In the initial response to the current coronavirus crisis many Governing Bodies and Boards significantly reduced the business they conducted to address only the most urgent, time critical matters. As the country moves into a different phase of the response to the pandemic it is important to take stock and reflect on how the Board should be using its time in the weeks and months ahead.
Setting the Governing Body’s/Board’s agenda, determining priories over the coming months is not going to be an easy task. It may well be helpful to divide the Governing Body’s/Board’s work into three phases of work:
- reacting to the crisis - this involves the initial response to the crisis, providing care to vulnerable children and children of key workers as well as online provision for other pupils and students. We are coming to the end of this phase.
- recovering from the crisis – this is the phased re-opening of settings to the wider population and planning for September. We are starting to move into this phase.
- responding to the new landscape – it is likely that there will be a new reality rather than a moment in time where we go back to how things were before the crisis. Governing Bodies and Boards will in due course have a critical role supporting leadership teams navigate the new reality.
Like many things in life it is not going to be as simple as having three neat separately defined phases that you can move through in an orderly way. At times as we transition through the phased re-opening of schools, Governing Bodies and Boards will need to occupy at least two phases and prioritise the amount of time they can devout to the various activities within them. We should also recognise that a second wave could push us back to the first phase.
Phased re-opening of schools
It must also be remembered that both you and your leadership team will be grappling with:
- an evolving situation where new information comes to light and where there can be changes to what we thought we knew about the virus
- frequently updated Government Guidance and expectations for the sector
- an environment where there are many “unknowns” as well as “unknown unknowns”
- having to make decisions based on imperfect information (and if we are honest like every decision-making body in this crisis some decisions with hindsight may prove not to be the right ones).
There is also no prior directly relevant experience to rely on in terms of both reacting to and recovering from the crisis. There is no existing roadmap that we can use.
Governing Bodies/Boards have an important task in providing challenge, effective risk management, supporting their staff and fulfilling their educational mission. To do this effectively it is important to reflect on how well you understand the communities (and their needs) you serve as well making sure you keep track of how they are impacted and changed by the current crisis as well as the educational and other support that you will need to provide to help them recover from the crisis.
The importance of the Governing Body/Board and the leadership team working together as a team could not be clearer.
The traditional discussions about the split between ‘strategic’ and ‘operational’ decisions may be unhelpful. The reality is that the most important decisions, such as the phased re-opening of your school settings, will need to be made by Governing Bodies/Boards and leadership teams working together. This will be incredibly important in order provide support to the leadership team and make use of the pool of talent within the governance and leadership roles at your organisation to make the best decisions with the information available to you.
Governance FAQs
We have brought together a number of FAQs which will be of use to schools in the planning and preparations of re-opening schools: