The Salt Sessions

Transcript

0:00
Hi, I'm Bev Salt, the founder of Add Salt.

0:03
I'm a marketing consultant.

0:04
For further information about me, head to my website: add@salt.co.uk

0:10
In this episode I want to talk about volunteering at your child's school because if you have if you are a parent of school aged children, it's quite common for parents to get involved with the school PTA or you might get involved as a school governor.

0:25
However, you don't have to have them children at the school.

0:28
You might just want to volunteer and help out the local community.

0:32
Today, I have two school governors who have joined me, Caron Bouckley and Orlando Hampton, and they're going to share with us information about their role as school governors.

0:45
Can you both introduce yourself and tell us about your role as a school governor?

0:50
Hi everyone.

0:51
I'm Orlando Hampton.

0:52
I've been a school governor for 11 years now.

0:56
I spent nine of those years as the chair of governors and I'm now in my exit strategy, which is a final two years just as a as a lay member having appointed a successor as chair.

1:10
The school I'm a governor of is an inner-city school, 575 pupils, total staff of about 100.

1:18
It's quite a diverse school.

1:19
About 25 different languages are spoken across the school and it has 45% BME and black and minority ethnic and we have about 8% of our pupils are on special education needs and registers.

1:36
Thank you.

1:37
And hello, I'm Caron Bouckley and I've been a governor since 2020, so a lot, a lot less time than Orlando.

1:45
I've been chair of governors for the past three years and I've just been voted in for another year this recently this week.

1:52
So I am the local authority governor, started out as a parent governor.

1:56
Our school is the absolute opposite to Orlando.

1:59
So we're a small rural school with less than 100 pupils and staffing wise, obviously far less staff and but equally I think different challenges.

2:09
So we also have a high degree of children with special education needs.

2:13
Probably less diversity than you, Orlando, based on where we are a very different picture, but equally I think different challenges, but probably some of the similarities as well.

2:22
Thank you, Caron, thank you, Orlando.

2:23
And Caron, you mentioned that you're a local authority governor and you used to be a parent governor.

2:28
I understand that there are different types of governors.

2:30
Can you just explain to us what the different types are?

2:33
The school I support is a church school as well.

2:36
As part of that we have to have foundation governors who are linked and voted in via the church.

2:41
So we have very close connections with our local parish and with the diocese within Leicestershire as well.

2:47
Then you also have your parent governors and staff governors and either what you call community or Co-opted governors.

2:54
And I'll let Orlando explain a little bit more about some of those roles.

2:57
But I think for our school the key thing is that we have an added element to it being a church school.

3:02
We use parent governor posts to make sure there's representation of the parents on the sort of lived experience of what it's like being in the school.

3:10
We always have staff governor, a post from a member of staff who isn't necessarily within the leadership inner circle so they can represent staff views and take things back to staff.

3:21
Almost like a union type role.

3:24
We obviously have the SLT membership, the senior leadership team membership and then the way that we use our Co-opted circuit governance is we try to bring in skills and that the school needs at anyone point in its development.

3:37
So that can include fairly hard-nosed finance or HR skills but also really keen on building relationships with the arts.

3:46
We've had governors who are directors of theatres and things like that.

3:52
And then the post title of local authority governor.

3:55
It's a bit of a legacy one where the local authority had the right to put a governor in your board to make sure that everything was going well.

4:05
But what's happened over time is that with the shortage of governance, what generally happens is the parent coming to the end of their term, rather than go back round and do an and then have to win another election with the parents, you give them a title of local authority going on.

4:20
That's certainly what we do.

4:21
And then do a fresh election for some new parent governors who bring in fresh insights.

4:27
And that also pays Bev, to your point about it being hard to recruit.

4:32
So, you know, you don't let somebody leave the full governing body unless they want to.

4:37
You certainly don't let them leave just because they didn't win an election.

4:40
You hang on to them.

4:41

And I think Orlando's post a point around the community governance very valid as well.

4:46
I think that is one of the tricks there really is to identify your gaps and identify where might need some additional support.

4:53
So for us at the time, we really wanted somebody with a bit of education background because there was a real knowledge gap I think within our governing body around some of the bits around curriculum, which is actually a real area of focus and Ofsted inspections.

5:08
So we can recruited somebody who had particular skills in that sense and which was really valuable to us at the time.

5:13
But as Orlando said, it might be you need finance at some point or you might need HR.

5:17
So I think having that really good understanding of the skills and the audit, having a skills audit for your governing bodies, really important.

5:24
Would training be provided as well if somebody wanted to join us as a new governor?

5:29
It's not just provided, it's mandatory.

5:31
Yeah.

5:33
So we subscribe to a local authority scheme.

5:35
It's part of the school's HR package, includes governor, what's called governor services.

5:40
But there are national bodies that do this as well and schools can subscribe.

5:45
So you have to go on an introduction course and cover the basics of have to do safeguarding, have to do safeguarding.

5:53
From that you can then build into different areas, finance for governors, literature reviews for governors and chairing skills for governors.

6:01
I think there's a couple called Getting parents views in into a governing body.

6:05
What's lovely about them is they're quite often online so that you know, easy to access, but you'll have in the meeting a mix of experienced and new governors and very experienced trainers.

6:18
And the trainers are really good at bringing people in and sharing.

6:21
It's good practise for governors to repeat some of the training and particularly the ones relating to Ofsted visits and they Ofsted works on a sort of five-year cycle of what they place their emphasis on.

6:35
It's good to learn about the very latest things that they're looking for and what they're working to and how they actually run their inspections.

6:41
And although we're in a different local authority, to add that I think we've had a lot of support.

6:46
There is a lot of support available through the governor's support services and a lot of training.

6:52
And similar to Orlando, what we try and do is make sure the governor's do bits that are relevant.

6:57
So if they're sitting on Finance Committee, they do the finance related training.

7:00
If they're on health and safety, they do health and safety.

7:02
And equally we have every year we have the whole board development session.

7:07
So it could be on something like equality, diversity, inclusion.

7:09
It could be on one of those sorts of topics that we do as a whole board development.

7:12
And so very well supported, I think in that sense, yeah.

7:15
And the local authority can audit you as well at your request and make sure that you're fit and proper and ready to respond.

7:22
And there isn't a contract because it's a volunteer role.

7:26
What we've done and what I've seen them quite often and we sold it off another school.

7:30
Is it is it sort of a charter set of expectations?

7:33
So you, you talked about training.

7:35
One of our expectations is that you will have all of the basic training within the first six months.

7:40
And if you haven't completed that and come to the meetings, then you're not going to be a governor anymore because you start to get into a world where you could cause more damage than good if you don't understand the context.

7:51
OK.

7:51
And how much time commitment can people expect and from being a school governor?

7:57
Well, I think it, it is, there is a time element involved in it.

8:01
So 100% whenever I look and talk to new governors or people who are interested in being a governor, I do make that clear because there is, you know, there's training to attend, there are meetings to attend.

8:13
So there is an element where you have to be prepared.

8:15
I think Orlando, you had a figure that you used.

8:18
I use the Figure 8 hours a month during term time.

8:22
And if you're doing more than that, it's because you're learning or you, or you think it's really captured your, your passion.

8:29
And if you're doing less than that, you need to question whether you're not you're making a proportionate contribution.

8:35
There are some very intense periods.

8:38
If you're recruiting a head teacher, you can, you can now and then wipe out two full days for the actual recruitment plus 10 hours of prep and another few hours of follow up in the induction.

8:52
Ofsted, surprisingly on my experience of it, one hour on day one, one hour on day 2.

8:58
It's the prep and advance, the prep and advance.

9:00
I think if you're going to chair like Orlando and I've both done, I think the time commitments more than because you also do things like supporting the head teacher, those kind of meetings with them.

9:12
That kind of time commitment is different.

9:14
But I think that is different in a chairing world where people don't necessarily have to take that on, but but you can get involved.

9:21
You can get involved in sort of the role as a dignitary as well.

9:24
So if an MP is visiting the school, the school's going to be on telly.

9:28
And also for some sad things as well.

9:31
So if there's a funeral in the school, the chair will often be invited in or governor representation.

9:36
Yeah, it can be as much or as little.

9:39
The other thing is we always fix our meetings on the same evening.

9:44
So we always do Tuesday evenings and we always alternate one in school, which starts at 5 and one out of school, which starts at 7:00 and then it starts later so that commuters can all get home.

9:56
And so if you're not free on Tuesday evenings because you do yoga or because you work evening shifts, you're not going to be a good governor.

10:03
So trying to sort all, that's the messy stuff out at recruitment stage.

10:08
We always set our meetings as are on a Wednesday, but we've tried to do that around the governor availability.

10:14
Which night worked best for most people, which was a Wednesday.

10:17
Last year it was Thursday, so we do have a little bit of flex with that.

10:20
But I mean, Orlando's right, you have to, you know, you will have to sometimes miss a yoga class or whatever is required to be able to participate.

10:28
And I think that's part of the expectation in the role, Yes.

10:31
Can I ask what have you learned from being a school governor?

10:35
OK, I mean, lot enough to write several books in terms of experiences and anecdotes and some good, some truly, truly awful.

10:44
But I think the main thing that I've taken away from it as a journey, it is really testing and enhancing leadership skills in in another environment with a different group of people.

10:58
It's a different type of commitment to a job.

11:02
So that that when I say leadership skills, I mean everything from sharing and managing difficult conversations and finding a balance of being a good critical friend, getting the challenge versus the praise perfectly balanced off managing volunteers as a chair, you have to keep motivating that group managing communications.

11:28
So we always write a chair’s letter out to parents after every governor meeting so they know what's going on at that top of the school. Erm, compassion.

11:40
You know, you're going in to challenge a senior leadership team about how they're running the school and make sure that they're compliant and they're doing their best and that they're safe.

11:50
And you find them on their knees absolutely exhausted after a difficult term with a high absence rate, for example.

11:57
And then patience, I think as mother, definitely patience.

12:00
I think for me, I'd agree.

12:02
I think leadership skills you learn or practise almost, I think in a sense are really good.

12:08
And I think as Orlando described that I think it enables you to use those skills in a very, very different environment and it doesn't have the same impact.

12:15
Is your career in a way, do you know, to me, because it's not you're not trying to manage the politics of your own job.

12:19
I think it is it is about getting that right balance of challenge and support the school.

12:25
And I definitely agree on the point around patience, because I think, you know, we're both in a public sector environment.

12:30
So it probably understand that maybe more.

12:32
But I think coming in from private sector, the pace at which things work, the sort of brokenness sometimes of some of those systems and processes that happen, and the politics involved can be incredibly frustrating.

12:44
And you have be able to navigate within that and keep, as Orlando said, keep other people going because at the end of the day, you, you're surrounded by a group of volunteers who have no real career kind of motivation to be there.

12:55
They're doing that because they, you know, committed to the school or committed to, to the idea of being a governor for whatever put, you know, whatever reason is for them.

13:03
But you really have to keep them going.

13:04
And equally, I think with the staff, you're there to support the school and making sure that you you're aware and understand some of the challenges and issues that they face and then balancing that with what you need to achieve as a governing body is quite an art to it, isn't there?

13:18
Absolutely.

13:19
OK.

13:20
You've mentioned patience, compassion.

13:23
So in your opinion, what skills are needed to be a successful governor?

13:29
I think you need diverse range of skills, Bev.

13:31
I think that's critical.

13:33
I think to make the governing body function well, you need a mix of people who bring a different perspective because that's effectively what you're doing.

13:41
Schools are very small, very particular environments.

13:44
And I think where the governing body can really play a role is having that that other insight that's stepping out of what's day-to-day operational things and having that insight that can sort of guide and challenge to say, you know, there might be a better way of doing this.

13:59
Or have you thought about that or you know, where are you heading with this?

14:03
What's your direction that you're going, that sort of thing.

14:05
So I absolutely think having diversity is important and do what you think.

14:10
Orlando, Absolutely.

14:11
And I mean, the clues in the title, governance, OK, the quality assurance and, and delivery past, present future of a, of a strategy to educate children, you know, and there's actually a lot of discretion in a school about how they choose to do that to best meet the needs of their culture and their population.

14:32
And they, they can choose their own schemes through which they teach and their own ideologies and pedagogies.

14:39
Ofsted won't turn up and say, why are you using this product rather than that product or Ofsted will turn up and say, have used this product and to what impact and to what effect?

14:48
There's a lot of data in there as well.

14:51
And it doesn't have to be an inherent skill.

14:54
You know, you can learn the data as you go along, but being able to read data trends because you're you're strategic and those boundaries are really difficult to hold sometimes.

15:03
But it's really important for me off to go in and say to go in and no, sorry that you are interested in what the attainment level are of boys in year 1,2 and 3 against the national average.

15:20
You're not in there to worry about what's happened to one boy in one class.

15:24
And as soon as that conversation starts, you stop it.

15:27
So if somebody comes to you and says the second cubicle in key stage 2 toilet has run out of toilet paper, you say, well, that sounds terrible.

15:35
Have you told the teacher or a caretaker?

15:37
You don't write it down or get involved, but if you're managing a budget that includes whether or not to refurb the toilets that year, you would it's, at that level groups, always groups, always looking, looking at across big levels.

15:52
And I think the core responsibilities of all governors, whatever school you're in, there are three sort of main elements to it.

15:59
So it's holding the head teacher to account for the performance of the school and the financial probity, ensuring the financial probity of that school.

16:07
And then it's setting the strategic direction as a governing body.

16:10
So you set a three-year strategy, usually with some underpinning annual plans.

16:14
And if you think about it in the context of those 3 core responsibilities, what you need is people that will enable you to deliver on those functions.

16:23
And as Orlando described, how that happens in each school is slightly different and you have some flex for that, but you know, you need a range of skills that will support you to do that effectively.

16:33
And that describes quite a stable environment.

16:36
So the school I was, the school I'm a governor for, for the first five years of being a governor, we were under regime called ‘requires improvement’, which is an Ofsted rating, which basically it's not in special measures, but it is, it is in trouble.

16:53
And so you have a lot more Ofsted visits, you have a lot more local authority support.

16:58
So it's hard to say, let's set a long term strategic vision when you're firefighting on a daily to stabilise the staffing group, to stabilise the pupil group.

17:08
I mean, some of the things that we faced at that time, I mean, just as an example, we were temporary and permanent.

17:16
We were about 20 or 30 exclusions a year.

17:20
Now exclusions don't happen because of naughty children.

17:23
Exclusions happen because of an inability to deal with naughty children and or to deal with the factors that are causing them to be naughty.

17:32
Stable home life, good relationships with peers, good relationships with teachers, good relationships with parents, being properly fed.

17:39
So over the course of five years, we had to introduce lots and lots and lots of measures.

17:45
We had to redesign the whole playground so that it was more about play and less about competing for space because that competition for space was causing fights.

17:54
We had to bring in breakfast clubs to make sure that everybody got well fed before they started the learning day if they hadn't even at home.

18:01
And we had to get in in sponsorship from the Co-op and all sorts to settle it up.

18:06
We had to we had to bring the standard of teaching up across the whole school, but to just a baseline national level, not to be great, just to be good.

18:14
And it worked.

18:16
But no one thing was the answer there and the governors had to keep pushing and keep going.

18:21
And as we worked through that with the leadership team, as they came up with more and more ideas and different ways of accommodating, we sent our midday supervisors on football refereeing courses and bought them more whistles because games of football were a spark for bad behaviour.

18:39
That obviously lots of educational interventions as well around how maths was taught, how the way you're taught in year one has a relationship to the way you're taught in year 6.

18:51
So that as you go from one class to the next, you don't have to relearn a teacher's preferences where one likes to talk and one likes to do experiential.

19:01
You flatten all of that out over the full, full course of the, of the thing.

19:06
I wasn't an education specialist.

19:08
I was told by Ofsted there was something wrong.

19:10
And then I asked, or we, the governing body, asked their teachers what they were going to do about it.

19:15
And then we asked them why they were going to do that.

19:18
And then we asked them who they were working with outside of the school to do that.

19:21
And then we asked them what evidence they were going to bring to us in terms of what difference that was going to make.

19:26
And then we encouraged them to stop doing things that obviously weren't making a difference.

19:31
Well, under you mentioned you're a governor at an inner-city school and Caron, you're a governor at a rural village school.

19:39
So I presume with those two very different schools, would being the governor be very different in those two schools?

19:48
I think there'll be some similarities.

19:50
I think there'll be some things that are different.

19:52
So I think the core responsibilities as we described will be different and as Orlando described, the things that you'll need to get involved in will probably.

20:01
All differ by school I'd say, but I, I think one of the challenges for, for a school like ours is the number of pupils.

20:08
So obviously much smaller than Orlando's.

20:10
You know, we've got less than 100 people.

20:11
So, and funding is related to pupils and majority of your funding comes per pupil.

20:17
So of course that creates a real challenge as to how you use that money because you don't have the numbers to kind of play with as such.

20:25
Umm, so I think, you know, that's probably one of the differences.

20:28
But the biggest issue for us is around teacher capacity and well-being because in a small school you don't have the diversity of roles within the teaching staff.

20:37
It's you need subject leaders.

20:39
But for us, our teachers will be subject leaders for multiple subjects.

20:43
Our head teacher is both head teacher and SENco and safeguarding lead and estates and IT and teachers.

20:51
And so actually in terms of load on them and knowledge required to kind of hold all of that.

20:57
So if you know, if officer were coming and doing a deep dive on a subject, you might have the same for a teacher having to do the same deep dive or whatever it is.

21:03
So I think it's that's a real challenge.

21:06
So I think the context of your school will be slightly different, but some of the things that you have to be able to do so understanding the kind of context for your pupils and how best to use the funding.

21:16
And if you've got a high degree of children who have SEN or whatever, how you're supporting them and are you using it effectively?

21:23
And it's your curriculum across all the groups, as Orlando described, you know, is that does that work and does it all link together?

21:30
That would be the same, but your context would just be very, very different, I'd say.

21:34
What do you think?

21:34
Yeah, so relationships are the same.

21:37
You've got to have good relationships with your governing body.

21:40
You've got to be able to recover quickly from a bruising experience.

21:46
We once had a catastrophic failing of the governing body where a proposal was put forwards that the governor's felt that they, the leadership team, had hijacked them.

21:59
And we actually, I actually had to, as the chair, I had to end the meeting and then convene a special meeting a week later with a new set of proposals on the table to try and remediate and facilitate a way forwards.

22:12
But at that point, the entire room was so incensed by the way it was just misinterpretation.

22:17
But relationships I think are really key.

22:19
They're going to be key.

22:20
And whatever you're doing, understanding standards, holding to standards, and it's going to be a universal, universal quality.

22:29
And what do all schools have?

22:31
All schools have pupils and by far the most enjoyable, enriching experiences to go and participate in school life through the lens of a governor.

22:42
So you're not just going to a school play as a parent anymore, or in fact, I go to other people's school plays.

22:47
And through the lens of a governor, I then appreciate what the teachers have done to get the pupils to this point, what the teachers are doing to get unconfident pupils into a, into a new space, how they've used their resources, how they've tied curriculum into this, into this experience.

23:05
There's so much more that goes into that you don't realise, I think on the outside.

23:09
And I think having that insight as a governor is, yeah, seeing, seeing it in practise is really, really valuable.

23:15
Going and talking to staff.

23:16
So governors all have lead areas and it's, and it's often based on their own experience.

23:21
So we've got a couple of governors who are teachers and in other schools they make greatly the subject lead areas because they're bringing in in their own ideas.

23:30
But the lead areas aren't all academic.

23:33
I was lead for health and safety for a few years.

23:36
I just wandered around the site going why is that gutter hanging off?

23:38
And this looks like a sharp, sharp spin to a bench.

23:42
And when it goes on a list that governor's written, it gets fixed very quickly.

23:46
But you're also helping them ask for extra money where it's required in that sense.

23:51
What are the lead areas?

23:52
Can you have Safeguarding obviously is a big one.

23:54
So wellbeing we've got yeah.

23:57
I mean, there's a whole, there's a whole host of greener governance as the big thing now.

24:00
So have schools becoming more green talking to the school, but about it's very difficult.

24:04
Schools are all pushed financially, aren't they?

24:06
But it's, it's fine to get people to think longer term a little bit as well around what could we do in this space that will, will kind of take us along that path.

24:15
So, yeah, there are lots of things on us that will understand different subject leadership areas.

24:19
I think big ones are like are safeguarding probably aren't they?

24:23
And SEN having a send link as well very important.

24:26
And you are still about qualities.

24:28
Discretion is very important because you shouldn't in theory be hearing things that make a family identifiable.

24:36
OK, but some things are inevitable.

24:39
But one of the things that that head teachers are charged with is, is the very important thing that they mustn't tell thing people things that they mustn't know, but with which I'm meeting you.

24:52
You as a parent will go to reception and you'll say you'll, you'll be frustrated that there's only one receptionist there and it's taking 20 minutes to pay the dinner money.

25:04
Or you'll ask the head teacher for an appointment and you're frustrated it's taking them a week to get you in their diary.

25:10
But what they can't tell you is that they've just spent two days on social work panels about really horrific and safeguarding incidents that have taken place where children are being taken into care or, you know, and they can't tell you that the reason there's only one receptionist on that day is because the other one is off sick with cancer.

25:29
It's just the depths to with which that can go even in a small community and just got to be very.

25:36
And I think in a community, small Community School like ours is, is absolutely essential because you know, the pupil numbers, it is so much easier to actually be able to identify even though you shouldn't be able too.

25:48
But you can people hear things, they pick up stuff.

25:51
So it is absolutely critical that governors are completely confidential and don't share anything.

25:57
And that is one of the things we do when we recruit and, and how we forgot that as a quality.

26:01
Yeah, but it's probably one of the critical things is making sure you've got somebody who will absolutely maintain that because people do not need to know things that they don't need to know.

26:11
And papers and, you know, information governance is all is full part of the induction.

26:16
So massive part of the induction.

26:18
People like to know, don't they?

26:19
I think that is the challenge you have.

26:20
Sometimes I think people want to know what's going on and they'll come to you and they'll say, they'll say, oh, Orlando, you know, there was no toilet paper.

26:27
And I'll stick with that example.

26:28
There was no toilet paper in the toilets this afternoon.

26:31
You'll go, yeah, that that's terrible, you know, right.

26:34
There's something really horrific has happened or, or that there's a really good explanation for that, but you can't say it because, yeah, put the iceberg scenario, go back to that story about ‘requires improvement’, OK.

26:47
One of the criticisms from parents that would come through would be the presenteeism of the of the senior leadership team.

26:54
And what of course, they were just working really hard to stabilise everything else and the parents were on their list, but they weren't inside the top three, OK.

27:04
But of course, parent, you know, you only comment on what you see.

27:07
So, you know, I found myself at several points sort of defending that senior leadership team and saying, well, I understand your concerns.

27:15
And what I can tell you is it's the tip of the iceberg and just be a bit patient.

27:19
I think you do end up having to do a bit of defending sometimes and I think that is part of your role.

27:23
But it is trying to do that without again, breaching any confidentiality.

27:28
And there can be a challenge.

27:29
I should imagine it's easier to be involved in the school where you don't have children there then you don't have that emotional connection or attachments. Possibly.

27:40
But the problem is and OK, when we look at motivation, OK, what motivates people to be volunteers?

27:48
And I was motivated to improve the school experience for my children.

27:52
And of course I cared about the school experience for everybody else's children.

27:56
But that was what that for me, that was just such a huge driver and that idea of being part of continuous improvement with that driver in mind.

28:04
And that it is, you know, probably a fact that imagine 70 or 80% of all governors are parents or children in that school to start with.

28:14
You do often get people who were parents at the school who were hanging around like the both of us.

28:18
My kids have left now my kids have left.

28:21
But it is, you know what, what gets people to fill the fill the chairs in the 1st place?

28:26
I think, yeah, it's having a vested interest, isn't it?

28:29
I think that is big part of the motivation.

28:31
And I think the other thing is actually sometimes if you're a parent governor, you, you have two perspectives.

28:35
And that can also be quite helpful.

28:37
You know, you can always think about the things you're trying to do, you know, from a governor point of view.

28:42
And then when you're almost receiving it at the same time as a parent, you can kind of reflect on has that landed quite right?

28:48
Or, you know, your friends will comment and you'll think, OK, maybe we didn't quite position that correctly.

28:52
So there is some benefit, I think to being that involved.

28:55
But I think from a detached point of view and a confidentiality point of view.

28:58
So it needs easier I think if you're not.

29:01
There's an ongoing national debate about should the governor role be a voluntary role or should it be paid?

29:09
Do you have any opinions on this?

29:11
Well, I, I think what's positive about being voluntary is you do get people who are in the main quite committed.

29:17
And, and I think you get that diversity of role because you, you know, you've, you're trying to find people with different skills.

29:24
You know, I just think you get a level of person who's really engaged and interested at the end of the day, because it's quite a commitment.

29:30
Otherwise they're wasting their own time.

29:32
Yeah, exactly.

29:32
There are literally wasting their own time.

29:34
And I think so I think that's definitely a benefit.

29:37
I do feel like as a local authority school though, the degree of delegation to governance is quite heavy for a voluntary role, which you wouldn't have if you were a governor to MAT.

29:49
So at a multi Academy trust, because what happens in a MAT is the central team take on a lot of that responsibility.

29:56
At a local authority school, a lot of the things around finance and all that get absolutely delegated to governors.

30:02
And I do think that is actually quite a big ask with a degree of responsibility on people who at the end of the day don't have to be there.

30:10
So, you know, as Orlando said earlier, you have to cajole people sometimes along to engage and slightly contradicting what I just said, but you do have to keep people motivated and going.

30:20
And I think having a lot of responsibility can sometimes feel heavy for people in the, in that space when they already have children and jobs and other things.

30:29
I'll give us an example of that.

30:30
In the lead up to recruiting a head teacher, I met with the local HR department.

30:34
We have funded, we, we subscribe to their service.

30:38
And they said the basic cost of headteacher recruitment from our service in addition to your subscription is going to be £4,500.

30:46
And I said, OK, for that, I would like to see this, this, this, this and this on this timeline.

30:51
And they, they came back and said yes to everything but the timeline.

30:54
If you want it doing in that timeline, you'll need to do some of it yourself.

30:59
OK.

31:00
And we had to stick to that timeline, otherwise we would have had a gap with no head teacher because of the way the retirement working.

31:08
And it wasn't unreasonable what the head teachers were given in terms of notice either.

31:13
They've been very good about it.

31:15
I would guess.

31:16
I did 50 hours of work in preparing for that head teacher recruitment exercise, including meeting prospective candidates, walking around.

31:25
You do a 2-day assessment centre for headteachers, very comprehensive.

31:29
And when it came, when it came to the shop, the HR department wrote back and said that they recognised that I'd made a substantial contribution and they reduced it by £500, which I wrote back and said I think, I think you're taking...

31:45
They said, well, I had to get direct to sign off to do this.

31:48
You ain't getting anything else.

31:49
So I'm agreeing with Caron's point.

31:51
Basically, there's a lot of push down and that isn't good.

31:54
The other thing I would love to see Bev, I'd love to see a pilot of not paying governors, compensating governors who are joining still motivated by the notion that they're going to be volunteering, but we would be compensating them because either because they are coming from a position where they can't afford to volunteer, OK, Our hours worked is food on the table.

32:23
OK, So that we can increase the diversity in the membership for governing bodies, OK, because they are in the main middle class in my experience, even in an inner city school.

32:36
And then where we can also compensate people where they're bringing skills that are really vital at that point in the school's development, we're stopping short of paying somebody.

32:45
But when we're coming halfway, I'd love to see the impact that that then has on the school itself.

32:51
The school would have to show a return on investment for that compensation.

32:55
But a pilot that that went down that route to what I think would be very.

32:59
I think it'd be interesting because I think in terms of diversity, but also we're in terms of load on parents, you know, parents of the young children, it's quite intensive, isn't at that age they need you a lot and then to then also have to give up time to be a governor, you know, particularly for single parents and working parents, those kinds of things.

33:16
It is, is a big ask.

33:17
And I think what happens is the model that we currently have means you do limit a bit who's willing or able, not even that they're willing that they're able to give up that kind of degree of time and effort.

33:29
So I agree with Orlando.

33:31
I think that might go some way even if people were able to get sought out childcare because they were getting some sort of compensation that might enable depend assuming these expenses can be claimed, so any expenses that you incur in your governor roles such as stationery or parking can can they be claimed back?

33:49
Yes, in theory from the school bursa.

33:51
I doubt anyone does that.

33:52
Yeah, schools are so pushed financially, I think most governors probably just suck it up, don't they?

33:57
Yes.

33:58
I mean, you're in the main running budgets in deficit anyway and you are having at least once a year conversations about whether to buy pencils or recruit TAs. Buildings.

34:09
So the buildings are in our case are owned by the local authority.

34:12
OK, but they only have so much money.

34:15
So we had a classroom that we just couldn't use for six months because the roof fell in and it wasn't high enough on a priority list.

34:22
We had Channel 4 come around one year because the local authority told us we had the worst dining hall in the city, 995 primary schools in the city, but they still wouldn't fix it.

34:34
Yeah.

34:35
And, and I think that that financial pressure is just even in the church schools because we have a link in the buildings and, you know, there's interest from the diocese.

34:43
They're financially pressured as well.

34:45
You know, there's just isn't that kind of cash around to really help.

34:48
But.

34:49
And the perverse thing as well is that rich breeds rich and poor breeds poor.

34:54
I was talking to a governor who comes from a lovely village in the countryside, not you.

34:58
And she told me that they're at their Christmas, like there's summer fair.

35:01
Sorry.

35:02
There's summer fair would make usually £15-£20,000 profit.

35:07
OK.

35:08
And that's because of all the business owners that whose kids attend the school.

35:13
And basically then you know, they're using it and they're paying for everything on the barbecue and the tombola and stuff like that.

35:22
Hours usually make between £800-900.

35:25
Your fundraising events? Summer fair.

35:28
Yeah.

35:28
And it's in part because we prioritise community over fundraising.

35:33
So we make it accessible.

35:35
So again, is 20p not 50p or £1.

35:38
Santa's £1, not £5.

35:40
But that that's representative of where we're at.

35:44
OK.

35:44
I think your point is really interesting about the pilot scheme and seeing people getting compensated.

35:51
But I think you're absolutely right.

35:52
I think there's a certain group of people who volunteer and in order to attract more diverse people into volunteering to be a governor that, you know, we may have to look into compensation.

36:03
But I guess the question is where would that compensation come from?

36:07
Because, you know, there isn't money, there isn't, there isn't there is an opportunity there, which is in corporate social responsibility frameworks.

36:15
So we do have governors who not all of their time, but some of their time is paid by their substantive employer through community, you know, community give back scheme.

36:25
Essentially we I get a day a year which are generally used for interviews in school.

36:31
Yeah, I think, I mean we're both in public sectors.

36:34
So it is an absolute part of our organisation ethos is that bit around giving back into the community as well.

36:40
So they're very supportive of having kind of time for governors.

36:44
And I don't think all employers do that.

36:46
But that is probably, you're right.

36:47
I mean that is essentially paid, paid in the sense of where we have some time off from the work point of view to be able to participate.

36:55
But not everybody has that.

36:56
That is particular to the organisation.

36:58
But probably more though of those kinds of schemes might help as well.

37:01
Can I mention the name of a of an organisation so Capital One.

37:06
So Capital One have a corporate social responsibility scheme just over the road there.

37:10
And so for that they do two things.

37:14
The first thing they do is they invite groups of pupils and we have pupil voice group called the Rainbow Rangers and they go to Capital One for a full day once a year.

37:24
The Rainbow Rangers invited in and they get talks on quality and diversity.

37:29
They are different.

37:30
People from around Capital One come and talk to the pupils and my daughter went to one of those.

37:34
She came back, she said, Dad, there's a lot of diversity in Capital One.

37:38
They've even got somebody from Derby.

37:39
And but then as part of that same scheme, we have a governor who comes from Capital One and sits on governing body meetings and essentially does that as part of their reach into the community.

37:51
Well, yeah, and I'm trust you.

37:52
I mean, that's good, isn't it, Because police or fire or those, you know, I think those bodies tend to release people to come and talk in schools.

38:00
But actually if you've got a corporate doing that and that's really fantastic.

38:03
Yes, that might be the way to go. If there are any people who are interested in becoming a school governor.

38:09
Is there any more information or websites that people can go on to find out more details?

38:14
There are several, yes.

38:15
We could provide you with those.

38:16
I can't tell with the top of my head, Bev.

38:18
We could provide you with those and you could put them in the links of that would be useful.

38:22
There's some national bodies that support with them getting governors into school.

38:26
So you could fight, you know, you expressed an interest there.

38:28
And then most of the local authorities also have their own recruitment processes as well for governors.

38:32
And equally most if you're involved, your kids are at a school, they'll have their own processes there too.

38:37
So lots of ways you can get involved.

38:39
Great, thank you.

38:40
And if anyone had any questions, can people contact you?

38:44
Are you happy for people to contact you, Caron and Orlando?

38:47
Yes, just e-mail add salt and you can forward will be any questions to us jump on to my website: addsalt.co.uk send me an e-mail and I'll put you in touch with Caron and Orlando.

39:00
All right, well, thank you so much for your time both.

39:02
That was really interesting.

39:03
No, thank you.

39:04
I think the listener is feeling motivated about positive change.

39:09
It really is an environment where you can bring change. Thank you.

39:13
Bye, bye.

39:14
Thank you.