Welcome to the Fawbert and Barnard Infants' School Governors page. The Governing Body of F&Bl is made up of a range of people from many different backgrounds, including representatives from the Local Authority, the Local Community, Parents and Staff. All Governors are volunteers and offer their time, skills and experience to help run the School. Although Governors receive training from the Local Authority, and their role is to act as a critical or questioning friend on the strategic running of the school only.

Working as an efficient and effective team, we aim to achieve a standard of excellence appropriate to each individual, enriching, encouraging and equipping each child for their future education.

What the Governing Body Does

The role of the Governing Body is to work with the Head Teacher and Staff to offer all children at F&B the best educational opportunities possible. Their main task is in the area of school improvement – in practice, continually trying to make the school the best it can be. Running the school on a daily basis is the responsibility of the Head and Staff – the Governing Body is responsible for:-

• Managing the school’s budget
• Reporting on the standards being achieved
• The appointment of senior staff and
• Developing and maintaining a strategic vision for the school

How the Governing Body works

Governors meet as a Full Governing Body seven times in an academic year.

Business is conducted through meetings where decisions are made collectively as a team. The Governors’ role is strategic, while the Head, with whom they work closely, has responsibility for the day-to-day management of the school.

What do we do?
 

A governing body works with the headteacher and the staff at the school to make sure the school provides a good quality education for all its pupils.

Governors do not need specialist skills, just an ability to listen, think through new ideas and decide what is best for the school strategically as part of a team. Governors are not expected to make day to day decisions about how the school is run, this is the job of the headteacher.

The key roles of a governing body are to:

• Provide strategic leadership for the school, setting the vision, ethos and strategy
• Holding the executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupil and the effective and efficient performance management of staff.
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure that its money is well spent

The aim of the governing body is to help the School to provide the best possible education for its pupils and working environment for its staff. The governing body of is composed of:

• The Headteacher,
• 5 Parent Governors on a 4 years term,
• 1 Staff Governor on a 4 years term, and,
• 3 Co-opted Governors appointed on a 4 years term.
• 1 associate Governor appointed on a 4 years term

The organisation of your Governing Body

The Governing Board takes the form of a traditional committee based approach comprising of the Full Governing Body and a Rescource Commitee. The Full Governing Board (FGB) meets termly to discuss all areas of governance and comprises all members of the Governing Board.

Additional committees are established when needed. These committees include :

• Headteacher’s Performance Management – meet at least twice a year
• Staff Appeals (meets when needed)
• Pupil Disciplinary (meets when needed)
• Staff Disciplinary (meets when needed)
• Pay Committee – meets at least once a year
• Finance Committee - meets once a term

Working Parties

When a specific (usually time limited, or time critical) project is identified a working party can be formed.  These will consist of governors and representatives of other relevant stakeholders.  Terms of reference, based on the purpose of the working party are drawn up and progress reports are provided to the FGB.

Governor Activities

Governors also organise specific monitoring activities linked to the School Improvement Plan and will visit the school throughout each term to look at progress in these areas. These visits include a variety of activities, according to the area being monitored. They could include; talking to pupils or staff, looking at pupils work and displays or meeting with subject leaders.

Every Governor is part of the Full Governing Body, is actively involved in monitoring activities every term and may be part of any working parties or other committees as needed. The Governing Body work hard to ensure that through their meetings and visits to school they know the school very well.

Formal records of all Governing Body meetings and committee meetings are taken and filed by the Clerk. Once agreed, minutes are then available to view. Should you wish to read any of the Governors' minutes please make a request via the school office.