What does the governing body do?
The governing body has an important part to play in guiding the school and raising school standards. Its three main roles are to:
- Set the vision and strategic direction of the school.
- Hold the Headteacher to account for the school’s educational performance.
- Ensure that financial resources are well spent.
Some of the things we do as a governing body include:
- Agreeing with the aims and values of the school.
- Making decisions on the school’s budget, expenditure and staffing.
- Ensuring individual pupils’ needs are met; including special needs, monitoring and reviewing the school’s progress and approving school development plans.
- Fulfilling our statutory duties to ensure that the school provides a safe, healthy and inclusive environment.
In practice, we:
- Hold full governing body and sub-committee (Resources Committee, Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Committee and Pay and Performance Management Committee) meetings to manage the business.
- Invite staff to governing body meetings to tell us what is happening in their area.
- Make visits to the school.
- Have links with particular areas of the curriculum such as English or Inclusion.
The headteacher and the senior leaders are responsible for the day-to-day leadership and management of the school, while the governors operate at a strategic level and act as a ‘critical friend’. A critical friend offers support, constructive advice, and acts as a sounding board as well as providing challenges to the headteacher and school, asking questions and seeking information to arrive at the best solution.
To find out more about the specific duties and responsibilities of our governing body, please take a look at the documents below:
Who are we?
The full governing body is drawn from the wider community that the school serves. The usual term of office is four years but many governors stand for re-election and serve more than one term of office. Our governing body is made up of 15 governors (including the headteacher), a clerk and relevant associate governors, as follows:
- Two Parent Governors who are elected by parents/carers of registered pupils and were parents/carers at the time of their election. Parent governors do not have to leave if their child leaves during their term of office, but they can if they wish to. When a parent governor vacancy arises, nomination forms are circulated to all parents/carers.
- One Local Authority Governor who is nominated by the City of York Council. They usually live locally and are interested in the school and community, but our LA governors are not councillors and don’t represent any political party.
- Two Staff Governors, one is the headteacher and the other is elected by the teaching and support staff employed to work at the school. If they leave the school, they cannot remain on the governing body.
- Ten Co-Opted Governors who are appointed by the governing body. These are people who live and work locally and bring specific skills to the governor team.
- We also have a clerk to the governing body and two associate governors who attend meetings and contribute to discussion, but do not have voting rights.
Agendas, minutes and papers
If you would like to request copies of approved and signed minutes, agendas and any papers considered at meetings from the current or previous three school years, please contact the school office.
Benchmarking
The school’s financial benchmarking information can be found on the GOV.UK website using the link below.
