A Bunch of Untrained Amateurs

It's not so long ago [last May in fact] that I opined to a shocked Jonathan Dimbleby, sadly live on air on Any Answers that school governors were a "bunch of untrained amateurs". I am pleased to see that Michael Wilshaw was obviously listening and now has suggested that some governors should indeed be professionals.

Does this mean that events' managers, lawyers and local shopkeepers not being allowed anymore to sell off public land and public buildings for absolutely nothing will come to an end? Does this mean that governors might have some previous in education? Maybe even they could even be obliged to visit the school during the working day before pronouncing judgment on what happens in it and to it.

But Michael, aren't you the person who suggested that if teachers were scared, then heads were doing their jobs properly. Or was it if schools were scared then Ofsted was on point? Whatever it was, Michael, it was about setting sister against sister and brother against brother. And do you know, I never expected the Spanish Inquistion. I thought it was just a joke.

These proposed professional governors - I can't help wondering about how they might be chosen, and what their political bias might be. And Michael, who gets to pay their wages? Call me sceptical but, . . . . . actually just call me sceptical.

A few things you didn't know about school governors.

They lie in wait for you, you know - headteachers, and school secretaries; they've got wind that you work in education; and they think they can reel you in. Which they did.

After 4 years or however long the term of office was, I tried to escape. But guilt: there's no-one else; how did I feel where the chair tried to step down again? I stayed for another term; and another . .

I was a governor at Royal Park School from the early nineties till it closed in 2006; till it was hounded to death by a stupid,  uncaring and unimaginative CEO from a private education company - just thought I'd get that in. Our governors' meetings lasted two hours, starting at 7pm, so, if I was planning any lessons for the following day, that didn't happen.

Early on in my career as a serial school governor, I went to a massive school governors' meeting at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and listened, amongst other things, to Joan Sallis talk. Joan was a pioneer parent-governor in the UK, and she talked about the philosophy of governance and the role of governor, as that of a "critical friend".  I bought into this; I recognised that we would not have decision-making powers, and didn't really have any responsibilities but we would listen as the headteacher thought aloud about her day to day decisions.

Rita the Head did allow us to challenge her; on one occasion we came to a 7:8 vote about not publishing our SATS results. But she was the supremo; it was her school and we were her critical friends. We listened; we discussed and then she decided.

So, when a head tells a member of staff that the governors are worried about x, or y or z.  .. what's that about ? That's the head or the Finance Officer shifting the blame in order to get the result.

Then, as Foxwood School was being closed I became a school governor there. A few years with Royal Park had taught me to believe in myself; an immense injustice for a member of Foxwood staff on top of the injustice of closing Foxwood itself made me give up more 7 till 9pms on a week night, and this time in Seacroft, not down the road Hyde Park.

I didn't volunteer any more of the 7 till 9s until I found them laying in wait for me at reception at City of Leeds School.  And actually achieved very little, even as a "critical friend" until I was able to join with the various campaigns to save the school, mostly, it would seem, from becoming nice near town centre premises for Education Leeds. And, I'm glad to say that that particular company doesn't need premises anywhere anymore. Shame.

And also, you're generally safe from being kidnapped into a governing body once your youngest child is past school age. It's parent-governors in the inner-city that are in short supply.

What gets up you up to go to work?

Last week I wrote this to Any Answers. 

Paddy Ashdown's story was touching but meaningless, and his idea that: "for God's sake, why can't you reward good teachers," like the ones that inspired him when he was at school? Well, on whose say so? How would you work it out? 

I well remember my inspirational teachers, and I myself often get emails etc from grateful ex-students. But it has to be said that several of these were gay pupils who "came out" to me and whom I looked after, icluding on occasion advising Nick and Dereck not to come out to all of Year 11, certainly not in Seacroft, Leeds in the 80s!  [They won't mind being named. They're well out now].

But I don't think there's a box to tick for that, and anyway, my reward was always job satisfaction; which was what we mostly go into education for: not just to teach them stuff, but to look after them at their moments of vulnerability, and make sure they're in a fit state to take it all in. And if not, while they are at school, but a later date when they are ready.

And maybe teachers' pay is not directly related to exam results, but whole schools stand or fall by them, and face closure or academisation because the traumatised asylum-seekers and poverty-stricken inner-city children just won't present their school with nice bouquets of A-Cs. 

And, let me tell you, children struggling with their sexuality, or with domestic violence aren't going to disclose anything to the new teachers; people they or their family have no history with, and then how they can their poor heads take in anything educational at all?

PS Please have Christine Blower on every week. She knows her stuff; she has read all of the documents; she presents her points in terms that anybody can understand; and she's polite, and doesn't try to score points for the sake of it. 

Unfortunately they asked if I would like to speak on the show, and I agreed to go for the make-a-fool-of-yourself-on-national-radio routine. 


I ended up discussing anything but the points that I wanted to make. Here's just two:


1. The threshold payment that both Hilary Benn and Jonathan Dimbleby mentioned, in my opinion, was just a distraction. The unions campaigned against it when it was introduced a few years back. Basically, if you thought you were a good teacher you filled in a very very complicated form, collected evidence to prove how good you were, your headteacher approved it, then you got an extra £2000 a year. On principle I did not apply for it, then watched all my colleagues earn shedloads more than me until a benign headteacher held my hand as I went through it. 


2. School governors, as I often write, are untrained amateurs. They might be experts in their own fields, but they are not trained nor paid to be governors. And, mostly, not elected. And not trained for the unarmed combat that is the governors' meeting. More on governors anon.