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Agenda and minutes

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Ground Floor Meeting Room 5 - Civic Offices. View directions

Contact: Lisa Gallacher Tel. 92 834056  Email: Lisa.Gallacher@portsmouthcc.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

6.

Apologies for Absence

Minutes:

No apologies for absence were received for this meeting. 

7.

Declarations of Interest

Minutes:

Councillor Stubbs declared a personal non prejudicial interest as he is a governor at Milton Cross School. 

8.

Minutes of the Meeting held on 27 January 2014 pdf icon PDF 158 KB

RECOMMENDED that the minutes of the Education, Children and Young People Scrutiny Panel meeting held on 27 January 2014 be confirmed and signed by the Chair as a correct record. 

Minutes:

RESOLVED that the minutes of the Education, Children and Young People's Scrutiny Panel held on 27 January 2014 be confirmed as a correct record. 

9.

Review of School Governance Arrangements

The following witnesses will be attending to speak and answer questions from the panel:

 

·         Alistair Gray, Education Skills Group

·         April Owen-Jones, Chair of Governors, Highbury Primary School

Minutes:

The Chair welcomed all guests to the meeting and introductions were made around the table before evidence was given. 

 

(a)  Alistair Gray, Education Group

Mr Gray explained that the Education Group was one area of  work of the Shaping the Future of Portsmouth group.  Mr Gray and Mr Steve Piper were leading on this and are working with Portsmouth City Council to reduce the number of governor vacancies in the city. As part of the overall activities of the group representatives from the business community held a major annual careers fair at the Guildhall.  They also carried out frequent visits to schools to promote job opportunities in the local business community, hopefully also raising the aspirations of students.  In respect of governors, the group promoted the merits to employers of getting their employees involved.  The group recognise that within the business community there are people in different stages of their careers.  Some people in the business community are looking for more flexible roles; some retired people are looking to share their skills and some want to develop and are looking for a leadership role which the school governor role can help achieve.  The group were promoting this message back to businesses and had developed a poster (which Mr Gray tabled) that was being displayed in offices in the city to target business leaders and this had received a positive effect.  The group had also created a flyer which gave information about the work of the group and directed people to the school governors website.  A new leaflet was being developed which was aimed specifically at the business community.  This was due to go live in the next month or so and would be accompanied with a letter giving advice on where they could get more information and the merits of becoming a school governor.  It was hoped this initiative would have a positive effect. 

The Education Group is working closely with officers at the city council helping them to develop their website in respect of governor content
.  In addition they were also considering setting up a Facebook page to capture the interest of people to become school governors.  The group is running a buddying initiative where local business leaders are paired with a Head teacher to offer help and advice. 

It was difficult for the group to quantify how effective their work had been as they do not track referrals and Mr Gray suggested that governor services could monitor this and report on progress to the group.  He reported that at the Shaping Portsmouth 2013 conference one of the award winners was a business operations leader for IBM and also the chair of governors for Wimborne Junior School.  He had joined the school in 2008 as a community governor to give something back to the community and has used his commercial skills and experience from the business community in his governance role within the school.  He won the award for his contribution to school governance. 

With regard to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.