Problems when governors play by new school rules

Published: 29 September, 2011

IN an age awash with presidential politics and government edicts, the route Haverstock’s governors chose to try and transform their school into an academy is not surprising.

Not so much the goal in their sights, as it were,  than the method chosen to reach it is worthy of discussion.

It could be said that theirs was a top-down approach.

Basically, 12 school governors sat down one evening last week and – after hearing a report by a small “working group” – decided to embark on a plan that could have led to a revolutionised Haverstock.

Undoubtedly, the debate that evening would have been intense.

But was this the way to go about a proposal for such a radical rebirth of the school?

Once a decision had been reached, the governors decided to promote it as a kind of a consultative document.

This could be considered an upside-down approach to good governance.

The sincerity of those for and against is not to be questioned.

But an element had been missed out – the opinions of the teachers, parents, and, perhaps, the students.

Surely, all these should have been involved in the beginning.

Decision-making of this sort was almost bound to lead to leaks.

Teachers, caught by surprise, felt their trust had been betrayed.

Parents must have felt that once again their feelings and opinions had been sidelined.

For a school to be successful, there has to be – minimally – a triple alliance of governors, teachers and parents.

Not to speak of the students.

Here in this saga lay the dark hole.

Those teachers hostile to the concept of academy-style education may now suspect – wrongly we are sure – that some of the governors in favour of an academy were deviously trying to shoehorn it in. Parents must be puzzled, students equally so.

The governors may feel that they had merely opened up the subject for debate.

But on reflection they may now regret the road they took.

They may feel now that it would have been better had they not quietly set up a “working group” sometime ago.

In the last analysis, if a subject of this dimension is discussed behind closed doors it is likely to lead to the weakening of the authority of the leadership of the school.