Agenda and minutes
PDF 92 KBVenue: Ground Floor Meeting Room 5 - Civic Offices. View directions
Contact: Vicki Plytas on 9283 4058 Email: vicki.plytas@portsmouthcc.gov.uk
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Apologies for Absence Minutes:
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Declaration of Members' Interests Minutes:
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Minutes of the meeting held on 2 July 2013 Attached
RECOMMENDED that the minutes of the Education, Children & Young People Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 2 July 2013 be confirmed and signed by the Chair as a correct record.
Minutes:
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Officers will assist the panel to finalise the scoping document.
RECOMMENDED that the scoping document for the review be agreed.
Minutes:
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Review into Governance Arrangements Officers from the Education Service will attend to give evidence to the panel and answer questions. Minutes: Karen O' Connor, Education Officer, Tony Quinn,
Senior Governor Support Officer, and Nicola Waterman, Strategy
Advisor were present to give evidence and answer questions from
members. (TAKE IN
REPORT) The Education Officer explained that she had a
range of primary schools in her portfolio. School governors are
always invited to her termly visits to schools; however the uptake
of this was minimal, which was a concern. Governors then had to
wait for the report to come to the school before they could see how
the school was performing. In addition to this some governing
bodies did not include the reports on the agenda for their
meetings, which was also of concern. In terms of school governing
bodies she said there was a mix of good and bad examples in the
city. Being a school governor was a huge commitment and getting
time off work to attend meetings was sometimes an issue for school
governors. There was also an issue with a lack of challenge, which
was partially due to governors not understanding how to interpret
the data before them and not knowing what questions to ask to
challenge head teachers. A good head teacher would ensure that
governors are trained in analysing data. The Education Officer
explained that as part of her role she offers training for
governing bodies, bespoke to their school, on how to analyse data
and advises on what challenging questions they should be asking.
The key to the training was that it needed to be evidence based.
Education Improvement officers also supported the whole training of
governor services. There was a varied take up of this despite the
training being offered at various times during the day. In response to a question regarding what could
be done about poor governance, officers explained that there was an
interim executive board in place to deal with poor governance. They
felt that the best solution however was to empower governing bodies
and to take a proactive rather than a reactive approach by
undertaking self-review. In response to a question regarding
reconstitution of governing bodies, Tony Quinn explained that
following the introduction of The School Governance (Constitution)
(England) Regulations 2012 that came into force on 1 September
2012, governing bodies had the opportunity to reduce in size.
Regulation 13 (2) states that the governing body of a maintained
school must be no fewer than seven governors and at least two
parent governors. The reduction in the number of parent governors
required for a governing body meant that parent governors could be
recruited on their skills base. Nationally few numbers of schools
were reconstituting and many had remained the same size after
reconstitutingi. There was no evidence
to suggest that governing bodies were more efficient after
reconstituting and it was felt that they would only be successful
if the governors selected had the right skills. The Education Officer said that the most successful governing bodies were those who were actively involved and were empowered to do so by their head ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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Discussion on next steps for the review Minutes: The Chair suggested proceeding with the review
with fewer meetings but with more witnesses at each meeting.
Members also said that they could be flexible with the times of the
meetings. Members said it was useful to receive any written
information in advance of meetings and that a short paper with
bullet points was preferable. The next steps were agreed
as: · Review Ofsted reports and identify schools in the city with good, poor and mediocre governance. · A brief list of training courses governor services offer is provided to the Panel by officers and also to advise whether these are accredited. · Invite governors and head teachers, not necessarily from the same school, to the same meeting, to provide evidence. · Invite a representative from governor services at Hampshire County Council to a future meeting. · Invite Steve Piper and Alistair Gray from the Educational Skills Group to a future meeting.
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