Making sure your voice is heard
We represent the voice of Oxfordshire Governors through membership of a variety of statutory and advisory bodies.
Here’s where we’re found on your behalf:
Consultation meetings with OCC’s Elected Representatives with responsibility for Schools.
We hold these meetings termly. The OGA creates the agenda, which usually comprises 5 current issues / questions. Minutes are produced and are posted here.
Meeting attendees include the Chair of the Education Scrutiny Committee, The Director for Children’s Services and other Senior officers who run the Education Services in Oxfordshire.
This important communication opportunity allows us to take up key points and experiences with the people with the real political power in Oxfordshire. These meetings help us raise and action issues and problems. Notes from our recent meetings can be viewed here.
Contributing to OCC and DfE consultation invitations
We always try to submit a consultation response to any significant consultations announced by OCC or the DfE. We want to represent the views of Oxfordshire Governing Boards across the piece. If you want to respond to a consultation please do contact us and we’ll reflect your opinions where we can.
Serving on the Workforce Steering Group
This is an advisory body which does an excellent job of working on model HR policies for schools which have been approved by the relevant trade unions. They also address current issues and discuss ways to prevent these from escalating unnecessarily which could result in expensive tribunals or other adverse impacts on schools and their personnel.
To read more about the work of the Workforce Steering Group click here.
We have a representative on the Oxfordshire Strategic Schools Partnership
This brings together representatives of multiple educational organisations to provide strategic oversight for school improvement. See here for details. See here for the directory of support for Oxfordshire schools, published by OSSP.
This is something of a misnomer since its remit runs well beyond schools. It covers all bodies involved in education in Oxfordshire – from Primary through to Further / Higher education including our universities. It’s designed to create a joined-up, strategic view of all education provision in our county.
For details of the work of the OSSP see here
For a copy of the “Directory of Support for Oxfordshire Schools” please see here.
3 members of the OGA Exec Committee are currently also members of the Oxfordshire Schools Forum.
The Oxfordshire Schools Forum is formal body required by Government. Its membership includes governors, trustees and headteachers as well as Local Authority Officers. Their role is to contribute to the strategic direction for the funding of schools. It also influences the local authority support services in relation to school funding arrangements, including:
- the Dedicated Schools’ Grant (DSG)
- Individual schools’ budgets, and also centrally retained budgets
- wider issues such as service contracts and service level agreements for maintained schools.
Meetings take place at least 5 times per year. In addition to the main meeting there are 2 affiliated committees: The Schools and High Needs Committee, and the Services and Contracts Committee.
Copies of agendas, minutes and other information can be found on the OCC website at Oxfordshire Schools Forum.
Serving on the School Organisation Stakeholders group – SOSG
One of our members represents you by sitting on the SOSG. Please see here for more detail.
Representing Oxfordshire on F40 – The campaign for fairer funding in education.
This is a non-party political group whose members represent Council areas that are less well funded than other English Councils.
F40 is a lobbying group which seeks fairness and equal opportunities in education for all children, regardless of where they live. F40 members believe that all English schools should properly funded to enable them to provide a quality education that enables children and young people to reach their potential.
The OGA Chair is a member of the F40 Executive Committee.
Local Association membership of the National Governance Association
The NGA is an increasingly significant force in lobbying government on education.
Usually at least one member of the Executive Committee attends National and Regional conferences. Our extensive experience ensures that we participate actively in any discussion to inform NGA of local concerns so that they can better represent Governors at local and national level. The representative(s) report back to the OGA Executive.
In the recent past we have also had Oxfordshire representation on the NGA board.
To extract maximum benefit from any or all of these statutory and advisory boards we need to hear from you. We need to know about your current concerns which affect your school(s) so please contact us.
Please note these bodies are not the forum to try and resolve problems at individual schools. Issues need to be systemic in nature.