Governors' roles and responsibilities

Welcome to the Governors section of our website.

Governors play an important role in the strategic direction of the school guiding and supporting the school’s work and encouraging further improvement. They are often referred to as ‘critical friends’, monitoring and evaluating performance, supporting and questioning the senior management team and ensuring that the annual School Improvement Plan meets the needs of pupils, and is delivered comprehensively.  As critical friends of the schools, governors should be able to recognise and celebrate success as well as ask questions.

Whilst it’s a Head Teacher’s job to run the school, the Governing Body has three main areas of responsibility:

• To support and challenge the Heads in maintaining and improving the performance of the school
• To maintain and enhance the Catholic Christian ethos of the school and
• To ensure that the school operates a balanced budget and that high standards of financial transparency and accountability are achieved

The Governing Body also has a responsibility to account to everyone who has an interest in the performance and standards achieved by the school: pupils, parents, the Local Authority and HM Inspectors.

Governors meet as a full governing body approximately monthly throughout the academic year. We also have a Finance & Staffing Committee which meets half termly, a Curriculum & Data Committee which meets three times a year, a Pay Committee and an Admissions committee.

Individual governors are responsible for areas and subjects across the school and undertake regular monitoring activities which are reported back to the full governing body

There are six categories of Governor:

Foundation Governors (8), who are Catholics nominally appointed by the Bishop

Head teachers (1)

Local Authority Governor (1) generally nominated by the Full Governing Body and appointed by the LA

Parent Governors (2) elected or co-opted by parents

Staff Governor (1), elected or co-opted by staff.

Co-opted Governor (1), appointed by the FGB

If anyone reading this would like to find out more about being a Governor, they should in the first instance contact Jill Wareham, clerk to the Governing Body on clerk@stmaryspri.co.uk