These visits help governors’ understanding of the school, its staff and its pupils. Governing bodies have a statutory responsibility to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the school and its curriculum. Ofsted inspection assumes that governors know the strengths and areas for development. This depends on governors assessing performance data in the context of an understanding of what happens at school. They need to know what progress is being made towards targets set out in the school’s Self Evaluation and Raising Achievement Plan (SEF/RAP). Visits to the school help to support this process. The governing body should plan visits to cover a wide range of school work and each visit should have a clear purpose.
Why visit?
- Improve governor knowledge of the school and the people that work in it
- Assist the governing body in monitoring the implementation of the school SEF / RAP
- Assist a governor to fulfil a specialist role such as SEN
- Assist the governing body in making informed decisions
- To show interest in and appreciate the work of the staff and pupils.
- To be aware of the nature of the work in lessons and the response of pupils.
- To be aware of resources available in school
- To learn from subject coordinators about curricular development and improvement
- To be able to monitor progress against achieving targets set out in the School SEF/RAP and Curriculum Development Plan
- To recognise and celebrate success
- To develop relationships with the staff
- To get to know the children
- To recognise different teaching styles and values of each
- To act as a 'researcher' for the teacher
- To understand the environment in which the teachers teach
- To see policies in action
- To inform decision making
- To find out what resources are needed and prioritise them
- To gain an understanding of the School SEF/RAP in everyday practise
- To help ensure governors understand the reality of the school environment
- To get to the know the governors
- To highlight the need for particular resources
- To reflect on practice through discussion
- To see how governor expertise can benefit the school
- To see how governor questioning can lead to improved practise