Many parents will be receiving a copy of the Worth Less campaign’s School funding – Parent letter October 2018 from their school today. Some may not, and in some cases that will be because of concerns about recent updated staffing and employment guidance warning Headteachers and Teachers about not using resources for political purposes. But the first point I would make is that the Statutory Guidance has been withdrawn (Para 1.6) and replaced with non-statutory advice, so Headteachers and Governors can still use their judgement of whether or not to follow it. Secondly the relevant paragraph (5.33 on page 25) newly added in September is very clear that the advice is about not using resources for “party political” purposes.

OGA has a long history of lobbying all Governments of whatever political makeup for fair funding for all Oxfordshire schools. This is not in our judgement a party political issue, though of course it is inevitably political.

I remain concerned that the current discussions do not focus sufficiently on the High Needs budget which funds our Special Schools and additional support for SEND in our mainstream schools. Oxfordshire is also amongst the low funded authorities for this element of the Dedicated Schools Grant.

I was frankly appalled by the misinformation in the interview on the Today programme on the 28^th September (currently still available on the BCC website, the relevant item is 1 hour 32 minutes into the programme.) There is a sensible analysis of this in the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less on the 7^th October (8 minutes 30 seconds into the programme) and further links in the letter for parents.

I noted the Minister for School Standards comment during the interview ‘Yes, and you pick your dates very carefully’, which made me think why do the Government keep quoting the 50% increase in funding since 2000? I was a Governor of a secondary school in dire financial straits at that time, even though what was asked of schools at the time bears absolutely no comparison to current expectations.

In 1995 OGA was formed, largely as a result of the dismal financial situation of many of our schools, to affiliate to the National Governors’ Council (founded in 1994) to provide a voice for Governors with Government.

In 1996 the F40 group was formed to lobby for Fair Funding for schools as the allocations were so varied across the country including in low funded Oxfordshire.

In January 1999 a group from OGA including myself and some of his constituents went to a constituency meeting with the MP for Oxford East Andrew Smith who at the time was a Minister in the first New Labour government. He reminded us that Labour had been elected on the basis of sticking to the previous government’s spending limits for the first two years. Subsequently in 2003 there was a significant school funding crisis which was alleviated by guaranteed per pupil increases. It was not until 1996 that the Dedicated Schools Grant was implemented, based on LEA spending in 1995…

Of course this is only a partial view of the history and there is a lot more involved, but if I go back to the question why the Year 2000? I suspect the date was indeed picked very carefully…

Carole Thomson (Chair of the Oxfordshire Governors’ Association)

 

The first Open meeting this year included Stan Terry talking about the Strategic School Partnership Board, the OGA AGM and our main speaker was the author of the RSA report Who Governs Our Schools?  Trends, Tensions and Opportunities , Dr Tony Breslin FRSA. The meeting was held at Wheatley Park School, which proved to be a good venue and much quicker to drive to than a number of us had realised! Another good meeting with positive feedback received.

The minutes of the AGM and a report of the speakers’ input will be published presently, but meanwhile more information, can be found on our events webpage.

Other additions to the website include information about two forthcoming events which may be of interest to Governors, in November there is the OTSA conference about the new Ofsted framework that will come into effect in September 2019 and the OABGM conference with some interesting speakers and workshop leaders, to be held in March 2019.

 

All ‘governors’ of state funded schools are automatically members of OGA and are welcome to attend our FREE Open meetings. However we do rely on Schools subscriptions to pay our running expenses (which are not excessive as we are all volunteers and have no paid employees). Our subscription charges are very modest at £10.00 for schools with less than 300 pupils and £15.00 for those with 300 or more, for the avoidance of doubt these are charges per school, not per multi-academy trust. This subscription has been unchanged since 2003, largely thanks to the generosity of many of our speakers.

Many schools subscribe via Oxfordshire County Council who collect the fees on our behalf, but others prefer to pay direct either via Bacs or by cheque. To facilitate this we have a proforma OGA Invoice  for schools’ which they can use to pay us and keep their accounting records correct.

Please check the list that we have of schools that have of those schools subscribing to OGA for 2018-2019 . If your school is not included and you believe having a representative body for governors in Oxfordshire is worthwhile please ask at your next Governors meeting if your school would be able to subscribe. It is very time consuming for us to chase up schools individually.

The Department for Education (DfE) has appointed the National Governance Association (NGA) to deliver governance leadership development programmes. NGA is working with local partners in areas across England to deliver fully funded or heavily subsidised programmes:

Development for Boards, Development for Chairs (September cohort; Urgent) Development for Clerks.

 Development for Boards

This programme is designed for boards governing multi academy trusts or groups of schools, or boards of schools in opportunity areas where the school is judged to be requiring improvement. This is a consultant-led bespoke programme that will be tailored to your board’s circumstances to improve practice and outcomes. Funding is available up to the value of £2,000 per board and boards can sign up straight away.

 Development for Chairs

This fully-funded programme for chairs, vice chairs, committee chairs and future chairs, provides opportunities for developing leadership skills and confident governance. Funding for £500 is available.

We have a cohort starting in Oxfordshire ON 10th SEPTEMBER, please see the  Oxfordshire Chairs Flyer.  Please contact NGA urgently if you are interested..

 Development for Clerks

This ICSA accredited programme is designed for new and experienced clerks currently working in all school settings. It helps develop the knowledge and skills needed for high-quality clerking. Only £75 if you take up funding worth £350.

 

 

On May 30th the DfE published Find, join or create a network for school business professionals

They also published updates to Good estate management for schools: tools first published on 25th April 2018 this includes the Top 10 estate checks for boards which may be of particular relevance to non-staff Governors.

On May 15th the DfE published revised Guidance about Charging for School Activities.

They also published updated Data protection: privacy notice model documents  …

 

In the past three months the DfE have published responses to a number of consultations including ones launched in 2015!

Of these consultations the most controversial was Schools that work for everyone which was open from September to December 2016. OGA had published its response to this paper.

Another consultation Keeping children safe in education has resulted in the publication of revised Statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment which comes into effect in September 2018.