Introduction

The changes to education policy that have gained pace since the Coalition government in 2010, as explained in previous chapters, have undoubtedly placed innumerable pressures on school governors: changing school structures; new complexities in networked and federation governance; and a system of accountability that places a great deal of pressure on governors to monitor school performance. However, these are far from the only pressures being placed on school governors today. As earlier chapters explained, the media also plays a considerable role by inciting opprobrium with sensationalised headlines that blame governors for school failure.

Rapid policy-driven changes have presented challenges for all schools, but in areas of high socio-economic deprivation – traditionally difficult areas for governing bodies to operate – these challenges have been magnified. Some of the most recent research into the challenges faced by governors in these areas is documented in a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (see Dean et al, 2007). Although the report also emphasises that many of the problems encountered by schools resonate with all governing bodies, it makes the point that governing bodies in these areas have particular issues:

The report identified a number of issues that were particularly prevalent in these areas: difficulties in recruiting parent governors; difficulties in recruiting governors representative of the locality and socio-economic background of most of the pupils; difficulties in recruiting governors whose first language is not English, alongside suspicion among governors about the motives of fellow governors for taking on the role – particularly if these governors were from out of the area; and tensions between making governing body meetings enjoyable and the content accessible to most governors, and ensuring a balance between challenge and support.