Steve Gulluck
Steve Gulluck is the Director of the All Wales Centre for governer training and research. He talked to us about governors roles in schools. He explained to us what governors are and told us some information about them. He told us that there are roughly 23,000 governors and that they are not paid. He told us that they must meet at least 3 times a year.
He said there were 4 types of governing body. There is the abdicators, the adversaries, the supporters club, and the partners. I will give an overview of each.
The Abdicators - These governers do not have a lot of involvement in schools and leave all the decision making to the head or the "professionals"
The Adversaries - These governers have very high standards and keep a very close eye on the school and how it is run. They seek to make all the decisions about the running of the school.
The supporters club - These governers work together with the school to get things done. They offer support and advice and monitor the schools expeniture very closely.
The Partners - These are the best types of governers. They work in partnership with the head and staff. There is mutual trust and respect. Governers are equal partners in all the decision making.
He gave us an overview of the Roles of the Governing Body. For example:
- Taking responsibility for the conduct of the school
- Managing the schools budget
- Governors have to be re-elected every 4 years
- and more...
There are 6 types of governing body:
- Parent - Governors must have children at the school
- LEA - Picked by the council
- Teacher - Teachers of the schools
- Staff - People who work in the school but are not teachers, e.g. maintenance, secretary etc.
- Community - People who live in the area
- Head - The head teacher automatically becomes a governor but they do not have to accept it.
There is a huge shortage of community governors in many schools in areas of poverty and deprivation. Most governors are middle class. This is because governors are not paid and unemployed people would have to worry about things like money, time and transport. If they are not working and spending their time doing unpaid work, how are they going to cope? Middle class people however, can afford to spend some time doing unpaid work. However, not all schools are short of community workers, some have enough.
There are not many governors from ethnic minority backgrounds, so there is not a lot of governors representing them. Steve explained that this could be because they tend to work in news agents and restaurants and often work during the evening/nights which is when the meetings are held. He also said that it could be because of fear of racism and abuse making them uncomfortable and making them lack confidence. Steve showed some of the brochures and posters that are used to advertise being a governor. He explained that he did not agree with the posters which were multilingual. He said that there is no translation provided during the meetings, so if someone who could not speak English saw the sign in another language they would be mislead into thinking that they could be a Governor and translations would be available to them.
There are also not a lot of governors under the age of 40. This could be because most people under the age of 40 would be tied down by other things like family and would not have a lot of time on their hands. Whereas people over 40 tend to have older children who can look after themselves or have moved out so they have more time on their hands.
There has been a lot of debate as to whether governors should be paid. So Steve Gulluck talked about why they should or shouldn't be paid. He said that if they were paid it would make the governors work harder, and more people would want to do it. However, if they were paid it would interest people purely because of the money and they would not have the children's best interests as heart. He also stresses that there is a problem with where the money would come from. There are already a lot of cuts being made in education, and having to pay the governors would mean there would be even less money to spend on education. The people who would lose out is teachers, because the money would be taken from their wages. The money would also come out of what is used to buy new equipment for the school, so the children would lose out there. He also said that "if it's not broke, don't fix it" meaning it is unpaid now, so why change it? Therefore he suggests that it would be best to be kept unpaid as changing it would cause more harm than good and I agree.
They also question who governors should be, should they be teachers, parents, strangers? Steve Gulluck told us that he thought it was very important to have parent governors because they have children in the school, so they really want the school to do well. Therefore they would work really hard to make sure that the school was being run properly.
Steve Gulluck explained to us that training to be a governor is free of charge and must be provided. However, in 2005, 14 out of 22 local authorities (more than half) did not get correct training. Some training sessions got cancelled due to the lack of interest. In some cases more than 20% of them failed to turn up.
.JPG)
.JPG)
