School governors are one of the largest volunteer forces in the country. There are currently around 3,500 governor positions in Cambridgeshire, helping headteachers and staff to ensure children and young people get the best from their time in school.
School governors play a vital role in ensuring the best possible education that takes every child as far as their talents allow. All governors need a strong commitment to the role and to improving outcomes for children; the inquisitiveness to question and analyse; and the willingness to learn. Crucially, that means holding school leaders to account by monitoring and evaluating the performance of pupils, teachers and finances to ask the right questions. It means ensuring resources are allocated to strategic priorities, ensuring money is well spent and safeguarding the highest standards of financial propriety.
Schools are keen to attract people in the community to become school governors, they need a good mix of people from their local community, from all walks of life, who can bring different viewpoints, experience, skills and fresh ideas with them. You don’t need to be an expert, what’s really important is that you have energy, enthusiasm, time and a commitment to help provide children with the best possible education. You do not have to have children at a school to be a governor. You do have to be over 18 and satisfy the eligibility criteria set by the Government. If you are interested in becoming a school governor we have a number of school governor vacancies across Cambridgeshire.
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Governing boards can benefit significantly from transferable skills that people have developed in the workplace. Serving in governance also helps people develop board-level skills and experience that they can take back into the workplace that they may not otherwise develop until much later in their careers. The learning and development benefits are therefore significant and more than compensate for the flexibility and time off that staff may need to fulfil their governance duties. It can assist with your personal development; you get access to training and experience of a live boardroom situation along with an enormous sense of satisfaction in supporting your community and children.
Effective boards set out clearly what they expect of individuals, particularly when they first join. The board’s code of conduct should set an ethos of professionalism and high expectations of everyone involved in governance, including an expectation that they undertake whatever training or development activity is needed to fill any gaps in the skills they have to contribute to effective governance.
Questions? Please contact us at enquiries@inspiringgovernance.org or phone 020 7566 4880.