A Recommended Code of Governance for Schools

The Wellcome Trust believes that good education is impossible without good governance. Working with a range of school governors, headteachers and experts from the National Governors' Association, the National College of School Leadership, Ofsted and DfE, we have developed a Recommended Code of Governance for Schools.

The Recommended Code aims to improve how school governing bodies work, including how they set strategic direction, how they evaluate their own performance, and how they hold the headteacher and other senior school leaders to account for the performance of the school. There's no such thing as a typical school, so it's been designed to provide a robust yet flexible framework that a governing body from any type of school can use.

We are piloting the Recommended Code in 21 schools over a period of two years, starting from November 2012. The pilot schools are a mixture of school types (including primary, secondary, special and academy), have different Ofsted categories and are from various areas in England. This pilot study should allow us to refine and enhance the Recommended Code further.

In light of the recent announcement that Ofsted will increase its focus on governance and leadership as part of its regulatory duties, we are happy for all schools seeking to improve their governance strategies to make use of the Recommended Code now. We are therefore making the first version of the Recommended Code freely available during the piloting phase and would be delighted to hear feedback from any schools who implement or adapt it – please email Hannah Baker: h.baker@wellcome.ac.uk.

Download the Recommended Code [PDF 455KB]

Order a print version of the Recommended Code