Becoming a school governor should not be about advancing your own child’s interests or enhancing your CV.
Instead, it should be about “taking the school forward”, helping to set the strategic direction and supporting a school’s leadership team to remain true to it, and adhering to the school’s founding principles, values and mission statement.
This was the message from a panel of governance experts reflecting on how to develop school boards, at the annual conference of the Council of British International Schools (COBIS) in London earlier this month.
Governing boards in international schools
Overall, the role that school governors play is becoming more critical than ever, the panel agreed.
This is because where values common to many international schools - global citizenship, internationalism and open borders - once aligned with the political climate, in some countries this is no longer the case, said panellist Taheer Saiyad, a governor at St Julian’s School in Lisbon, Portugal.
“We see what’s happening with free speech, with people’s rights to march on a certain cause, and we see the impact that’s having,” he said. “These changes at the cultural level seem to be anathema to what international schools are about at a very fundamental and critical level.”
Other delegates agreed that some international schools might soon come under pressure to close down debate and discussion. Governors were seen as a line of defence against such potential attacks because they can help to ensure that schools remain true to their values.
However, while the panel agreed that getting governance right is “crucial”, they also acknowledged that this is not easy - but there are some fundamentals to help.
1. The right people - with the right training
A successful board of governors needs the right people and the right training, said Mick Smith, director of accreditation at COBIS.
He said this can help to overcome the perception that sometimes exists that governance is something “everyone’s always stressed about”. If you get the right people and train them well it becomes “a powerful force for good in a school”, he said.
One way boards can assess their training needs is by using a “skills-based matrix” to identify where they need expertise, said Diana Vernon, a former head who sits on the board of governors at Kellett School in Hong Kong as education adviser. This process can also help boards to recruit new members to fill gaps in expertise.
Current members should use self-evaluation tools to reflect on their performance and contribution, added Ms Vernon.
However, any board member unwilling to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses by, for example, undertaking a 360-degree performance review, is probably unsuitable for the role, the panel agreed.
Andrew Yarrow, a governor at Wellington College International Hangzhou in China and a multi-academy trust CEO, summed it up: “If a governor hasn’t got the humility to accept that we can all improve then maybe they are not a great fit.”
2. Flexible training - to a point
Linked to this, Sanam Yaqub, chair of the board of governors at Hartland International School in Dubai, noted that because governors are volunteers and often time-poor, training should be flexible to suit their needs.
However, there was universal agreement that training is necessary; it was suggested that if a governor is unwilling to undertake training, they are not right for the role.
There was also consensus that the first training priority for governors has to be child 51. This is “non-negotiable”, added Ms Yaqub.
3. The importance of induction
Good induction was also flagged up as being crucial to governance engagement.
One way to ensure consistent training and induction is to set up a governance sub-committee to deal with interviews and the onboarding of new governors, said Mr Saiyad.
Part of this induction may have to include making sure that governors truly understand that their role is to oversee - not to manage, as outlined by Robert Guthrie, a governor at St George’s British International School in Rome.
He stressed that “governors do not run schools - paid professionals do”. The governors’ role is to set up the strategic plan with the school’s senior managers and then support the principal and senior managers in delivering it, and challenging them when necessary.
Mr Saiyad echoed this, saying that sometimes it is necessary to “untrain” governors so they understand that they will not be implementing their ideas but rather seeing through a plan that may have been in place before their arrival.
4. Understand motivations
The panel were honest that sometimes people can have the wrong motives for joining school boards - such as “for their own aggrandisement or for their own CV”, said Ms Vernon.
She noted also that sometimes longstanding board members - possibly former pupils who do not want to see the school change - can be “problematic”.
Parents, meanwhile, could seek to use their place on the board to advance their own child’s interests. “They need to take their parent hat off; they need to take their alumni hat off,” she said. “They’re there as a governor.”
Given this, Ms Vernon said schools need good processes to evaluate whether “this person is going to contribute” or become difficult.
Ultimately, board members should be “passionate about education”, added Mr Saiyad. “You can’t get into governance and not be passionate about education and the role of international schools in shaping a better world.”
5. Good chairs are like orchestra conductors
“Without a good chair of the board you are stuffed,” was the direct assessment from Dr Helen Wright, a former chair of the British School of Amsterdam.
The panel agreed, saying that good chairs are like “orchestra conductors” because they ensure that everyone is playing their part and doing it well.
Part of this is making sure that all voices are heard - something that is especially important to ensure that diversity on the board actually serves the school well. Diversity is meaningless if there is no inclusion and a few voices dominate discussions, said Ms Yaqub.
Ms Vernon noted that chairs and principals have to build “trusting relationships”, too. Mr Guthrie said that if this relationship sours schools can “get into problems”, and this is often a reason why “a lot of principals leave schools”.
Bonnie Ricci, an executive director at the International Council Advancing Independent School Accreditation (), suggested that a school takes three years to recover following the departure of a principal, whether planned or not, so losing a leader due to the chair of governors is hardly ideal.
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