Governing Body Self-Evaluation: Simple to complete, collate, and use to plan

The DfE governance guides for maintained schools and academies tells governing bodies to self-evaluate. Therefore, most boards do an annual audit to highlight their strengths and areas for development.

This is often done in autumn term and there are a several good tools for a governing body audit:

Image shows different options for governing body self evaluation, including NGA, Leicester City Council, The Key, and SchoolBus.

These options are useful if:

However, a downside is the length of time needed to complete & collate the paperwork.

Some governing boards need something that is focused and quick. Something that takes the temperature of where we are and then looks to the future. Our governing body audit tool does just that: a short audit of strengths and areas for development.

Scroll down to download it free in Microsoft Word.

At-a-Glance: Governing Body Self-Evaluation

School governors self audit tool page 1
School governors self audit document p2

Free Download for your School or Academy

Click to download the governors’ self-evaluation for maintained schools (MS Word)

Click to download the governors’ self-evaluation for academy schools (MS Word)

Top Tips for Governing Body Self-Evaluation

Before you start, think about what might prevent you from being successful in this task. Assuming that it does not need to be the Chair or Vice Chair who leads this, the most common barriers to successful self-evaluation are:

  1. You are swamped with information.
  2. They take ages to collate.
  3. You have to nag some governors to complete it.

Tips to overcome “You are swamped with information”

  1. Avoid audits with 109 questions.

Tips to overcome “They Take ages to collate”

  1. Avoid audits with 109 questions.
  2. If using our self-evaluation, use a blank copy of the form to collate responses.

Tips to overcome “I’m still waiting for responses.”

If you meet face-to-face, give out paper copies at the start of a meeting and allow the first few minutes to complete it. Collect them in there and then.

Do not let anyone leave until they have given you their audit. A hostage situation? Yes. Effective? Also yes.

If you meet online and your next in-person is not for some time, you will need to use email – but still bring it up at you online Governors’ meeting. Follow these three steps.

3 Steps to doing your Governing Body Self-Evaluation remotely.
A calendar showing the first two weeks of a new month for school governors.

It’s friendlier to nag before the deadline than after. Helpfully, Gmail and Outlook let you schedule email so you don’t forget. A Google search will reveal the steps to follow to schedule if you’re new to it.

If you still don’t get a 100% response, crack on anyway. When you report, give a list of governors who you got responses from – this helps show the proportion of replies from parents, staff or other governors.

Draft your Targets

When collating responses, group comments around emerging themes (e.g. finance, English, Getting evidence from a wider range of sources). This will help your GB to process the summary but will also help you plan your next steps. Don’t worry if:

An example of a completed governing body skills audit, which has issues grouped around effectiveness, knowledge and skills; and getting the best from meetings.

Here’s a short example of this collation.

You might use these themes, plus inspection reports, pupil exam/test results and external feedback (e.g. from external advisors) to propose a small number of targets for the governing body.

Is “Recruit more Governors?” a target?

Shows three core roles of school governing bodies.

Aim for targets to link to the three core roles of governors: Beware of a target to “Recruit more governors”.

If you have a large hole in your budget, “Recruit a governor with financial expertise” might be ok (if you have this as a skills gap). However, a stronger target would be “The GB will effectively support and challenge school leaders to return the budget to a balanced position.”

Any targets might be broken down into smaller steps. When you are ready to look as specific actions, here’s a worked example for this safeguarding target:

“We will have outstanding safeguarding knowledge and use it to effectively hold school leaders to account.”

You don’t have to have targets. It’s up to you and your board. If your governing body doesn’t plan to have any targets, you must still feedback the audit results. If you don’t give feedback for this year, don’t expect governors to complete it next year (as they’ll be much less likely to see the audit as a good use of their time).

Feedback your Governing Body Self-Evaluation

You are now ready to feedback to the rest of the team on the Governing Body Self Evaluation. Include any proposed targets and listen to any feedback.

Typically, the Chair or Vice Chair leads on developing any action plans, but it could be anybody: Leadership comes in many forms.

Aim to mention it when the opportunity arises. For example “It’s really good to see governors in school more – that came up as a weakness in the audit. So it’s good to see that we’re tackling our own development areas.”

Finally, redo your governing body self-evaluation in 11 months – then you can see the progress you’ve made.

Where can I get more advice or support?

Other Interesting reads

  • Aaron King, Director

    With over 20 years experience of working with children & young people in both mainstream and SEND settings, Aaron King is the driving force behind 9000lives.

    Aaron has written for the TES, including in the Leadership & Governance sections. He has also been a school governor for around 15 years.

  • Aaron King

    Aaron King Director

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