In a report due to be discussed by a Bridgend Council scrutiny committee today, councillors will be updated on how school governors are supported (pdf).
School governors ensure schools comply with the law, are effectively managed and provide a high standard of education. Governors are usually a mix of council-appointed representatives, parents and members of staff (teaching and non-teaching). The school’s headteacher is almost always a governor too.
In 2016, the Bridgend Governor Association was relaunched and all school governors in the county were automatically made members.
School governors have to take part in mandatory training and those who don’t complete this training within a set period are suspended for six months. If the training isn’t completed during that six month suspension period, then the governor is disqualified.
Take-up of this mandatory training in Bridgend is said to have been historically very low, even when efforts were made to provide in-person training at multiple locations in the county.
Unsurprisingly, when this training moved online during the pandemic attendance increased by a whopping 161%.
Previous scrutiny committees have requested that school governor vacancies should come with a job description. However, it was stressed that the role should be seen as a voluntary position to provide constructive criticism rather than a “job”.
