governing body.
I also think it offers a way for children to add their voices to the running of the school,
This does not change the fact that decisions need to be made, often with consideration for privacy and safeguarding, and that the Governing Body might have to do something that goes against the views of the majority of parents. However, that should be done in the open, and governors should be accountable for those tough choices.
I wonder how the cooperative movement could be doing more to lead the importance of this shift, as it fits the cooperative movement’s ethos. Are there Cooperative Schools doing this right?
By governing in the open, with the parents behind them, parent governors should be skilled communicators, with the tools to help SLT to schools with their staff, parents, communities and their fellow governors.
I’m helping the school at which I am a governor work these issues through, hopefully bringing my expertise to support the evolution of a better solution. I hope to share more of this as we progress, but we’d love to know if you have experiences to share so we can do this better.