Category Archives: Philanthropic

Tonight is part 1 of 3 sessions aimed at ‘New Governors’.  I’ve completed four other sessions so far:

• Performance management
• Anti-bullying
• Improving the educational attainment of children in care
• Delivering a new careers service

I’ve also signed myself up for another six sessions before the end of the school year:

• New OFTSED framework
• Managing parental complaints
• Child Protection
• New admissions code
• Schools financial value standard
• Managing pupil exclusions

This represents a total of 13 twilight sessions (the majority are 18.45-20.45) unless I book myself on to anymore!  I think that this along with the actual governor meetings I have attended shows how I’ve thrown myself into this challenge and prepared myself to serve as a staff governor for the next 3 years

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Today I attended my first meeting as a school governor.  As I’ve mentioned before my role is slightly different from the other governors who are parents, local councillors, local authority workers and co-opted members, in that I’m a member of staff.  My whole thinking behind challenges 30 was to provide something lasting to the school that I’ve worked in for the majority of my 20′s by creating a scholarship fund.  Having the voluntary role of a governor alongside this allows me to do something other than handing over a big pile of money (hopefully!) to the school at the end of this challenge year.

I can’t say too much about what happened in the meeting today but I can say that I was impressed by the members of the local community and their attitudes towards the school and its development.  There will be four main meetings throughout the next school year and three sessions of the various sub committees interspersed in between.  I’ll also have to read plenty of documents but overall the time commitment isn’t huge.  If you fancy taking on a similar role in a school near you check out: school governors’ one stop shop.

You don’t need to have experience of working or managing a school and your input could make a big difference to the lives of children in your area.