Thurrock Association of Governors

Working with Governors
For the Benefit of Schools

Museum - Library Material

Letter to Blunkett
Lord Puttnam's Speech
Schools in the Community

TAG Executive Committee Meetings

Minutes 15th March, 2004
Minutes 19th July, 2004

Lord Puttnam's Speech

Governors Supporting Schools In the 21st Century

A speech

By

Lord Puttnam of Queensgate, CBE

To be delivered: The Grays School, Hathaway Road, Grays, Thurrock, Essex

Friday 19th April, 2002

Good evening. It’s a genuine pleasure to have been asked to deliver the keynote speech at this, your Spring conference.

I’m now well and truly retired from the film industry and as you heard I’m devoting much of my energy and what’s left of my imagination to my role as chair of the General Teaching Council for England. For the past four years I’ve also been chair of National Teaching Awards and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, more popularly known as NESTA. So one way and another my life is now thoroughly embedded in the ‘Public Sector’.

In just about every respect, these past few.years have been a period of very considerable change for me. And, I have to say, all the more challenging and enjoyable for it. I was less than overwhelmed by the prospect of spending even one more day of my life persuading some pimply 23 year old to finance my next picture, or one more night of my life in a mosquito infested bedroom, on some exotic far off movie location!

Over the next twenty-five minutes or so, I’d like to share some reflections on the role and importance of governors in supporting education, and to reflect on some of the broader changes which will transform the educational landscape as we know it.

I have read the letter to David Blunkett posted on your website; and I know that over the years, this Association and governing bodies represented on it have had some serious concerns about national policy. I hope that the policies implemented by David Blunkett, and the current Secretary of State, have gone some way to assuaging at least some of those concerns. Doubtless, many remain, particularly in respect of a few of the proposals set out in the current Education Bill and I hope this evening we’ll be able to discuss those issues.

I also hope to somewhat challenge you — because as I see it, it’s the best service I can offer.

And after all, as another well-known movie producer, Samuel Goldwyn, once said to a screenwriter, “If you don’t disagree with me, how the hell can I be sure I’m right?!”

The fairly dramatic change in the direction of my own life, from Screen to School as it were, is motivated by a growing recognition that Education is the key to any possible future success for us as individuals, as an economy and as a society. This makes today’s teachers and those, such as yourselves, who support them, quite simply, the most important people in Britain, because, like it or not, you will, to a very great extent, define the future for the rest of us.

It is all too easy to forget the increasingly vital role school governors play in enabling schools to function and become (or remain) successful. Without the hours put in by governors around the country, sitting on committees, worrying about the finances, the exclusions, the league tables and supporting the Head, little or none of the excellent work that goes on in our schools would be possible. It continually astonishes me that all of you, unpaid, and for the most part desperately under-appreciated, are prepared to volunteer to work so hard, and for so little tangible reward.

Here’s a story I was told recently by an ex-head, which, to my mind, neatly illustrates how easy it is for anyone involved with education, but teachers especially, to feel “taken for granted”. It dates from the days before automated payroll, when instead of the money being paid into the bank once a month the Headteacher would be sent a single cheque for the whole school salary bill. The head would then pop down to the local Co-op, cash the cheque, and put the money into little brown envelopes. He would then trot round and put an envelope onto each teacher’s desk on Friday afternoon.

On this particular occasion, a six year-old was watching the procedure with enormous interest. Eventually he said to the teacher who had just received an envelope, “What is that?” “It’s my pay” the teacher replied. The six year-old went quiet for a moment and looked very puzzled. “Oh,” he said, “where do you work?”

The child obviously felt that such was the pleasure the teacher must experience in coming to school to teach him, it couldn’t possibly count as ‘work’. These past few years have taught me that society as a whole can no longer afford to take any remotely similar attitude. Certainly as the overall pressure on our education system increases, the effects are felt, not just by school staff, but by the whole school community.not surprisingly we now face a shortage of people prepared to take on the role of school governor, but what’s possibly more surprising is we’re able to find as many people as we do to take on these, often difficult, and sometimes positively onerous responsibilities.

Of course governors can play a vital role, not only in providing sound advice and support, but also in linking the ‘broader community’ with the school. And it is only through maintaining these links that we can sustain constructive communication, between schools and their communities.

In my experience it’s failure in area that causes so many of the misconceptions, which in turn create an unhelpful and unsupportive attitude towards education. We all know how much harder it is to get things done without the full support of the local community, and how hard it is to put things right when a breakdown in communication results in any kind of loss of face or faith on both sides. Schools have a crucial role in building what political scientists have come to call “social capital”

— the accumulation of those basic “community values” which underpin any civil society worth the name.

Those kind of links to the community are all the more important in an area such as this where you face quite significant challenges in terms of economic disadvantage; more than most, this is an area that has been hit by the decline of traditional industries, most notably just down the road at Tilbury.

This kind of role for schools is all the more crucial now that the “knowledge economy” has, if anything, made education more obviously related to national success. But what I don’t read about is the fact that our schools — and teachers — have had to absorb yet another role. Increasingly they’ve come to represent a sanctuary, a refuge even, for many children — who, because of poverty, or other problems at home, feel dislocated from their families.

For some, school is the only place where an adult takes a real interest in their progress. A teacher may well be the only male presence in their lives, and the only real (rather than media-concocted) adult role model. School may have become the one reliable source of security and regular meals, and the only place in which their voice is heard with at least some degree of respect. For a growing number of children, school may feel more like ‘home’ than home itself — the one place they are valued, listened to and allowed to feel significant.

As social exclusion, and the breakdown of the traditional nuclear family undermines many of our communities, we find ourselves engaging with a generation of young people with a fairly shaky grasp of basic ethical concepts, and little idea, or even interest in what active participation in the future of their society might be.

Unsurprisingly,all of these developments add up to an increasingly poor sense of emotional stability. As a result, teachers have become responsible for the teaching of basic citizenship, the fundamentals of healthcare, whilst being expected to look after their pupils for ever longer hours — before and after the traditional school day.

So, new demands, both academic and social, just keep piling up. But we must not allow this to force us into any form of “terminal pessimism”. Change, good and bad, is an inevitable factor in all of our lives.

Which brings me to the Education Bill. I know that the proposals relating to Governors in this Bill have aroused a good deal of opposition around the country. The chair of the National Association of Governors and Managers, has gone so far as to call it “a dog’s breakfast”.

I’m not qualified to become engaged in a discussion of individual points of policy, but I do believe that it’s important to raise some over-arching issues of principle.

I’m constantly being told that your number one concern is about the level of paperwork and bureaucracy you have to deal with. And of course, your legal obligations.

Well, I certainly understand that concern and have a great deal of sympathy for it. I for one feel that over the years, the notion of Trust has been all but supplanted by so-called Accountability — but this holds true far beyond the sphere of education. Apparently, people are no longer trusted just to get on and do their jobs, they must be held negatively accountable. That in turn creates a paper mountain which increasing numbers of perfectly sensible people are unwilling to scale — and all the more galling when you are working on a voluntary basis.

Added to this the overall level of your responsibilities has already increased, and is likely to increase still more as further powers are delegated to you.

It’s not difficult to understand why so many governors are voting with their feet.

All of us involved with education face huge challenges; some of them are a consequence of policy over the years, some of them are a function of much, much larger societal changes. But the only way we can overcome them is by tackling them together.

Each of you, like everyone else in society are at the mercy of that incessant backdrop to all of our lives; the ever increasing rate of change in the world around us. In an era of dramatic social shifts and rapid technological innovation, the issue is not how these changes happen, but how we, as individuals and collectively as a society, choose to meet the challenges thrown up by these transformations. I’ve always sought to be the master of my own destiny — the architect of the twists and turns in my career, rather than a passive victim, with change being imposed externally.

Experience has inclined me to agree with the observation that “The most effective way to cope with change is to help create it.” How you manage that shift - that’s the really hard part, and in my view it’s this that lies at the heart of the challenges facing governors.

To my mind, one of the things that we should all be doing is looking at ways Governors can best help to manage some of the really tough challenges which schools will face over the next decade and beyond.

To me it’s self evident that schools are going to have to increasingly concentrate on developing leadership and various forms of entrepreneurial skills. The development of these skills among heads and their teams will be every bit as vital as the development of so-called “entrepreneurship” skills among their students.

I’m constantly amazed by the tenacity and flexibility of the headteachers I meet. I’ve yet to come across the Chief Executive of any private sector enterprise or public sector come to that, who would be expected to deliver half of what the average headteacher achieves, with such meagre resources. CEOs have Finance Directors, Human resource departments, operations managers and, where relevant, even research departments. Headteachers have only the goodwill and patience of too few over - stretched and under rewarded colleagues.

And, running schools will only get more complicated in the years to come - not less. That is inevitable — not because of the policies of any individual Government — but simply as a result of the impact of the broader social and technological changes which all of us will have to deal with in every aspect of our daily working lives.

More than ever, schools need strong, capable leaders who can deal with these increased complexities. And if they don’t demonstrate those leadership skills themselves, what hope have they of developing it in those they teach?

And it is here that Governors could play an absolutely vital role in helping to develop such qualities. Many of you will have experience of leadership — in all sorts of different ways — any of which could be of enormous help to heads and their teams as they set about managing the complexity of change.

Governing bodies really need to take a long hard look at the specific expertise of every individual around the table and ask where it could best be applied. How can the strengths of individual Governors really best be tapped? Where will they truly be able to make a difference?

I would even go so far as to say that, with regard to their leadership role, Governors need to be harder on each other than they are on their schools. You need to ask really tough questions about the direction your school is going in. For only you can provide the “quality assurance” that management of schools needs in the increasingly sophisticated environment in which they operate.

Equally, in private, Governors need to be absolutely candid with their heads. Governors can play an invaluable role as the “critical friend” who offers frank advice in private, but walks side by side with the head and their team when confronting the rest of the world.

Turning to a somewhat different theme I should also make a plug for involving more of you in the National Teaching Awards, which celebrate the work of good teachers up and down the country, and can help to inspire all of us with a renewed hope and belief in the future of teaching.

All of us involved with the Awards are grateful for the vast amount of time so many school governors have committed to sitting on panels, visiting schools and nominating teachers. The whole project would have been impossible without the efforts of school governors.

It’s my hope that involvement in the awards has given some of you the chance to participate in celebrating your own school and it’s achievements. One of the advantages of the Awards is that they give school governors a way to reach beyond the routine of school administration and connect with the marvellous work being done in your classrooms.

For those of you who haven’t yet come into contact with them, the National Teaching Awards, popularly known as Platos, exist in order to highlight excellence and encourage best practice in teaching by recognising and honouring outstanding individuals. This most specifically includes engaging the media in constructive coverage of the work of really remarkable teachers. Also, because the Awards are entirely funded by private sponsors, with no claim on the public purse, it draws in a good deal of new money for schools. Well over 2 million pounds so far.

In 1999, the inaugural year of the Awards, they were open to schools throughout England, in all sectors, state or independent, nursery to secondary. In 2000, they were extended to cover Wales and Northern Ireland. Each year the National event has been televised by the BBC and I’m sure that any of you who watched the programme will agree that it was a genuinely inspiring and uplifting occasion - one which gave the whole teaching profession a chance to feel really good about itself. The Awards are here to stay and this time around, anyone who works with teachers - parents, community groups, individual governors such as yourselves can make a nomination.

Of course, as was suggested in last year’s select committee report, it is equally valuable to find ways of recognising the work of school governors. Not only should we find ways in which governors and indeed the employers, receive recognition, but it is also vital that we find ways, as with the B TEC qualification - developed by your own County Council, of recognising the training of governors. This is important, not least because it provides a way of reminding government and the LEAs of their responsibility in providing ‘high quality’ professional development as much for governors as for anybody else.

It’s doubtful that anyone here today knows less about the day to day realities of running a school than I do!

But I do know a thing or two about turning dreams, or aspirations, into tangible reality.

That’s what drives me, in the same way as it drives many of you. That’s what drove me for years as a movie producer - that’s what drives me ever harder now!

I know there’s a better future out there for the whole of the education service. How can I be so sure? Because I’ve had every opportunity look at all the alternatives. It may not surprise you to know — they don’t exist!

There simply is no future, for Britain, for Thurrock, for Essex, or for your kids without a significantly improved, and that means dramatically better resourced, system of education — for all of our children and for the whole of the country.

I’m not going to pretend that in a world of conflicting priorities all of this is going to fall into our lap.

But the logic of our case is so overwhelming, the alternative so poverty stricken, that if we can just focus on the real medium and long term objectives then we could well live to see the education service of our dreams.

Properly resourced, properly paid, properly respected and thoroughly deserving of the responsibility placed in its hands. The responsibility for the whole of the nations social and economic future.

And at the centre of all this are teachers. For wherever the competition is fiercest it’s our teachers who will have to deliver our version of that

world-beating education system. And they’ll have to deliver it, day in, day out, week after week, term after term, year after year.

So I don’t think the importance of good teachers will change one. But I ~ think our definition of what makes a good teacher is likely to change. Of course, leadership, knowledge, the ability to inspire and arouse curiosity, those attributes will always endure. Teachers will still need to be coaches, colleagues and friends - but in addition to these qualities, the daily substance of their professional skill base will alter. If for no other reason than because it will have to reflect the rapidly changing needs of their students.

The structure of schools must also change if we’re to develop the resources and the ambition to fully use technology as a bridge to the future. Consider this. If you took a brilliant surgeon from the year 1900 and plonked him into an operating theatre today, he (and it would have been a he) could literally do little more than wipe the brow of the patient, take their pulse, make a cup of tea and stand, with extreme interest, watching what was going on.

His skills would have become totally irrelevant in the intervening 100 years. This is nothing to do with his ambition as a surgeon, he literally would have found himself transported into a wholly alien environment. He might as well be on a spaceship.

Now take a schoolteacher from 1900 and put her (and it would be a her) in a class with a blackboard, a piece of chalk and 30 or so reasonably attentive faces and in most subjects, she could deliver what would be entirely recognisable as a lesson, why, because technology has not as yet had any significant impact on the process of learning. And yet, I would argue that the same frontiers of knowledge will be crossed in the next 25 years in the application of technology to the whole world of learning, as have marked the last 100 years in medicine. (Knowledge of our “ability to absorb and retain information has increased by 70% since 1985 !)

All this has significant implications for classroom and school, management. That model I just mentioned of 30 children in neat rows facing a single teacher is (or ought rapidly to be) an anachronism in an era of video-conferencing, email and whiteboard technology. Why shouldn’t children be helped to learn French by French children in French schools, or physics by a Nobel prize winner? Why should teachers still be responsible for washing out paint - pots and making sure the PCs work when there are a growing number of people, many of them specialists who could support them in exactly these areas?

What’s the GTC’s role in all of this? The GTC’s role is to work with the unions ~ other professional bodies to support teachers, to represent their interests and concerns on professional matters, and to provide an impartial and authoritative voice for teachers and teaching. Above all, the GTC is concerned with describing and promoting professional practice and I have been inspired by the work the Council has done on setting down in the code of professional practice the high expectations teachers have of themselves and each other.

By giving teachers ultimate responsibility for their own discipline and code of conduct, the GTC aims to give self confidence and self determination back to teachers to ensure that they are perceived as thoroughgoing professionals. But of course teachers are not the only group represented on the GTC. Employers and other stakeholders also have representatives on the council and this includes of course the chair of the Governors Council, Chris Gale.

Let no one be in any doubt — building a world-class education system is not a task for the niggardly, the faint-hearted, the mean-spirited or the “quick-fix” brigade! As I’ve said, it’s going to require a huge commitment of time, energy and resources. I for one will be deflected by the professional negativity of the media, by political cynicism, or by any form of institutional inertia.

Together - governors, heads, teachers, Local Authorities, parents — I’m convinced we can do it. We can deliver what our children and our grandchildren deserve. A world-class education system that delivers opportunity for all, that delivers skills for all, that delivers a tangibly better future for all of our people.

I’m not being financially simplistic. I repeat, the education service we need and our children deserve will become increasingly expensive. But making the right choices is what good government and leadership is all about. All governments and administrations are effectively required to address the civilian equivalent of what the medical services call Triage; the sorting out of cases according to type, seriousness of injury, and likelihood of survival, in order to establish priority of treatment — painful and arbitrary as the process may be, this is the only way to ensure that limited resources are used as effectively as possible.

For me, that priority, absolutely has to be education. I’m not alone in believing that education, uniquely among all areas of public expenditure, is fundamentally both the cause, and the consequence, of a successful society.

H.G. Wells once memorably described civilisation as a “race, between education and catastrophe.” Now more than ever we need to think about that. Otherwise we really could find ourselves in a new “War of the Worlds”; a war between the world of the “haves” and the “have-nots” — a war in which, as I hope I’ve illustrated, both sides can only be losers —and losers in a manner that could unravel in a really terrible way.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Together, as I say, we can achieve real and lasting success. The truth as we all know, is that our future and that of our children depends on our ability to invest every scrap of time and resource we can in building a society that we can all be proud of.

ENDS

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Thurrock Association of Governors
Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive held on Monday 15th March 2004

Present : D. Clarke ( Chair ), A. Roberts, M. Riley, M. Fall, L. Buckingham,
J.Desson.

1. Apologies for Absence - Apologies were received from: Ian Blandford-Davies, June Baxter and Ian Yuille.
2. Minutes of the Meeting held on the 16th February - The minutes were agreed as a true record.
3. Matters Arising from the Minutes - There were no matters arising.
4. Treasurers Report - The treasure advised that there had been no change in the finances since the last meeting
( balance of £735.88 )
5. Any Other Business - It was noted that Diana Clarke and Alf Shephard would be meeting with Southend and
possibly Essex Association of Governors on the 31st of March 2004. The meeting is to explore differences in
Governor's Association funding and any other matters of mutual interest or concern.

It was agreed that the Chair would send congratulations to Steve Beynon on behalf of the Association for his
recent promotion.

The meeting closed at 19:25 Hrs.

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Thurrock Association of Governors
Minutes of the meeting of the Executive held on Monday 19th July 2004,
at the Civic Offfices Grays.

Nine members were present.

1. Ms. D. Hale, Principal, Thurrock Adult Community College, spoke on the
Community Learning Service and her vision for the future using local facilities in schools. The main thrust
of the presentation was the involvement of parents and family in a child's learning through Family Learning
Strategies. These can be funded and would be free to the participating schools. Since there is concern to
raise children's performance should we not also try to raise the adult level of learning. The plans are for the
extension of Family Literacy to include all family learning. If schools participate then there should be a link
member of staff and a link governor. The idea is to offer advice and guidance on all aspects of education.
Diana will be prepared to address whole school governing bodies.
It was agreed that Diana should be the main speaker at the AGM in November and she kindly agreed to this.

2. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE. An apology for absence was received from Mrs. P. Yeldham

3. FINANCE - TREASURERS REPORT. The Treasurer reported that the balance in the bank stood
at £1342:74. The cost for food for the Conference was £60 and this had been paid.

4. 2004 CONFERENCE - There was great disappointment at the poor attendance, only 19 governors
came. Members felt that the speakers were good and in particularly Creighton Casbon was excellent.
It was felt that the time of year was a factor in not attracting governors along, despite the advanced
publicity and the number of tickets given out. It was felt that we should discuss this further at another meeting
and consider whether the conference should be moved to Easter or September time. It was agreed that
mention should be made at the Autumn Briefing of governors.

5. GOVERNOR TRAINING - Peter Bates reported that he would be planning courses through to Easter 2005
and that the preparation would be done during the summer holiday period.. Draft information was given
together with proposed topics for the Governors briefing at William Edwards School on 21st September 2004.
It was felt that Capacity Issues should be included in the Governors Briefing. Self Evaluation was also
discussed and Peter presented three models which could be used.

6. MEETING WITH ESSEX AND SOUTHEND GOVERNOR REPRESENTATIVES - It was reported that
there had been a meeting which was not helpful in that the Southend Rep did not turn up. A new date has been
set for the 14th September to meet at the Haywain at 10.00 a.m..

7. ANY OTHER BUSINESS:

ORSETT SHOW 4th September. Peter asked for Volunteers to help during the day on the governors stand in
the Schools Tent.

8. DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING - It was agreed that the Executive would next meet on Monday
6th September at 7-00 p.m.

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