May Bank Holiday Late News

 

 

We had planned for this newsletter to be with you before the half term holiday, but events have overtaken us and so i hope that receiving this does not spoil your break too much!

There has been so much going on in the governing world recently, that sometimes it seems the best way to deal with it is to lock the door and turn off the internet for a couple of weeks, and then wait for the latest initiatives to be ‘u-turned’. 

The Education White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, has now been replaced with the ‘Education For All’ Bill. The headline change was the removal of the forced element of the academisation programme. The direction of travel on this has not changed, however. There is still an expectation that all schools will be academies by 2022. GOVAS therefore intends to host a mini-conference in late-September/early-October, to present to governors, trustees and senior leaders the latest position on the bill, which covers much more than just the academisation programme and give the people responsible for governance in stockport the opportunity to discuss and debate, with each other and the guest speakers. The LA will be there to present their position and we have also invited Vicky Beer, the Regional Schools Commissioner. We are looking to add a couple of other speakers and will provide further details when we can. The conference will either be an afternoon, or an evening session and we would initially limit it to two governors from each school. We would strongly encourage headteachers to take up this invitation.

At this stage, we would be keen know the likely interest for this conference, so please register your interest here and also indicate whether you would prefer an afternoon or evening session. We recognise that an evening would be better for working governors, but a day-time event would help us to attract the best speakers, so it is not an easy choice.

Although the forced academisation programme was removed, there was no u-turn on the removal of the requirement to have parent governors. Many of us would have got into school governance initially as parent governors. Parent governors often have experience and knowledge that other governors and trustees from outside the school do not. If you are of the same opinion, then please support the campaign by the NGA, Parent Councils UK and PTA-UK, to overturn this. A template letter to be sent to your local MP can be found our website and you can tweet your support -Click here for the Template Letter-

I'm against the removal of the requirement for elected parents on school governing boards. http://goo.gl/lm2Rzp #keepparentsgoverning

I support @NGAMedia @PTAUK @fionacarnie to #keepparentsgoverning http://goo.gl/lm2Rzp Please RT

Elected parents are crucial to effective governance please #keepparentsgoverning @educationgovuk http://goo.gl/lm2Rzp RT

The National Governors' Association has once again joined forces with the Times Educational Supplement (TES) to survey the nation’s governors and trustees. Thank you if you've already taken part; so far we've had just over 2600 responses, which is a great start. However over 5800 governors, trustees and headteachers took part last year, and we want to hear from even more of you this year. The survey is open to all governors and trustees, not just NGA members, so if you've already participated please do forward this email to your governing colleagues.

This survey offers governors and trustees the chance to tell us what they really think about key issues. The survey findings are invaluable to NGA’s work lobbying the government, and they’re also used to inform our guidance and other work to support governing boards across the country.

The NGA/TES survey is aimed at governors and trustees.

The survey takes 20-25 minutes to complete and will close on Monday 20th June -Click this link to take part in the survey-

 

Stu Foster

Chair

Govas