School Governors
School governors are one of the country’s largest voluntary groups with around 300,000 contributing to strategic development and raising standards of achievement at more than 30,000 schools. The role of the governing body is absolutely key to the effectiveness of a school.
Governors are asked to act with integrity, honesty and objectivity and give their time voluntarily to work as part of a team.
School governors are drawn from different parts of the community and can be parents and staff or from the Local Authority, the community and other groups. This helps ensure the governing board has sufficient diversity of views and experience but does not mean governors of a particular category represent that group on the governing board. For example, parent governors do not represent the parents at the school and do not report back to them. Each individual governor is a member of a governing board, which is established in law as a corporate body. Individual governors may not act independently of the rest of the governing board. Decisions are the joint responsibility of the governing board.