ABSTRACT
Early in 1994 a group of secondary governors met at a conference sponsored by the Trustees of Research and Information on State Education (RISE) and funded by the Nuffield Foundation. This meeting brought together governors of schools which had experienced an inspection by Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) during the Autumn Term, 1993. The majority of Registered Inspectors had held meetings with representatives of the governing body, either during the inspection or at the time of the parents' meeting. Many governors said that they had been empowered by the inspection which had made their role transparent to head, staff and parents. The Handbook was felt to be an extremely useful 'guide to good practice'. Many schools mentioned the 'hang-over' period after the inspectors had gone. There was criticism of the way in which the inspection teams performed. Language was an area of serious difficulty too for many schools as a whole and for governors in particular.
