School (parent) Governor

hello007007

I have been elected as a school governor for my children secondary school. I have not held such a post before.

Any tips?

hello007007

Supply teachers and bullying are the issues I am most concerned about.

Supply teachers
My children will have 1-2 supply teachers each week. It is affecting their education.

When I discussed this the vice principle in charge of recuitment, she basically said its not the schools fault as there is a shortage of teachers in the UK. Moreover, the school has tried to recuit from 2 other european countries however, they still dont have the amount of perminate teachers they need.

My arguement (as a parent governor) is that every parent is complaining about the high number of supply teacher and the low quailty teaching that comes with them.
For example, my friends son did his english homework in his french class as the supply teacher asked them to use the lesson for finish off homework.

I believe a full teaching staff is the very basic and core requirment parents expect from a school - do you agree?

I also understand there is a shortage of teachers in the UK but if the school is happy to recuit from aboard surely there is not a shortage of teachers in the world and the school should therefore be full staffed. - do you agree?

Personally, I dont think someone is doing their job properly. Many other schools are well staffed, why cant our school be.

I know the school will try to talk me down at the meetings like they have done before - any tips?

gettingtheresometime

hello007007 wrote: »

Supply teachers and bullying are the issues I am most concerned about.

Supply teachers
My children will have 1-2 supply teachers each week. It is affecting their education.

When I discussed this the vice principle in charge of recuitment, she basically said its not the schools fault as there is a shortage of teachers in the UK. Moreover, the school has tried to recuit from 2 other european countries however, they still dont have the amount of perminate teachers they need.

My arguement (as a parent governor) is that every parent is complaining about the high number of supply teacher and the low quailty teaching that comes with them.
For example, my friends son did his english homework in his french class as the supply teacher asked them to use the lesson for finish off homework.

I believe a full teaching staff is the very basic and core requirment parents expect from a school - do you agree?

I also understand there is a shortage of teachers in the UK but if the school is happy to recuit from aboard surely there is not a shortage of teachers in the world and the school should therefore be full staffed. - do you agree?

Personally, I dont think someone is doing their job properly. Many other schools are well staffed, why cant our school be.

I know the school will try to talk me down at the meetings like they have done before - any tips?

If other schools don't have a recruitment issue then what are the reasons why people don't want to work at yours?

This also addresses the issue of foreign teachers; why are they avoiding yours like the plague?

Personally if you're going to criticise the supply teachers then you might have a bigger problem then you've got now! That's not to say teachers should be getting off teaching.

Bennifred

I would ask the clerk to the governors to organise for you to go on a course for newly-elected governors so that you know what you can and cannot do in that position. Sooner rather than later.

specialboy

Why in recent years has the need for teaching assistants increased so much? Years ago there was 1 teacher with 30/35 kids in a class and they got the job done without any fuss.

seven-day-weekend

I know teachers who can't get jobs! I don't know why your school can't recruit.

Has it occurred to you about your child doing homework in a French class that the school may have put in a supply teacher who can't actually speak French? This happened to my husband once, when he was a supply teacher for a year. He just gave them a Geography lesson instead

FreddieFrugal

specialboy wrote: »

Why in recent years has the need for teaching assistants increased so much? Years ago there was 1 teacher with 30/35 kids in a class and they got the job done without any fuss.

Well simply put, another adult in the room means that more children are able to access direct support in a lesson than if there was only one.

In primary school, where in most/many schools classes are not set by ability but by age, it is often necessary to have a lesson differentiated in 3, 4 or even 5 ways. Some of those children will require support, now if the teacher is always having to support the least able children then the more able that need pushing on, and the unfortunate kids somewhere in the middle will never get the additional attention they need to help them make good progress.

If you add to the mix a child who really needs constant 1:1 support to get any kind of use at all from their time in school, then you have a situation where either:

1. You do not differentiate, you teach everyone exactly the same thing at exactly the same level. But many children will learn nothing all year - that's unacceptable.

2. You try to support a/or several child/ren with special needs, and your other ability groups at the same time, in effect teaching 4 or 5 lessons in one with no one else to support, which is basically impossible.

For example, in my last class I had about 10 children who came to me at about where they needed to be and just needed the average provision for that year group, 3 came in well above that and therefore needed extra input to keep them on the rise, 10 more came in slightly below average, and 4 more significantly below, one had mild cerebral palsy, one was on the autistic spectrum. Then I had one other child who had such severe global delay that he was at least 4 years behind the others with the gap likely to only continue growing. While some in the class were doing division with 3 digit numbers, he could only just recognise numbers 1-5, let alone do anything with them!

Luckily he had a 1:1 TA which was vital to him doing anything at all like learning. I also had another class TA alongside myself and we supported different groups each day so that everyone got a decent amount of support from an adult, either to bring them up, or push them on.

Now in secondary school, yes most classes are streamed by ability, so all the top mathematicians are in the same set etc. but there will still be numerous children who need extra support because of disability, special educational needs, need additional intervention outside of the normal classroom at points in the day. Anything that means having a trained educational assistant working with them will help them get the most out of school.


Teaching assistants are vital in our current school system. Unless you think it's fair to allow thousands of children to leave school without having achieved their potential and having never really been given what they needed to succeed because through circumstances out of their control they did not start school with some of the advantages that other children have, such as a supportive family or good health.

tom9980

specialboy wrote: »

Why in recent years has the need for teaching assistants increased so much? Years ago there was 1 teacher with 30/35 kids in a class and they got the job done without any fuss.

The levels of administration have increased significantly, half of my wife's 60+ hour week is spent not teaching. This burden of administration is I suspect the biggest reason many teachers leave the profession.

SEN children used to go to specialist schools with high staffing levels, these children now go to mainstream schools instead. Lots of these children need lots of one to one support or they won't be able to access education.

74jax

I was a school governor for 3 years, I would offer to go on as many courses as you can, especially the course for New governors. Are you specialising in any field?

Don't expect to walk into the meetings at first and know what is going on, it's hard to get to grips with it.

Your role is to challenge. If someone suggests something you challenge why, what will it bring etc.

When the Head speaks challenge what he is saying, is he doing everything he canfor the good of the children?

I was in a very 'backward' school and left as I couldn;t be a governor at a school that wasn't will to change or take in to consideration parent's views, the local neighbourhood etc. The school went into special measures and was broke up a couple of years after I left - something which I could see very clearly on the horizon but to most seemed completely out of the blue.....

It can be very very rewarding, however a LOT of hard work.

Good luck and like I said, go on all the courses you can. It's to gain courses from this, there was a huge booklet on what i could train in when I was a Governor.

tom9980

hello007007 wrote: »

Supply teachers and bullying are the issues I am most concerned about.

Supply teachers
My children will have 1-2 supply teachers each week. It is affecting their education.

When I discussed this the vice principle in charge of recuitment, she basically said its not the schools fault as there is a shortage of teachers in the UK. Moreover, the school has tried to recuit from 2 other european countries however, they still dont have the amount of perminate teachers they need.

My arguement (as a parent governor) is that every parent is complaining about the high number of supply teacher and the low quailty teaching that comes with them.
For example, my friends son did his english homework in his french class as the supply teacher asked them to use the lesson for finish off homework.

I believe a full teaching staff is the very basic and core requirment parents expect from a school - do you agree?

I also understand there is a shortage of teachers in the UK but if the school is happy to recuit from aboard surely there is not a shortage of teachers in the world and the school should therefore be full staffed. - do you agree?

Personally, I dont think someone is doing their job properly. Many other schools are well staffed, why cant our school be.

I know the school will try to talk me down at the meetings like they have done before - any tips?

The biggest tip is realise you cannot change things overnight, it will take you years of service to make a difference. You will need to gain the trust of the head and members of staff, you need to become someone they trust with private information and not a parent who turns up to meetings who then moans at them for every thing that goes wrong or is outside of their control. You need to offer solutions and support to their problems otherwise the will see you as yet another person out to beat them with an agenda. I hope you are very diplomatic and tactful!

Take time to learn how the school works and what problems they face, learn why they have a recruitment problem not blame the school for not hiring someone that doesn't exist! There are plenty of subject areas with a lack of qualified teachers such as languages. I know nobody who speaks fluently in another language learnt at school and even if they did they would earn far more in another profession anyway. So why would anyone work teaching kids who don't care about learning French as most of my classmates did 20 odd years ago? Should the solution be shout at the school or get the children and parents to see the value in learning the subject?

Ultimately I agree with 74jax that you will only succeed if the head teacher and upper management are open minded enough to allow good people to help them solve often very complicated social issues. It is a thankless task.

honeypop

I agree with the others who have said attend the courses that are there to support you in your role as governor, and the induction course asap. We also have one for recruitment, so you may want to attend that to get an insight into what you could have an effect on as governor, and what you wouldn't be able to change, based on the recruitment policies for your school.


There is usually a committee made up of governors who is responsible for recruitment, and one that would cover bullying in their responsibilities, I don't think you can just go in there with the intention of making changes in these areas, when someone else is already responsible for them.


Find out who on the GB is responsible for which areas, then voice your concerns to them, they may already be working on it.