Governance

Fancy joining us on our mission to Transform Lives through Learning?

If you want to make a difference in your community and develop your own professional skills, come and volunteer as a school governor and you can do both.  We all want the best for children and for our local schools: governors play a key role in leading, supporting and improving these schools, and becoming one can be a very rewarding experience.  Plus it may not be as time consuming as you think, and we offer lots of training and support to help you.

It doesn’t matter whether you have children or not, what role you have in an organisation or whether you know anything about education: everyone brings a unique perspective and can have a truly transformative impact on outcomes for children and for local communities.  All you have to be is aged over 18 and possess the necessary skills, attributes, and time to positively impact our learners.  

What do school governors do?

School governors play a key role in leading our schools. They set the strategic vision and direction, approve budgets, support staff recruitment, monitor school performance, approve school
policies and procedures, and hold the senior leadership team to account.

Why become a school governor?

The benefits of being a governor are immense, both personally and professionally. And it may not be as a big a time commitment as you imagine – governors meet on average around twice a term.
As a governor you will:

• Have a genuine, positive impact on the lives and education outcomes for children and young people
• Use and develop your professional skills and experience in areas such as strategic planning, leadership, financial planning, good practice, and team working – skills that feed back directly into your own career and personal development
• Build relationships and networks in your locality
• Gain satisfaction knowing that your input directly supports young people and the wider community served by the school
• Being part of a multi-academy trust also enables your knowledge to be shared across other schools to provide support to more teachers and students

What you need to commit to

• Take part in regular governors’ meetings, usually 4 times per year with additional committee meetings as required.
• Spend time on training and getting to know the school through termly link governor visits.
• Occasionally sit on appointments panels or panels that handle staff or student discipline issues or complaints against the school.

What do our current governors say?

“It is always illuminating to see at first hand the hard work and commitment. It often makes me reflect on and evaluate what best practice looks like in my own work setting – I definitely take away as much as I put in”

“I love how I get to play a part in helping my local school to improve and develop, but my biggest reason for serving is the opportunity it gives me to encourage and champion the great work that is already being done by such a hard-working group of staff and teachers”

Want to know more?

If you’d like to know more about becoming a governor, please contact Heledd Walker, Head of Governance and Compliance via email Clerk@alet.org.uk. We’ll be thrilled to hear from you.