We’re inviting people from Local Authorities and Governor Services teams to hear first hand how to deliver School Governor training in a climate of efficiencies. More than a third of all Local Authorities in England are saving money and offering a more accessible approach to School Governor training using Modern Governor as part of a blended learning solution.

What: ‘Delivering School Governor training in a climate of efficiencies’

Cost: Free!

When: Tuesday 21st September 2010 9am-12pm

Where: Chamberlain Room, Council House, Birmingham, B1 1BB View Map

Click here to reserve your place now (places limited to 30)

Two schools have helped us with the creation of this module – John Kyrle High School in Ross on Wye, Herefordshire and Thomas Reade Primary School in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.  We interviewed the school leadership teams extensively about their experience of Governor Mark accreditation and we present these as case studies to help inform schools who are thinking of applying for Governor Mark accreditation.

We’re also delighted that Phil Hand – a leading light in Governor Mark – gave us his thoughts on the work involved and the main lessons that schools should remember for their application.

More than a third of England’s Local Authorities are offering Modern Governor e-learning modules to their school Governing Bodies.   Accessible online at any time, they provide a cost-effective, timely solution for busy School Governors to learn at a time, place and pace to suit them. 

Modern Governor is a product within the Learning Pool portfolio.  If you’d like to know more about Modern Governor, contact me.

Elaine

I was then left speechless (which hardly ever happens!) when they told me that their existing e-learning provision (not Modern Governor!) was struggling badly and only receiving a 1% uptake by Governors…. 1 percent… seriously, you’d think more people would log on by accident!

After the initial shock we discussed why this might be – could it be that Governors aren’t interested? – no, they are keen to be trained and requests to Governor Services are consistently high. Do the Governors know about it? – yes, the Governor Services team promote the availability of the service using various communication channels.  Is the e-learning good? – no but it was all that they could afford at the time and they wanted to do something rather than nothing.

Ok so what is to be done?… here are some top tips for getting your Modern Governor subscription used widely by your Governing Bodies:

1.  Talk about it – at all of your Governor conferences/meetings.  Distribute our simple “how-to” guide to all of your schools – perhaps to all your  Clerks/Chairs with a request to circulate at the next Governing Body meeting?  Can you mention it in your Governors newsletter?  Governors Association website?  Governor Training section on your authority website?  Need some help?  Contact me.
2. Use it – have you and your colleagues in Governor Services used Modern Governor yet?  Give it a go and it will enable you to discuss it with your Governors
3. Champion it – engage your Clerks, Training Link Governors and/or Chairs.   Do they know what Modern Governor is? Do they know how to access it? Do they know about the modules available? Do they need access to Modern Governor training reports for their Governing Bodies?
4. Work it – allocate 15 minutes of each Governing Body meeting to look through a Modern Governor topic as a group.  All you need is internet access and a computer (or interactive whiteboard) – it’s a great way to bond as a group and identify the training areas you need to focus on.
5. Blend it – Governors attending a face-to-face training session or workshop?  In the joining instructions, remind them that the topic is also available to view on Modern Governor (if it’s not and you think it should be, contact me).
6. Fix it – forgotten username/password is the most common reason for inactivity (but most often overlooked).  Governors can reset these on our login screen or we can reset these for multiple Governors simultaneously and they’ll receive an email reminding them how to log in.  If you’d like to discuss this, contact me.

So there you are…..our experience is that Governors make great use of Modern Governor when they know it exists and are given the information they need… 1%…still can’t get over that!

Elaine

We talked about the New Ofsted Framework in a recent blog, and now we’re delighted to announce the release of the latest Modern Governor module “Self-evaluation and the New Ofsted Framework”.

One of the biggest challenges that Schools and Governors face (and will continue to face) is the ever-changing landscape of education.  Doing more for less is the new reality in these times of fiscal constraints – but School Governors will always need to be trained in the key areas.  The traditional face-to-face workshop is still popular – but how do you get the right information to the right Governors at the right time if they can’t attend workshops at evenings and weekends?

“Self-evaluation and The New Ofsted Framework” is the latest module from Modern Governor – a product from the Learning Pool portfolio.  The modules are designed for Governors by School Governance experts and are interactive, engaging and relevant.  Almost half of all local authorities subscribe to Modern Governor, and every day more are realising that e-learning is the perfect way to ensure that busy Governors (who, after all, volunteer their own time) can receive quality training at a time, place and pace to suit them.

Elaine Walton, Product Manager for Modern Governor said: “It’s always a happy day when we release a new Modern Governor module.  Our community grows stronger by the day because of the quality of our content, and the quality of our interactive content is strengthened by our community who engage with us about future modules.  It’s a busy time for us as we will be releasing another 2 courses in the coming weeks – “Is Governor Mark for Us?” on 16th July and “Looked After Children” on 2nd August.”

“My Governing Body has had poor clerks and effective clerks.  But what a difference a good clerk makes.  Our current clerk has made an impact on our effectiveness and taken away the uncertainty about legal requirements.   The chair and Headteacher are less concerned with administrative and clerical work and we all benefit with strategic leadership as our focus and not correct procedure. 

Despite a lack of long term experience as a Governing Body, we knew things weren’t right when meeting agendas and minutes arrived late but other than a lack of proper procedure we were just busy with our own roles to be effective Governors.  It was only when we’d finally had enough and requested a new clerk from the Local Authority’s professional service that we suddenly and shockingly realised how much else had been out of order!  It took some time to put this right and we went backwards for a short while as we met about proper articles and annual planning but the result has been well worth it.

A clerk is the professional governance resource and knowledge base for a Governing Body and if you Google ‘Good clerk Governor’ you’ll find plenty of guidelines on what the role entails, the difference it makes and even the qualities and experience you might specify. 

I’d like to see an e-learning Module on ‘The role of a good clerk’ from Modern Governor.  Would this be useful to anyone else?”

Sue Pagliaro, Head of Governor Support, opened the evening and introduced Professor David Fleming, the Vice Chancellor of York St John University.  Professor Fleming welcomed everyone to the University with a rousing talk – and we wish him all the best in his new role.

Kersten England, Chief Executive of City of York Council, then spoke about “Civic Particpation and Leadership – the contribution of Governors”.  Having been a Chair and Vice Chair of Governing Bodies in Bradford in the ’90s, Kersten empathised with the challenging role faced by Governors. 

According to Kersten, there are 3 dimensions of the leadership function that a Governor fulfils:

1. Leaders of the school community – setting the culture, the tone, the visions and the values of the school – and at the cutting edge of big society.

2. Strengthening life in the wider community – contributing to discussions about the quality of life in their neighbourhood.

3. Making a leadership contribution to the city as a whole, involved in critical decisions about public services.

I thought Kersten’s speech made the point about how valuable the role of School Governor is to all members of their community, not just the children at their school. 

As Sue Pagliaro put it – “this training package is vital as we support Governors and ensure that our children emerge from schooling “fit for life”.

Coming soon….the case study on City of York’s launch.

by Elaine

The revised arrangements, introduced in the autumn, emphasise the role of leadership, the progress and achievement of pupils and the quality of teaching and learning. In addition inspection places much more reliance on classroom observation to judge overall effectiveness.

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, Christine Gilbert commented, “Greater involvement for senior staff in the inspection process and more inspection time in the classroom, means that the new framework is helping ensure schools are better able to understand their weaknesses and areas in need of development”. 
 
Figures show that of 3,990 school inspections carried out from September to March 2010, the proportion of schools judged to be outstanding was 11%.

Forty-two percent were judged good, 38% percent satisfactory with 5% given notice to improve and 4% judged as requiring special measures.

A good proportion of schools inspected have shown improvement since their last inspection. Over a quarter of schools (28%) have improved their grade, including 40% of schools previously graded satisfactory, that are now judged good or outstanding at this inspection.

Nearly half (48%) of the schools inspected maintained the same grade as their previous inspection, while nearly a quarter (24%) went down.

The new Ofsted Framework course from Modern Covernor will give School Governors the necessary guidelines and provide links to additional resources with more detailed information.

Ofsted reports that the reaction from schools experiencing the new inspection is positive. More than nine out of ten schools, responding to surveys following inspection, say they were satisfied with the way inspection was carried out.

At Modern Governor we’d like to hear you own thoughts on the new Ofsed inspection regime. Feel free to post your comments on this blog or contact us.

by Lisa

We’ve reviewed all of our content to reflect changes in legislation since the election in May 2010 – the last course to be fully updated will be our current ‘Preparing for Ofsted’ course, and this will be released shortly.

The DCSF has become the DfE - and all of our courses refer to DfE.  But it’s likely that Governors will come across both DCSF (and even DfES!) elsewhere, so we’ve included these old acronyms in our online glossaries.

Our courses are at most 2 years old – but the internet is a dynamic beast, and so we’ve checked that every single link to external content is a) still relevant and b) still working (the rebranded DfE were very quick to archive a lot of the DCSF webpages!).

Every Governor who uses Modern Governor courses gets the chance to send us their feedback – we review all feedback received and have made changes as a result.  We’ve reworded some of our questions, rewritten content and enhanced our course descriptions to ensure that they’re of the style and quality our Governors demand.   While our technical gurus were at it, they’ve also developed additional tools which will enable them to make changes to our courses even faster and more efficiently in the future.

We believe that it should be ‘Governor’ with a capital ‘G’ – and so we’ve changed each and every instance of this in our courses.  

Usability of our courses is one of our strengths – we’ve removed any unnecessary ‘clicks’ so that Governors can move around our courses even easier than before. 

Governors told me that our certificates used too much ink – so we’ve changed the certificate templates to save the planet (and save the pennies!). 

Here’s how we’re able to review and update our courses so quickly:

1. Our team of full-time education consultants and technical wizards, who regularly review our content alongside our subject matter experts
2. We use the Learning Pool authoring tool, allowing us to change content as and when we choose.
3. All Modern Governor courses are delivered via our DLEs (Dynamic Learning Environments), so there’s no waiting around for a third-party to upload something for us.  As soon as we update the course, it’s available to all our customers – it’s as simple as that!
4. We receive fabulous feedback from the thousands of Modern Governors around the country who use our courses.

Of course we never rest on our laurels – we’ll continue to review our courses on a monthly basis, so if you spot something you think is wrong or if you would like to see something included in one of our courses, contact me.

Elaine

There will soon be 3 brand new courses available in the Modern Governor range of e-learning courses.  As always, the courses have been developed specifically for School Governors in conjunction with governance experts.  Each course is interactive, with case studies, exercises and links to further information, and engages the Governor in the learning experience.

The new courses available soon are:

“Is Governor Mark for Us?”

Governor Mark is an optional accreditation for School Governing Bodies to assess the effectiveness of Governance in their school.  Using case studies, this module aims to inform you of the necessary processes, timescale and involvement required by Governing Bodies to successfully achieve the standard.  We’re delighted that Phil Hand, one of the key players in the creation of Governor Mark, has contributed so comprehensively to this module.

“The New Ofsted Framework”

This course will give School Governors the necessary guidelines on the New Ofsted Framework and provide links to additional resources and more detailed information.

“Looked After Children”

This module will explain the difficulties which looked after children encounter, the support available, what role School Governors play and suggested actions for Governors.

Modern Governor is from Learning Pool, the public sector learning community, and has thousands of School Governors in its community.  More than a third of all local authorities offer Modern Governor courses as part of their blended learning strategy.  If you’d like more information on how we can support Governors to support schools, get in touch.

“The New Governor” was originally developed for Wiltshire Local Authority, and was based on their successful, well-established full-day training course.  Using the Learning Pool authoring tool we have repackaged this course for the benefit of all of our Modern Governors – no matter where their school is!

This course is designed for new School Governors and introduces them to their role and responsibilities.  Along with our famous bite-sized, interactive e-learning, the course contains practical examples to check Governors’ understanding of the content and access to additional resources for more detailed information.

Elaine Walton, Modern Governor’s Product Manager, said “This is a great example of the Learning Pool concept – using our technology to share content for the benefit of all of our customers.  We’re delighted to have another course in our Modern Governor catalogue – it’s the latest but by no means the last!  We have a fantastic customer-base who provide us with content suggestions, and we relish the challenge of developing timely, fully-interactive, high-quality content that demonstrably helps our local authority customers and Governors.”