Governors

Governors work closely with the school’s leadership in mapping out the direction that we believe Green Lane should take. Because the law makes the governing body accountable to parents and the wider community for the performance of the school and for raising its standards, governors do need to be aware of how well the children are being educated and to satisfy themselves that life at the school is how its various policies say it should be. One other key responsibility laid on the governing body is to decide how the money we receive should best be spent to achieve the school’s goals.
Something that the governing body does NOT do is to manage the school. Whilst governors certainly try to make it easier for the school’s management to run the place effectively, the ongoing management of the school is very clearly the job of the school’s professional employees.
In practice, a lot of the governing body’s work is exercised through its committees; in Green Lane we have four of these:

The Finance and Premises committee helps prepare the school budget (which must then be approved by the full governing body), monitors how the money is actually being spent during the year and works to ensure that the school uses its financial resources wisely, following recognised best practice.
The committee also works to make sure that our premises continue to offer a safe, welcoming and well-adapted environment for everyone at Green Lane, and keeps its eye on HSE matters.

The Curriculum committee concerns itself with academic standards and things that are taught in the classroom. Thus it keeps an eye on pupil progress during the year, compared with the school’s targets, reviews curriculum-related policies to make sure they are still appropriate and works to satisfy the governing body that the curriculum is being delivered as planned.

The Personnel and Welfare committee holds the responsibility for staffing and pupil-related matters, including maintaining an overview of SEN (Special Education Needs) in the school. It too plays an important role in maintaining the school’s body of policies up to date, typically covering matters that are not taught in the classroom. These might apply to the children (behaviour policy, for example) or to the staff employed by the school, as in the Performance Management policy.

The Pay and Conditions committee is primarily charged with agreeing personal targets for the Headteacher and reviewing performance against these targets. It is helped in this by external facilitators.

From time to time governors may be required to form other, ad hoc committees to hear staff grievances, for example, or appeals against decisions taken by the school management.

The chair of governors is Nick Harris, should you need to contact him, please do so via the school.