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Question, challenge and courageous conversations

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Training & development

12/04/2023

At a glance

Knowing when and how to ask the right questions, when to escalate an issue and how to hold courageous conversations are skills that all those governing need to master. This session will provide you with the confidence to provide effective challenge in meetings and beyond to support your CEO or headteacher with robust accountability.

This session will cover:

Board competencies

Types of question

Possible scenarios

When to escalate an issue

When to follow up and how

Fully bespoke

This session can be tailored to the circumstances of your school or trust.

2 hour session

about this course

Who is this suitable for?

Governors, trustees and academy committee members (local governing body)

We would also recommend the attendance of:

The senior leader and members of the senior leadership team
The governance professional

about this course

What are the benefits?

You will develop the confidence and ability to hold your senior leaders to account through suitable questioning. You will also know when and how to use a courageous conversation to make it clear to a senior leader that an aspect of performance is causing concern and that it needs to improve.

Finally participants will be able to determine if their board does, in fact, need to provide more robust accountability. This session enables participants to examine their board’s approach to this important aspect of their governance role.

about this course

How will you learn?

The session can be delivered via face-to-face or online workshop
It will be facilitated by a quality-assured NGA consultant with relevant governance and training expertise.
The session will be interactive with a mixture of participant activities and facilitator-led explanation and discussion. Participants will explore how best to question and challenge in a range of typical situations and how to hold a courageous conversation. They will also test their approaches.
It will be supported with session materials including a resource toolkit and suggested activities to help with next steps.

‘Great pitch and stimulating activities. We all valued the opportunities to discuss and the day flew by. Put us in a strong position for further development and self evaluation.’
‘This was a great session, with a brilliant range of activities which kept me engaged throughout.’
‘The session is interactive which I really enjoy.’