School governors
Passing the buck
Rhodes Boyson
It was in my first post as an assistant master at Ramsbottom Secondary Modern School that I made my acquaintance with school governors. They initially showed their wisdom by appointing me to the school in charge of English despite the fact that my degree was in history and politics. This breadth of vision on their part, possibly encouraged by the fact that I was as far as I can remember the only candidate, did not stretch to their literary knowledge or appreciation as I was soon to find.
I spent the summer vacation after appointment reading all possible English text books and readers, and discovered for the first time the bloodthirstly Henty, John Buchan, Conan Doyle and Jack London among scores of other authors. I returned armed with a list of reading books I wanted immediately. The Headmaster, wise and impressed with my zeal, immediately put the list before the Governors for their approval as special expenditure. I was later informed that the face of the Chairman of Governors blanched when he saw the name of Jack London and concluded that White Fang was a dangerously subversive book and my future teaching career was saved either by the skilful tongue of the Head or by the fact that my father who had been Chairman of the Divisional Educational Education Executive for most of his life was known not only as a Labour Alderman, but as a scourge of the local Communists. For five years the fourth year boys thus gloried with me in that wonderful dog tale. Now we have theTaylor Committee of Inquiry set up by Reginald Prentice when he was Secretary of State for Education. It is inquiring into the government of schools including the method of selection of Governors and the powers exercised by them. Everybody seems to be putting evidence to them, much of it full of the special pleading of parents, teacher unions or even pupils.
The present arrangement is that most authorities appoint the governors of state schools from political lists by some subsequent co-option of local notables. Most are normally drawn from the majority party in the area. This has considerable advantages, ignored by most of those who are giving evidence. Under present arrangements the money to run a school comes from the local authority and if County Hall and the Governors are controlled by the same party there will be reasonable harmony and smooth organisation. Local party workers on governing bodies will also have considerable influence with the local authority though party friendships.
If, on the other hand, the governing body is made up of a hotchpot of different people it is likely to be a talking or grievance shop at odds with the local authority to no-one's advantage. The Headmaster or Headmistress has over the last twenty years always attended as an advisor at each governors' meeting and as such he was far more powerful than if he just becomes another governor with one vote. Recently there has been a move towards the ,appointment of parent and teacher governors
and even in a few authorities pupil governors. The parent and teacher governors have not usually done much harm but they have rarely done much good. Pupil governors are usually looked upon with horror by responsible teachers who do not like the idea of their futures being affected by the influence or even decisions of their students. It is but another step in the British muddle where responsibility is indefinite and no-one says, "the buck stops here."
Elections for parent governors have rarely generated much enthusiasm and there is a risk that nomination will be driven through by minority pressure groups as with trade union elections. As I wrote in my book Oversubscribed: The Story of Highbury Grove only seventy-two parents attended the first special meeting to elect a parent governor at that school despite more than 2,300 parents being invited by special letter. This represented less than one in twenty-five of the total parent body and was fewer than the attendance at any House evening and less than a quarter of the normal attendance at a single year meeting. Most schools had even lower attendances and some schools had insufficient parents present to provide a mover, seconder, a nominee, a chairman and two scrutineers without with a valid election could not take place.
It is obvious that most parents want a choice of school not the right to elect governors and run schools like a co-operative society. Where a school is popular parents are satisfied and do not turn up to elect a parent governor; where they are unpopular the parents do not turn up at all. Parents want, as at William Tyndale, a passport out of a school not a ballot box.
It could be argued that teacher governors are redundant when they agree with the Head and that they are an unnecessary running sore, when, generally as members of the subversive Rank and File Movement, they use the governors to overthrow the school structure. 1 must, however, confess that parent governors were a great help to me throughout my eighteen years of headship. At Lea Bank in Lancashire a number of governors not only had children at the school but they themselves were old boys of the school. Their commitment to the school was total. It is of interest that these were not elected as parent governors but as political nominees or co-opted governors. There is no reason why political parties should not nominate their members in a school as their governors and then we have the best of both worlds.
At Highbury Grove there was an elected parent governor who was most effective, a co-opted and active parent governor and several Labour nominees with children at the school and at least one Conservative nominee whose son had attended the school. With the ear of their political parties and with their knowledge and faith in the school such governors were most effective. It was certainly the parent governors and the political governors with children at the school who saved Highbury Grove from the trendy hand of I.L.E.A. when I left the school. For several years at Highbury Grove I was also fortunate to have Dame Evelyn Denington, the present chairman of the G.L.C. as my chairman of governors. Woe betide the Head with a politically ineffective chairman of Governors!
What is the power of state governing bodies? They are in charge of teaching appointments, they are instrumental in the selection of the Head and they technically supervise the curricula and the scheme of work. They are also consulted on all expenditure. In reality, however, their influence in spheres other than appointments is nominal. I encouraged my governors individually to spend a day each term in the school seeing it at work and talking to the boys and staff. Most came but at least one Highbury Grove governor from my own party never set foot in the school apart from Speech Days and sueh events. A day in the school each term should be a requirement for all governors who want to play a full part in the school.
The termly governors' meetings fulfil a useful purpose in so far as the Head has to submit a report and to justify under questioning all his decisions. It seems, however, to take a long time before a governing body acts when a school is collapsing. It was the parents who knew this at William Tyndale School long before the governors (there called managers) knew.
I think that state schools would run better if they looked at the way public schools were organised. The heads in the private sector generally have their appointments for a number of years as against the virtual lifetime tenure of the state system. The public school Heads are then left to appoint their staff, "sack" boys and decide on interview which boys should join their school.
The state system would improve if similar arrangements were made. Let the governors appoint the Head on limited tenure and then let him appoint his own staff and provided his school is full let him take on and expel boys. Governors meetings will then be a time when the Head has really to justify his methods in running the school. Real responsibility will bring a better class of headship. Heads who failed would not have their contracts renewed. Such responsibility and dynamic tension would do more for school standards than fifty Taylor Inquiries and governing bodies meeting every day. We suffer in Britain from too many committees sharing power. It is far better in schools, as in business, to reward success and penalise failure. I fear, however, that Britain has worked itself into a climate where such an obvious solution will not even be considered.
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