School accountability and governance
The 2010 report of Mark Walport's Science and Learning Expert Group identified improvement of school governance as an essential prerequisite for improving the leadership and direction of science and mathematics education.
Following this, the Wellcome Trust initiated a programme of activity focused on improving governance. In addition, our latest issue of ‘Perspectives on Education’, published in spring 2013, considers how accountability systems - including school governance - affect science education. Drawing on our experience in this area, the Trust also responded to the Department for Education's concerns about the effects on the teaching of science.
A Recommended Code of Governance
A Recommended Code of Governance for Schools was developed after two workshops on school governance held at the Trust in March and June 2012. It is intended to improve how school governing bodies work, including how they set strategic direction, evaluate their own performance and hold the school senior leaders to account for the performance of the school.
In designing the Code, we sought input from a range of governors, head teachers and experts from the National Governor's Association, National College, the Department for Education and others, basing the idea on the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP).
The code is being piloted in 21 schools for a two-year period (beginning November 2012) to test its usefulness. Opinion Leader are conducting an independent evaluation of the pilot study.
A freely available data dashboard
Abundant data are available on many aspects of schools' performance; however, governors may find it hard to access and interpret. The Wellcome Trust has therefore been working with organisations including the Fischer Family Trust (FFT), the National Governors Association (NGA) and - crucially - governors themselves to develop ideas for creating good information gateways that will give governors the high-level information they need to best do their job.
In May 2013, the FFT (working in partnership with the Trust and the NGA) released a new School Performance Governor Dashboard aimed at all schools in England - designed by governors, for governors. The dashboard helps governors hold schools to account by providing clear and meaningful interpretations of a school's data across a wide range of school performance indicators, such as summary school performance, subjects, pupil groups, school context and attendance. Governors should have a good knowledge of this important information to structure supportive or challenging questions for their leadership team and inform strategic decision making for the school.
This work complements Ofsted's work in this area; in addition, it links with the Trust's Recommended Code of School Governance in terms of assessing school performance and informing the development of strategy.
Teach First Governor Impact Programme
With the support of a Strategic Award from the Wellcome Trust, Teach First will design, pilot and evaluate a five-year programme to train new school governors to overcome educational disadvantage in schools in low-income communities using the Trust's Recommended Code of School Governance.
Teach First will draw on its experience of developing inspirational, effective leadership programmes to create a new governor programme and 'Governor Impact Groups'. Made up of pairings of Teach First ambassadors and non-ambassador governors, 50 governors in 25 low-income schools will work towards creating a template for high-quality governor training and a community of motivated governors that are able to offer guidance and share their expertise. As part of their training, each pair of governors will identify a development challenge to improve an aspect of their school, including challenges within subjects such as science and mathematics.