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Governing board roles

Maintained School Governance Essentials

A focussed, setting-specific programme equipping new governors and those in need of a refresher with the essential knowledge and understanding to make confident contributions to the governance of their school(s). This programme would also be useful to senior leaders and governance professionals looking to build a better understanding of maintained school governance.  

Individual training
21/11/2025
Bespoke
Zoom
training people looking in same direction at table
Time
Bespoke
Location
Zoom

What’s covered

  1. Leading strategically  

  • What maintained school governance is, and what it isn’t 
  • The core functions of governance and clarifying roles and structures (board, chair, headteacher, clerk, committee). 
  • How to lead strategically and ethically 

  1. Driving school improvement & accountability

  • Introduction to how governors use data to monitor performance and help build school improvement. 
  • Building of competency in providing effective monitoring, challenge, support, accountability. 

  1. Assuring statutory responsibilities and compliance

  • Overview of governors’ key legal duties including safeguarding, finance, SEND, curriculum, and policy oversigh 
  • Effective approaches in assuring that mandatory compliance requirements are met 

  1. Contributing to effective governance practice

  • The characteristics of good governance 
  • Contributing to the running of effective meetings, committee work, agendas and governor visits. 
  • The characteristics of strong, skilled, reflective governing team with clear impact. 

Optional add-on sessions 

Each of the following hour sessions can be added to the core programme  

  • Understanding the governance of school finance in maintained schools
  • Introduction to safeguarding 
  • Understanding Ofsted

The core programme in more detail

All units are 1 hour.

  • Understand the core functions of governance, including setting strategic direction, holding leaders to account, and ensuring strong financial oversight.
  • Distinguish clearly between governance and management, recognising what is strategic, what is operational, and how to stay in the governor role.
  • Clarify the roles and responsibilities of the governing board, committees, chair, headteacher, senior leaders and clerk, and understand how effective professional relationships support strong governance.
  • Recognise and model ethical governance behaviours, ensuring governance and decisions are impartial, transparent, and in the best interests of pupils.
  • Start to contribute more confidently to a high-functioning governing board, using strategic thinking, clear role boundaries, and ethical practice to support school improvement.
  • Understand the board’s lines of accountability and who governors are responsible to and how, including the community, local authority, DfE and Ofsted.
  • Confidently explain the school improvement cycle and identify the key points where the governing board influences strategic direction and holds leaders to account.
  • Interpret core school performance data — including attainment, progress, attendance, behaviour, exclusions, and outcomes for disadvantaged and SEND pupils — and use this understanding to spot trends and priorities.
  • Formulate and practise effective strategic questions, using an anonymised data set to strengthen governors’ ability to challenge and support school leaders constructively.
  • Recognise how governor link roles (safeguarding, SEND, curriculum, finance) contribute to monitoring and improvement, and how these roles feed into effective governance conversations.
  • Awareness of the key statutory duties of a governing board, including safeguarding, SEND, curriculum requirements, finance, health & safety, premises, and risk management.
  • Recognise governors’ responsibilities in core operational areas, such as admissions, exclusions, complaints, safer recruitment, data protection, GDPR, and confidentiality.
  • Awareness of how the governing board must approve, review, or monitor school policies ensuring compliance with legal and local authority expectations.
  • Understand
  • Apply statutory knowledge to real-life scenarios, using rapid-fire case examples to build confidence in decision-making and oversight.
  • Strengthen strategic governance practice by understanding how statutory duties shape effective challenge, support, and accountability within the school.
  • Participate confidently in effective board meetings, understanding agendas, evidence sources, and how to work productively with the clerk.
  • Recognise how delegation works and how committees and link roles can help share the governance load
  • Be able to plan and conduct useful governor visits, setting an appropriate focus and asking suitable questions, respecting confidentiality and maintaining professional boundaries at all times.
  • Understand how to monitor effectively as a governor using a combination of planning, questioning, visiting
  • Awareness of how to build the effectiveness of you and your board using skills audits, training plans, NGA resources and self-evaluation to drive continuous improvement.

An introduction to the English school education system 

  • Understand how schools and education are structured: the phases, key stages, and different types of schools within the English education system.
  • Gain insight into the school year and accountability: explore how pupils are assessed, key events in the academic cycle, and what they mean for effective governance.

About the programme

  • New governors of maintained schools or federations

  • Governors seeking a refresher

  • Senior leaders of schools and trusts interested in finding out more about how maintained school governance should work

  • Governance professionals interested in building a better understanding of maintained school governance

  • Expert led focus on good practice
  • Sharp insights into opportunities, challenges and pitfalls and how to avoid them
  • Small group interactivity for richer understanding
  • Signposting and resource toolkit to help build competence post-workshop
  • High quality programme resources including the Digital edition of Welcome to Governance
  • 4 months membership of Learning Link

The workshops will be interactive with a mixture of participant activities and facilitator-led explanation and discussion. Participants will explore the essentials of good maintained school governance using typical scenarios, current challenges and examples of current good practice.

Meet your facilitators

This programme will be delivered by a member of our NGA Consultants team. A pen portrait of the consultant we choose to work with you will be provided in advance for approval. A list of our NGA Consultants can be found here.

Costs

The following fees are based on the core programme and participant numbers being up to 25. There is no VAT.

Options 

In person 

Remote 
 

NGA Member 

Non-member 

 

 

Option 1  2 x 2hr different days 

£1190 

£1260 

£1060 

£1140 

Option 2  2 x 2hr long half day 

£1025 

£1130 

N/A 

N/A 

Option 3  4 x 1hr different days 

£1520 

£1710 

£1295 

£1435 

Quotes are available if you wish to extend the core programme with additional sessions. 

Flexible scheduling

The core programme consists of four units which can be scheduled as follows 

  • Option 1 two x two-hour over two days with an interval
  • Option 2 two x two hour over a long half day
  • Option 3 four x one hour spread over four days with intervals

We can schedule the programme at dates and times to suit and with sufficient advance notice normally will be able to meet client preferences. 

 

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