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.
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8. |
Minutes of the Meeting held on 27 January 2014 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.
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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.
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