Welcome to the Governor Support Service
The Governor Support Service is an independent service offering governor training, advice, guidance and support to all Hillingdon Schools. With over 20 years’ combined experience working within local authorities in Governor Support roles, we are able to offer local and legislative advice, support and training to school governors and clerks.
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Our services
Advice & Guidance
We provide governing bodies and schools with information, support, and advice to proactively promote and achieve outstanding governance.
Schools can access our full range of services by purchasing a service level agreement with us for 2023/2024, or schools can access the training on a ‘pay as you go’ basis. Please contact us for further information
DfE-Guidance for parents on school behaviour & exclusion
Parents & carers please read this & your schools concerns/complaints policy .
It is intended to support parents/careers whose children attend a maintained school, pupil referral unit, academy school or alternative provision academy and have been suspended or excluded from school in England.
It applies from 1 September 2023.
DfE-School teachers pay & conditions guidance
Governors who are involved with headteacher appraisal should read the updated guidance on Implementing your schools approach to pay.
13th October 2023
Clerks monthly briefing meeting
Copies of the October meeting PowerPoint and briefing notes are available.
Please log in to download a copy.
3rd November 2023
Data Protection in Schools
The responsibility and accountability for compliance sits with governors and trustees.
Governors and trustees check that the school:
monitors their data protection performance
supports the data protection officer
has good network security infrastructure to keep personal data protected
has a business continuity plan in place that includes cyber security
12th September 2023
DfE What maintained schools must publish online
Clerks to governing boards must remind their boards about the updated regulations. These include school uniform and school opening times.
Updated,25th April 2023
DfE Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE)
Revised guidance effective from 1st September 2023.
Note: changes to KCSiE from 1st September 2023 (see June clerks briefing for summary of changes)
20th September 2023
Parent and staff governor elections
We have updated the documents.
Log in and go to the model documents section
28th May 2021
Virtual Training Courses
Courses for the Autumn term 2023 can be found on our booking site. Please follow the link above.
20th September 2023
Governance Annual Statement/Being Strategic
See our revised Annual Governance Statement Template, in “Model Documents” section once logged in.
Also read the report from the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) & NGA on “Being Strategic” The guide offers leaders and governing boards in schools and trusts a robust annual cycle for creating, monitoring and reviewing strategy.
Updated in October 2020.
Academies
Academy Trust Handbook
from 1 September 2023.
DfE Governance Handbook
Governing boards and clerks please note the handbook has been updated was last updated in October 2020
Our Courses
The Governor Support Service provides a programme of training and development sessions each term that governors, headteachers, senior leadership teams, associate members and clerks can access to help them carry out their duties effectively.
We run a varied range of training courses and briefing sessions covering subjects such as Safeguarding, Exclusions, the Curriculum and HR Matters in addition to regular termly briefing sessions for clerks and chairs and an induction programme for those who are new or fairly new to school governance including all categories of governors, senior leaders, clerks and associate members.
COURSE BOOKING ARRANGEMENTS
Details of all our training courses can be accessed by clicking here and selecting Governor Support Courses.
New and existing users to the course booking service will need to complete the registration process to create a personal account where their bookings can then be viewed and amended as necessary.
During the initial registration please make sure that you select the Governor Support Service course booker option at the top of the page.
Once you have entered your registration details you will receive a confirmation email.( Just in case, please check your junk mail/spam folder)
*Have a look at our Autumn term 2023 & Spring 2024 webinar courses by clicking on the link here*
If you need any support with using the new course booking service please contact us on 01895 717321 or by email at [email protected]
Schools we work with often have vacancies for school governor volunteers. If you are interested in volunteering, why not find out more?
Apply through GSS directly by completing the form below or click on the link below to volunteer through a charity we work with, Governors for Schools:
https://www.governorsforschools.org.uk/volunteers/apply/ Information about the role:
https://www.governorsforschools.org.uk/volunteers/
Contact the Governor Support Service: