Giffard Park Primary School

Governors

Giffard Park Primary School Governing Body Information

Our Governors are a key part of the strategic leadership of the school and play a vital role in helping to ensure our children get the best from their time at Giffard Park Primary School.

Our Governing board are a diverse group of individuals with a broad range of professional and personal skills, experiences, and attitudes. They are a group of volunteers, who help set and dedicate themselves to the vision, values, and strategic direction of the school, maintaining the highest of standards, whilst encouraging continual forward planning and thinking in their drive for excellence. Together they share a common goal, which is to help the school provide our pupils with the best education possible. 

Governors at the school have three main roles:

To determine the strategic direction of the school and oversee school development, as outlined in the School Development Plan.

• To contribute to the school’s self-evaluation process, which involves, amongst other things, consulting parents, pupils and staff about their views of the school, responding to the recommendations made by Ofsted and reviewing the results of the National SATS tests.
• To act as a ‘critical friend’ by providing support and challenge through asking the right questions and providing an informed opinion on the school’s actions and proposed activities.

   Effective governance is based on six key features:

• Strategic leadership that sets and champions vision, ethos, and strategy. 
• Accountability that drives up educational standards and financial performance. 
• People with the right skills, experience, qualities, and capacity. 
• Structures that reinforce clearly defined roles and responsibilities.
•  Compliance with statutory and contractual requirements. 
• Evaluation to monitor and improve the quality and impact of governance.

They share responsibilities for monitoring and evaluating the performance of the school in delivering a fulfilling, broad and balanced education for all the children. The Governing Board meets at least 9 times throughout the school year: 1 Full Governing Board meeting, 1 Teaching, and Learning Committee meeting, and 1 Finance and Premises Committee meeting per term.

 We have adopted The National Governance Association’s code of conduct. You can read it here:

• Model code of conduct for governing boards
• Gov.Uk - Constitution of governing bodies of maintained schools

Our Governors are elected, either by being nominated by staff or parents and then voted into position. Our Co-opted governors, are individuals from the community who have the skills and experience which the governing body require. They will be appointed by the existing board, following an interview.