Most Heads that I\u2019ve spoken with in recent weeks have described the past month or so as one of their most challenging in headship, especially because most schools remain open to support the children of keyworkers and those who are vulnerable.<\/p>\n
Since lockdown, there has been much discussion about SATs, GCSEs and A levels but these debates barely scratch the surface of what Heads are currently managing, and the nuanced nature of the day-to-day judgement calls that they are having to make, a task that they are passionate about getting right but one which is far from easy: Who counts as a keyworker? Who counts as a vulnerable child? What level of support should and can schools realistically provide for home study? How well is a particular school equipped to deal with the provision of such support? What does school look like for those still in attendance? How are we going to say good-bye to those moving on to junior or secondary school, or to college, university or employment, or to much-loved staff who are leaving us? Oh, and what am I going to do about the governors?<\/p>\n
As governors, one of the things we have to do is to find a way to take that last question off the table, to go governance-light<\/em>, without going governance-free<\/em>; we cannot do the latter because our legal and moral responsibilities as members of Governing Boards (as recent advice from the Department for Education and the National Governance Association makes clear) do not disappear. However, we must<\/em> do the former, and go governance-light, because, frankly, much of the really important stuff that we do in ordinary times will, like the economy, just have to wait. By comparison with those challenges facing Heads on a daily basis, our predicament is much less pressing. Nonetheless, it remains important.<\/p>\n So, what might. \u2019governance-light\u2019 look like? No trite answers here, but three questions that we might wish to ponder:<\/p>\n The principle behind all of this is simple: we need to ensure that the tone of meetings, messages, phone calls or other communications is entirely at the support<\/em> end of the ‘support-challenge’ continuum, so that, as the DFE put it, school leaders can \u201cget on with operational matters\u201d; if this were our usual practice, it would not amount to good governance. But these, as we are all too aware, are not ordinary times.<\/p>\n Of course, this will mean some catch-up activity further down the line, but it may also cause us to focus, as never before, on what really<\/em> matters, and on the quality<\/em> of our collaboration and partnership. Long term, this may lead to better, more effective governance, and a range of practices that weren\u2019t even on the horizon a month or two ago.<\/p>\n And maybe, just maybe, as we approach another day, week or month in this socially-distanced landscape, let\u2019s be sure to use any time that, as governors, we have to think creatively and pre-emptively in a way that the pace of an ordinary school year denies us.<\/p>\n Right now, we might yearn for that ordinariness but, in the interim, we need to consider the longer-term impact of the system-shock delivered to our schools, and the wider education system, by the virus; schools and school governance might never be the same again. As governors, let\u2019s play our part in shaping the new, as yet unknown, post-COVID-19 reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the second of his COVID-19 Blogs, Tony Breslin explores the nature of school governance during the lockdown and poses the question “Can we go Governance-light without going Governance-free?” He also speculates on how governance, and schooling itself, might change as a result of the virus, and calls on governors to play their part in these changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,9,1],"tags":[10,13,12,11],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n
\n