How to Govern a School: The Performance of the Governing Body The governing body’s authority; the efficient governing body; the effective governing body; the democratic governing body; the accountable governing body; the open governing body; the questioning governing body; governing the improving school

The governing body is responsible for the performance of the school. It is also accountable to the community for the performance of the school. What does it have to be like to do these two jobs well?

Governing body self-review became a hot topic as the movement for school improvement gained pace. First, in a series of publications, including a White Paper, the new Labour government reasserted the central role of the governing body in promoting and enabling school effectiveness (DfEE, 1997a onwards). Secondly, Ofsted evaluations of governing bodies, though controversial for the rather hotchpotch way in which they were introduced and conducted for the spring term of 1998, allowed some judgments to be made by inspectors using a standard format. Thirdly, the new Code of Practice (DfEE, 1998a) emphasized the diminished ability of LEAs to intervene in schools that were running satisfactorily. Only when things were palpably going wrong could LEAs step in — not only because that was government policy, but also because they would no longer have the human resources to do anything more. This new model would be reinforced by the introduction of Ofsted inspections of LEAs. One element of such inspections was to be the effectiveness of the support that LEAs give to governors, so it was now very much in their interests to develop an overall view of how governing bodies perform.