The Governors are so proud to announce that, after two years of hard work, the Governing Body has been successful in achieving the Governor Mark Accreditation.
Governor Mark is a national award and is supported by the Department for Education, which only a few secondary schools have achieved so far. It is a quality standard mark, which provides external evaluation of the quality of school governance. This award is challenging because, not only does a governing body need to show that it follows good procedures and fulfils statutory duties, but there is also a high value placed on evidence of impact – the difference the governing body makes to a school.
Since the Governor Mark working group’s inception on the 23 April 2013, the Governing Body went through an initial self-evaluation, using the evidence grid provided by the Governor Mark course leader. To assess our progress, we performed the exercise of self-evaluation once again in 2015 and produced a comparison document, which became part of our evidence in our application.
We also had to produce three impact statements highlighting the governors’ involvement in the following areas, with backing evidence:
- Partnership and Community Engagements
- Pupils’ Wellbeing and Safety
- School Improvement
Once we sent our official application off, we received a visit from an assessor on the 7th October 2015, who requested one to one meetings with the Chair of Governors, the Headteacher, a recently appointed Governor, a few Link Governors and the Chair of the working group. She then sent her report to a panel, who met on the 23rd October 2015 to analyse it and make the ultimate decision, which was shared with the Chair of Governors and Headteacher on the 26th October 2015. The full report from the Governor Mark Body will follow and we will publish it on the website as soon as it sent.
This is a very proud moment for the Governors and there is no doubt that our work in progress towards the award was one of the reasons Ofsted awarded us a ‘Good’ at the last inspection. Most importantly, the Governor Mark Award proves that the Governors are working together with all the members of staff and students to become an ‘Outstanding’ school.
