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 2024/2025, or schools can access the training on a ‘pay as you go’ basis. Please contact us for further information

Hot topics/open house course

Our apologies, we have had to postpone this course which was due to be held on Thursday 17th October. at 6.30pm

This has been rescheduled for Wednesday 5th February 2025
Please follow the link above to book a place.

Virtual Training Courses for Clerks

Clerks monthly briefing meetings for the Autumn term 2024 can be found on our booking site. Please follow the link above to book a place.

5th September 2024

Clerks monthly briefing meeting

Copies of the October 2024 meeting PowerPoint and briefing notes are available.
Please log in to download a copy.
9th October 2024

DfE-Maintained Schools Governance Guide

Governing boards and clerks please note the guidance has been updated on 7th March 2024
There are separate copies for maintained schools and academies.

DfE-Academy Trust Governance Guide

Governing boards and clerks please note the guidance has been updated on 7th March 2024
There are separate copies for maintained schools and academies.

DfE Academy Trust Handbook

Academy Trust Handbook
from 1 September 2024.

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- Suspension & Permanent Exclusion from school

This document provides a guide to the legislation that governs the suspension and
permanent exclusion of pupils from all maintained schools (including special schools),
pupil referral units, academy schools (including free schools, special schools,
and alternative provision academies).
It also includes the use of
behavioural strategies such as managed moves and directing pupils off-site to improve
their behaviour to help prevent a suspension or permanent exclusion.

19th August 2024

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.

29th July 2024

DfE-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

28th August 2024

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,15th May 2024

DfE Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE)

Revised guidance effective from 3rd September 2024

Note: changes to KCSiE from 1st September 2024

1st September 2024

Parent and staff governor elections

We have updated the documents.
Log in and go to the model documents section

28th May 2021

Being Strategic

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 April 2022.

Ofsted

This guide gives a summary of what schools and governors should expect and what they need to do as part of an Ofsted inspection.
Well worth reading.

15th April 2024

Ofsted

Please note the framework was updated 15th April 2024

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 our clerks autumn term briefing meetings can be booked by clicking here and selecting which meetings you wish to attend. 

Find out about our webinar courses for governors during the autumn term 2024 & spring term 2025.

View full course information, register & book by clicking on the link here*

  • You will receive an automatic email reply to confirm each booking together with a Microsoft Teams meeting link for each course booked.
  • A reminder email will be sent 1 hour before the course starts
  •  Make sure that you are joining the meeting signed from the account with which you received the meeting link.

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:

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    If your school is interested in the services provided by GSS, please contact us using the form below.

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