What makes an "excellent" Governing Body?

Around the country Governors of Independent Schools are having to raise their game to meet the new exacting standards of the new Independent Schools Inspectorate [ISI] inspection regime. ISI3, itself, has not placed any new responsibilities on Governing bodies, but it has put their role into a much sharper focus. There is nothing new about Governing Bodies having ultimate responsibility for teaching and learning, budgeting, Health and Safety, and Child Protection issues, but ISI3's evidential approach requires that schools demonstrate this. Questions are being asked of Governors as they have never before.

Let's be honest, the Government via OFSTED and ISI are pulling the strings here. It is they who are defining what is an "excellent" governing body. According to the ISI3 School Self-evaluation Form there are eight indicators of excellence:

1. The governing body has a valuable range of expertise, with comprehensive induction arrangements and well-chosen training.
2. The governors have a perceptive long-term strategic plan for the school’s future and work closely with the head, bursar and members of the senior management team.
3. They have a clear insight into the school and seek to ensure that its aims are fulfilled through the school development plan.
4. They are well known at the school both at formal occasions and also to sample the pupils’ curricular experience.
5. They monitor school policies carefully and exercise constructive oversight of academic standards and pastoral matters, including welfare, health and safety.
6. They are committed to financial planning for the maintenance and development of accommodation, resources and the recruitment of high quality staff.
7. They ensure that questions of suitability are scrupulously checked and that the central register is thoroughly maintained.
8. They are a strong source of advice and support to the head.

Being an "excellent" Governor under ISI3 means a lot of work. No longer does it just entail reading the termly reports and attending Governors' meetings, it involves research, on-going training, giving up time to be in and around school, not to mention asking awkward questions of the SMT. No wonder people aren't queuing up for the job!

But there are dangers here too. The ISI3 criteria are redefining the lines between Governance and Management. Take the role of monitoring Health and Safety for example. There is a fine but important line between ensuring that a school SMT is monitoring risk assessments, and Governors being involved in that monitoring process themselves. There is a danger that the new ISI3 criteria will encourage Governors to trespass on the realm of the executive.

However, my greatest concern is that the Government through ISI3 is taking independence away from our school Governing Bodies. The ISI Handbook outlines the latest regulatory requirements. These dictate not only which policies a school must have, but also what detail must be included. Whilst, on the one hand, this does provide a useful checklist and a guide to national norms; on the other, it takes away the ability of a school Governing body to frame a policy in a way that it sees fit. Perhaps the greatest danger in ISI3's top-down approach to policies is that schools end up with policies and procedures that comply with ISI regulations, but have no real validity or meaning on the ground in our schools.

Preliminary reflections on Interim Inspection under ISI3

I got the phone call at 10:00 am on Tuesday morning.

"An inspection team will be arriving in a week's time to inspect your Early Years, the Prep and the Senior School. Your reporting inspector expects to receive your pre-inspection documentation by 5:00 pm. He is on a training course today and will not be available until 4:00 pm, when he will call to outline precisely what he wants from you."

Given that the new cycle of ISI3 inspections does not start until 2010, I think that we can be forgiven for finding this all a bit of a surprise. We were expecting the call in January, but I was somewhat taken aback to be one of the forty lucky schools selected for the pilot scheme running this term!

My senior management team went into overdrive, collated the policies, procedures and completed all the forms - they were simply outstanding. The great advantage of being a large organisation is that we can pull key staff together to solve a large problem without impacting on the day-to-day operation of a school - how a smaller school would cope, I have no idea.

Ten days later, it is now all over. It was a very positive experience. We await the full report , but we are hopeful of a clean bill of health in all three areas of the inspection. It is likely that we fell short in one or two areas of regulatory record keeping, and now have more robust systems in place and our policies are up to date.

I like ISI3. I am a convert.
Its main advantage is that it is all over and done with so quickly. The impact of ISI3 Interim Inspections falls almost exclusively on senior management. Very few teachers even met the three inspectors allocated to our three senior schools with an total population of over 1000 pupils - they saw only twelve lessons. Most importantly, ISI3 has not taken up weeks and months of energy-sapping worry. There is no time for an impending inspection to hang over the school like a cloud. Yes, the paperwork needs to be there a moment's notice, but so what? There is very little documentation for documentation's sake here. There are good reasons for having most of the policies and procedures in place.

We have lost most of the consultancy aspects in the interim inspection, but I am not convinced that ISI1 and ISI2 really told us much about our schools that we didn't know. The loss of this aspect is overplayed. Under ISI3 the "how many angels can dance on a pin-head"-type arguments about whether a school is "GOOD", "VERY GOOD" or "OUTSTANDING", which caused so much angst in the past, have gone - I hope that parents, governors and school managements do not feel short-changed. Instead, inspectors provide a brief commentary on the school, which at least avoids the invidious comparisons with the rival school down the road.

Now that ISI3 Interim Inspections have shifted the focus from consultancy to regulation, there are voices within HMC who are asking why we still need ISI. Having been through the process I think it would be a mistake to abandon ISI and move to an OFSTED regime. It was not only reassuring, but postively helpful to have Inspectors who understood independent schools. Their approach was thorough and constructive - helping us to comply with the regulations and to improve as a school - I am not sure that OFSTED would be so understanding.

Well, it's over - we're up to date - and now everyone can focus on improving teaching and learning, which afterall is what schools are really about.