Become a Governor or Trustee in Norfolk

School governors are the largest group of volunteers in England, however, despite this most governing bodies have one or more vacancies. 

Governing bodies have three core functions:

  • Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent
  • Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils
  • Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction

NGN also supports the additional core function as recommended by the National Governance Association.

  • Ensuring the voices of stakeholders are heard

Governors and Trustees are supported in their roles

All governors go through a formal or informal induction period, this could be with the Chair of Governors or a governor mentor. In addition, governors have mandatory and optional training. Therefore, although certain skills are preferable, anyone can be a school governor as training is provided. 

Norfolk Governance Network represents governors and trustees in Norfolk, we are a voluntary organisation comprised of governors and trustees. NGN runs free events each year and encourages networking, so link to us via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – our details are at the bottom of this page. 

What do school governors do?

  • Appointing and performance reviewing the head teacher and senior leaders, including making decisions about pay
  • Managing budgets and deciding how money is spent
  • Engaging with pupils, staff, parents and the school community
  • Sitting on panels and making decisions about things like pupil exclusions and staff disciplinary
  • Addressing a range of education issues within the school including disadvantaged pupils, pupils with special needs, staff workload and teacher recruitment
  • Looking at data and evidence to ask questions and have challenging conversations about the school
  • Governors and trustees must be prepared to adopt the Nolan principles of public life: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. 

Governors are strategic not operational

NGA-ASCL-NAHT-Guide-to-Being-Strategic-Oct2020

All Governors should be:

  • Committed – Devoting the required time and energy to the role and ambitious to achieve best possible outcomes for young people. Prepared to give time, skills and knowledge to developing themselves and others in order to create highly effective governance. 
  • Confident – Of an independent mind, able to lead and contribute to courageous conversations, to express their opinion and to play an active role on the board. 
  • Curious – Of an independent mind, able to lead and contribute to courageous conversations, to express their opinion and to play an active role on the board. 
  • Challenging – Providing appropriate challenge to the status quo, not taking information or data at face value and always driving for improvement. 
  • Collaborative – Prepared to listen to and work in partnership with others and understanding the importance of building strong working relationships within the board and with executive leaders, staff, parents and carers, pupils/students, the local community and employers.
  • Critical – Understanding the value of critical friendship which enables both challenge and support, and self-reflective, pursing learning and development opportunities to improve their own and whole board effectiveness. 
  • Creative – Able to challenge conventional wisdom and be open-minded about new approaches to problem-solving; recognising the value of innovation and creative thinking to organisational development and success.

Next steps…

We hope that you have found the information that you need to encourage you to become a school governor and we thank you for your interest in such a rewarding voluntary role.

NGN has put together a growing series of governance themed pages which you will find useful throughout your journey in school governance, we regularly write blogs on governance themes and you are also welcome to join our upcoming events.

To find out more about becoming a school governor please head to the following links or via our contact us page. National Governance Association, represents Governors and Trustees in England, Norfolk County Council – Educator Solutions works with schools in Norfolk, offering governor and other services to schools and Inspiring Governance is supported and funded by the Department for Education and connects skilled volunteers with schools.