Welcome to the Governors' section.

Governors work as a team. They are responsible for making sure the school provides a good quality education for all pupils. Raising educational standards in school is a key priority. This has the best chance of happening when there are high expectations of what pupils can achieve.

Governors promote effective ways of teaching and learning when setting the school aims and policies. They do this together with the head teacher, who is responsible for the day-to-day management of the school.
Head teachers are recruited and selected by governors - and most head teachers choose to be governors themselves.

Governing boards are accountable to parents, the local community and the Local Authority. Appointments are for usually for four years. The governing board's main role is to help raise pupils' standards of achievement.

The Governing Board's 3 core functions:

• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent
• Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils
• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction

Governors of the federated Broughton Infant and Junior Schools, together with operational leaders set the schools Vision, Ethos and Values. Governors agree the strategy created by the schools senior leaders and approve policies. They monitor and evaluate the progress the school is making and act as a source of challenge and support to the headteacher.

In action this means:

• Appointing and performance reviewing the head teacher and senior leaders, including making decisions about staff pay
• Being accountable for the performance of the school to the parents and wider community

• Plan with school leaders the schools future direction
• Working as a corporate body
• Get to the school and other stakeholders
• Approves the schools develop plan
• Monitors and reviews the schools self-evaluation document
• Strategically responsible for premises health & safety
• Managing budgets and deciding how money is spent
• Engaging with pupils, staff, parents and the school community
• Sitting on panels and making decisions about things like pupil exclusions and staff disciplinary
• Addressing a range of education issues within the school including disadvantaged pupils, pupils with special needs, staff workload and teacher recruitment
• Looking at data and evidence to ask questions and have challenging conversations about the school, pupil attainment and progress together with pupil wellbeing
• Governors must be prepared to adopt the Nolan principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. 
• Sets itself a strong code of conduct, as well as monitor and evaluate its own effectiveness.

Governors are at the heart of how a school operates strategically. It is important they get things right. How they do their job effects the interests of pupils, staff and the reputation of the school in the community. Governor’s support and challenge head teachers by gathering views, asking questions and discussing what's best for the school. They are not there to rubber stamp decisions. They have to be prepared to give and take advice and must be loyal to decisions taken by the governing board as a whole. As long as they act within the law and take appropriate advice, governors are protected from any personal liability for the decisions they take.

Key:

The full Governing Body meets at least 3-6 times each year and delegates much of its work to a small number of sub committees.  The sub committees are shown in the table below and meet once per term:

• Curriculum - Oversees how the curriculum is delivered in the school including reviewing school performance data (children’s achievement and progress) and the utilisation of learning resources
• Finance – approves and monitors the budget, ensuring best value, reviews actual expenditure against planned spends
• Pay Review &Personnel – represents the Local authority as the employer. Recruits senior staff and performance manages the Headteacher
• Health and Safety/Premises - Oversees changes to the school's physical environment and assists with Health and Safety audits

If you are interested in becoming a Governor please contact the School Office 01296 423276 and speak to Mrs Broderick or Mrs Young.