GOVERNING BODY

Welcome to the Governors' section for Distington Community School.

School Governors are an important part of school life and make an important contribution in supporting education in our school.  School governors provide strategic leadership and accountability to our school. They work with the Head Teacher to make tough decisions about finance, staffing and resourcing as well as supporting and challenging the Head Teacher and other school leaders and staff to make sure we provide the best possible education for all our children. 

Please find below details of how our Governing body is structured, including the names, categories, responsibilities and terms of appointment for each Governor.

MAIN ROLES OF THE GOVERNING BODY

The purpose of the governing body is to help the school provide the best possible education for its learners.

Its main roles are:

Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;

Governing bodies are the key strategic decision-making body of every school. It is their role to set the school's strategic framework and ensure all statutory duties are met. The governing body should ensure that the school has a medium to long-term vision for its future - which it may be helpful to articulate in a specific written vision statement. The governing body should also ensure that there is a robust strategy in place for achieving its vision. This strategy should address the fundamental questions of where we are now, where do we want to be, and how are we going to get there.

Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and it's pupils, and the performance of the staff;

Our Governing body works to support and strengthen the leadership of the headteacher, and hold them to account for the day-to-day running of the school, including the performance management of teachers. Governing bodies should play a strategic role, and avoid routine involvement in operational matters. It should focus strongly on holding the headteacher to account for exercising his/her professional judgement in these matters and all of their other duties. Effective governing bodies hold their headteacher and other senior school leaders to account for improving school performance by asking the right questions.

Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent;

The Governing body is responsible for making sure their school's money is well spent. They should do this by making sure they have at least one governor with specific skills and experience of financial matters, and by asking questions such as:

• Are we allocating our resources in line with our strategic priorities?
• Are we making full use of all our assets and efficient use of all our financial resources?
• Are other schools buying things cheaper or getting better results with less spending per pupil?
• How can we get better value for money from our budget?

GOVERNOR STRUCTURE

The different categories of governors on our governing body are:

• parent governors who have a child in school at the time of their election, and are elected by the parents with children at the school;
• staff governors who are members of staff at the school and are elected by their colleagues;
• co-opted governors are appointed on to the governing body by the other members because they come from a specialist group, such as the business community or because they possess a particular skill which can contribute to the effective governance and success of the school;
• local authority(LA) governors who are nominated by the Local Councillor and appointed by the governing body;
• the Headteacher (HT) is also a member of the governing body by right of the position they hold in the school;
• associate members are not actually governors but can be appointed to serve on committees and attend meetings of the full governing body. They do not have the right to vote at meetings of the full governing body but have been given voting rights on the committees that they are a member of, but these rights can only be given by the governing body. 

The different committees our governing body has are:

Premises, Finance and Staff (PFB)

Teaching, Learning and Development (TLD)

PERSONAL, PECUNIARY OR BUSINESS INTERESTS

All the governors and associate members of Distington Community School have signed the Register of personal, pecuniary or business interests

This is a declaration of any personal or business interest they or any relative or person closely connected with them, have with businesses or other organisations that may have dealings with the school. This could for example include owning or having a relative work for a business that had dealings with school; having a relative working in or for school or being a governor of another school. 

If any interest a governor has could be seen to cause a conflict of interest they would be asked to withdraw from any decision making concerned. This is to ensure that our governors can always be seen to be putting the interest of the school first.

If there is a potential conflict it is shown in the membership table. This table also shows the category of governor each person is, any specific role on the governing body and the committees they are members of.

More information about the requirements to complete and sign the Register of personal, pecuniary or business interests can be found on Cumbria Country Council's Governor Services web pages at where you will also find the links to all other aspects of School Governance