Top blogs of the week: Schools Week (26 April 2021)

Schools Week published my top blogs of the week.

This week’s top blogs cover leadership lessons from the ‘death of football’ (@daisychristo), making the most of the final weeks of term (@missdcox ), safeguarding (@HelenStevenson4) and attitudes to disabilities (@bennewmark) .

Gary Lineker is not dead and neither is football – yet @daisychristo

If you follow Daisy Christodoulou on Twitter you’ll know that she is very knowledgeable about assessment. You may also be aware that she is a keen follower of both cricket and football; the latter being the subject of this blog, which contains plenty of lessons for school leaders.

Continued in Naureen Khalid’s blogs of the week, 26 April 2021

Proactive Pastoral Care and Governance Matters

On 15th April 2021, I attended the launch of Maria O’Neil’s book Proactive Pastoral Care. I was delighted that Maria asked me to be on the panel. I had read the book with my governor hat on and had made some notes in preparation. I thought it would be good to share these, so here goes.

• The first thing which I liked about the book is that it makes you think what you can do about pastoral care proactively rather than waiting till something needs a reaction from you. As governors, we hold school leaders to account and we should check if systems and processes are there to stop something happening as well as how school leaders deal with things after they happen ie holding them to account for the proactive as well as the reactive.
• Maria’s book is useful for governors as it gives us indications of what to hold the school leaders to account for as far as pastoral care is concerned. For example, right at the beginning of the book Maria talks about what she considers to be the core elements of proactive pastoral care: character education, parental engagement and PSHE curriculum. So, right at the start of the book this gives governors three lines of enquiry. She also talks about school culture. The first core role of governors is to ensure there is clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction. Ethos is a Greek word meaning character. Much of what Maria discusses in the book, such as well being, school culture, eliminating bullying, character education etc all contribute to the ethos or character of the organisations we govern and therefore reading this book can help governors fulfil part of their first core role.
• I loved the fact that Maria makes the point that character education isn’t about fixing people and that it isn’t only about what happens in PSHE lessons. Again, this helps governors judge whether or not character education is the golden thread which runs through the whole school curriculum.
• Governing boards should ensure that they engage with stakeholders. In fact, NGA has proposed that this be the fourth core role of governors. Maria has a whole chapter on community pastoral engagement which governors would find useful.
• I’m very glad that Maria has included a chapter on e-safety. Again, this will give governors valuable insights into this topic and help them plan how to ask the right questions of their school leaders.
• Finally, I love the questions for Reflections at the end of each chapter and the space to write down your thoughts. These include questions the board can ask itself such as
  • How would you describe your school culture? Does it provide the most ideal growing situation?
  • What are your school values?
• And questions to ask of school leaders such as
  • How often do staff receive pastoral training?
  • What opportunities do your curriculum and teaching provide for character development?

Maria’s book is very easy to read and you can dip in and out of it. I have really enjoyed reading Maria’s book and I know I will be using it in the future.

Top Blogs of the Week: Schools Week (25 Jan 2021)

Schools Week have published my Top Blogs of the Week.

Separation of powers, accountability, responsibility and humanity are Naureen Khalid’s top picks of the topics from this week’s education blogs

Should the chief executive be appointed as a trustee?

@katiecpd

While governors and trustees take a strategic view, a school’s executive team has responsibility for its operational leadership. The role of the board is to hold the executive to account. That’s why in the charity sector CEOs are generally not appointed to the board. Yet whether this should be the case in schools and academies (which are exempt charities) has been a cause for debate.

Continued in Naureen Khalid’s blogs of the week, 25 January 2021.

Top Blogs of the Week: Schools Week (23 Nov 2020)

Schools Week have published my Top Blogs of the Week.

A theatre of dominance
@ThisIsSethsBlog

In this post, Seth Godin, founder of learning platform Akimbo, states that people who take part and those who watch sporting events may not realise that there are two forms of ‘theatre’ taking place, a theatre of dominance and a theatre of affiliation.

Continued in Naureen Khalid’s blogs of the week, 23 November, 2020.

Seventh anniversary matters

We are going through some tough times at the minute. COVID 19 has affected every aspect of our lives. The past week has been a very strange one as the nation went into lockdown. Normal schooling was suspended with schools opening only for children of essential workers who could not make child care arrangements. Governing board meetings were either cancelled or held using different online platforms. This week is a special one as far as this blog is concerned as, today, 28^th March, I celebrate seven, yes seven years of blogging! In the past I have celebrated my blog’s birthday by publishing a celebratory blog. I debated if I should do it this year. After thinking it over, I thought I should. Firstly it is an important milestone for me and secondly I think it helps to maintain routines during stressful times.

When I started blogging, I wasn’t sure how long I would keep going or if people would want to read my posts. Seven years later I have build up a following for which I am very grateful. A look at the past year.

The top ten most viewed posts were:

Ofsted Grade Descriptors, Sept 2015. Guest post by Shena Lewington

Vice Chair matter

Removal of the outstanding exemption: Consultation matters

Ofsted Inspection Handbook (Sept 2018) and governance matters

Self evaluation matters

School inspection update (Nov 2019) matters

Governors and curriculum matters

Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework and governance matters

Good practice matters for governing bodies

And the post which had the most views was Ofsted questions for governors

Most of the people who read my blogs have been referred to my site via Facebook and Twitter. There were 4 views via Pinterest which I was not expecting! I don’t know about you but I like looking at countries where my blog has been viewed. This year the most views were in UK and USA. I wonder what brought people living in Mongolia and Brunei to my blog!

The five most used search terms which led users to my blog were:

Governor ofsted questions

Local authority associated person

Ofsted governor questions

Blogs for governors five things secondary governors should know about data

New school staff wellbeing question

I have enjoyed blogging and sharing my thoughts with you during these seven years. Thank you to all who read/comment/share my blogs. Hopefully, I’ll see you at my 8^th anniversary party! Till then, stay calm, stay well and keep governing.

Self evaluation matters

I have been reading a few posts on governance reviews. While I agree that an external review can be very useful, self reflection is also very important. While thinking about this I came up with few questions which I think trustees/governors should be able to answer. How many of these can you and you colleagues answer? Are there any you would add to the list?

Why should I be led by you?

• If I were to ask a child in your school, what is it like being a pupil in your school what would they say?
• Would the answer given to me by a pupil with special education needs, a pupil premium/EAL child be the same?
• If I asked your head about you what would they say?
• If I asked your clerk about you, what would their response be?
• If I asked staff about their working conditions/well-being what would I find out?
• Do you ask parents for their opinions? Do you know if they would give me the same answer they would give you?
• Do you know what are the strengths and weaknesses of your school?
• What does your website tell me about the board?

Your roles and responsibilities:

• Are you crystal clear about your role and function?
• Do you know what powers you hold and how best to use them?
• Have you read your governance document?
  • For those of you who govern a school in a multi-academy trust (MAT), do you know what has been delegated to you in the scheme of delegation (SoD)?
  • Do you audit what you do, your agendas and meetings against the SoD?
  • When was the last time the SoD was reviewed?
• If I were to ask you the object of your charity, what would you tell me?
• What is your school’s vision statement?
  • Does the work you do go some way in delivering your vision?
  • Are all stakeholders aware of the vision and buy into it?
• Do you do a 360 review of the board?
• If I asked governors about your chair what would I hear? Will I get a consistent response or are governors working in groups/cliques?

Your working practices:

• Are you aware of all the laws that apply to you? (Ignorance is not a defence)
• How do you deal with conflicts of interest?
• What are the three major risks in your risk register and how do you plan to mitigate these?
• How do you ensure that finances and other resources are used effectively?
• Do you have someone on the board who can scrutinise and understand financial reports?
• Do you use any benchmarking data?
• How do you ensure your decisions are well informed and evidence based?
• If later events/new information shows that your decision was wrong, how do you go about rectifying your error?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of your board?
• Would your minutes show me that you challenge the school leadership?
• Do you have access to and understand pupil performance data?
  • Do you triangulate information you get from the head and their teams? How do you do that?
• If the board has concerns, then how do governors address them?
• What drives your agendas?
• Are they aligned with your school development plan (SDP)?
• How do you monitor the SDP?
• Do all governors come well prepared to the meetings?
• Do your meetings generally run to time and do you use the time effectively?
• How do you ensure that the appraisal process is fair, transparent and feeds into school improvement?
• How may governors access training on a regular basis?
• How do governors keep up to date with legislative changes, new policies and initiatives?

Future proofing:

• What are you doing to ensure your school is sustainable in the long run?
• Do you have a plan to deal with any vacancies on the board which any arise in the future?
• Is there a succession plan in place for the chair and vice chair of the board?
• Are you aware of any plans your head may have of moving on/retiring?
• Have you made any plans to deal with the above?
• Do you have plans to revisit your vision and see if it remains ft for purpose?
• When did you last do a skills audit?
• Do you regularly review of your governance/committee structure?
• Do you have any plans to collaborate with other boards?

Vice Chairs matter

Vice Chair (VC) of governing boards is an important role but in many cases it is not a well defined role. Investing in developing of this role offers great scope for developing leadership skills and distributed leadership. In this blog I would like to write about what a VC could do and how the role can be developed so that it adds value to the board.

Role of the Vice Chair

• Deputising for the chair
• Usually the only explicit function of a VC is to act as a deputy to the Chair. If a chair is unable to attend a meeting it falls to the VC to chair the meeting. If the chair needs to be away and is not contactable, the VC should deal with matters which may arise in the chair’s absence.
• CPD co-ordinator
• Some boards ask the VC to be responsible for the CPD of the board members. The VC, with the help of the clerk, maintains the training record and also signposts CPD opportunities. The VC may also help in maintaining the skills matrix.
• Sounding board
• The VC should act as a sounding board for the chair. Leading the board, like leading the school, is a lonely job. A good VC can act as a critical friend to the chair, giving support, advice and a fresh perspective.
• Sharing the workload
• We know that chairs are increasingly spending a great deal of time on governance. VC could share some of this workload. Chairs, too, need to learn to delegate so that the workload is shared equally amongst governors.
• Appraisal
• The VC can help and support the chair in the appraisal of the board members and the clerk. This is helped by the fact that a VC can have a good view of how the board is functioning. The VC can observe how meetings are run and how members contribute as they are unburdened by the responsibility of running the meeting (which is the job of the chair) or having to take minutes (the clerk’s role). The VC can also support the chair’s appraisal process.
• Communication with committee chairs
• The VC can support the chair by being the person responsible for communication with the committee chairs. This can be to plan committee meeting agendas, help ensure that the committees function well, within law and understand their delegated functions.
• Providing alternative route for raising concerns
• Every school must have a complaint policy. Staff, too, should also know how concerns can be raised. There can be occasions when people, for whatever reason, feel they cannot have an informal chat with the chair to resolve an issue. There can be occasions when the issue concerns the chair or there are tensions between the head and the chair or amongst members of the board. In these cases a good VC may be the person who is contacted and who can help resolve the issue. The VC must ensure that they do not undermine the chair or increase discontent in the board and form factions.
• Succession planning
• Perhaps the most important role of the VC is the implied responsibility to take on the chair’s role in due course.

Recruitment

Your governance document will detail how the VC is appointed. It is almost always an elected position. During this year’s election, I asked people to stand for VC with the view of taking the chair in the future. I made it clear that if circumstances changed or if they changed their mind then that was ok. I didn’t want people not to stand fearing that they would have to take the chair. I also made it clear that this was not a requirement, rather a way to try and get some succession planning in place and give people time to think of chairing in the future. As it happens, someone who would like to chair in the future stood and were elected.

How to be an effective Vice Chair?

• Work closely with the Chair so you develop a good, professional working relationship with them.
• Attend training/CPD which will help you understand the role. Many of the courses advertised for chairs are suitable for VCs too. Consider doing the Chair Development course which is offered by National Governance Organisation and other providers.
• Have a discussion with the chair and work out which responsibilities you would like undertake.
• Consider chairing a committee. This will provide you valuable experience in making agendas and running meetings
• Look upon the clerk as a valuable source of information and support.
• Develop a good relationship with other members of the board so that the whole board functions as a team.
• Ensure that you prepare well for meetings. You may have to chair a meeting at short notice so you need to be able to do that
• Keep up to date by reading widely, attending conferences, interacting with other governors, etc.

How can Chairs help VCs prepare for their role?

• The Board, with input from the Chair, should agree and publish a job description for the VC.
• The Chair should try and involve the VC in everything that they can. There may be things which Chairs will have to keep to themselves but most of the day to day governance can be shared.
• I have asked our clerk to copy the VC in her emails to me (those which are not confidential to the Chair). I will be asking the VC for feedback on agendas etc as a way of preparing them for their role.
• The Chair should consider letting the VC chair a meeting once the VC feels they can do this. This will be a valuable learning opportunity for them. A good way to do this would be to start with leading on an agenda item before going on to chair a meeting.
• If the board has committees the Chair should ask the VC to consider chairing one of the committees.
• The Chair should consider asking the VC to attend meetings they have with the head.

Chair/Vice Chair relationship

The relationship between the Chair and VC should be a close working relationship. The Chair should be able to rely on the VC to act as a sounding board and give advice and support when needed. The Chair should put into place measures which will develop the VC’s practice. The Chair and VC should be able to work closely together, sharing responsibilities with each other. However, they must take care that their relationship does not appear to be a cosy one to the rest of the board. An experienced VC may be able to offer support to a new Chair during the early months of the Chair’s tenure.

Governance in the spring and summer terms; reflecting and looking ahead matters

This has been a long and tiring term. As Easter approaches and governance slows down (it never stops completely!) I find myself sitting down with a cup of tea and looking back and reflecting on the term that was and also looking ahead to the last term of the year.

A major event in the Spring term was an inspection. One of the schools, Crofton Junior, belonging to Connect Schools Academy Trust where I’m a trustee, was inspected just before half term. This was a Good school and had had a short inspection last April. The inspection felt very thorough but fair. Governors and trustees met with the Inspector and had a chance to talk through what we knew of the school’s strengths and where we could do even more. The Inspector had read our minutes and understood MAT governance. The feedback was constructive. On a professional level, the inspector we met was knowledgeable and we could tell he had done his homework. On a personal level he was very accommodating. I had had to leave by a certain time and the inspector had no problem with that and quickly put me at ease. I didn’t have to reference Sean Harford’s myth busters as any trustee/governor who could attend the feedback was invited to do so. Ofsted come in for a lot of criticism (and some of that is justified) but I think when they get things right then we should talk about those too. This inspection was one such example. Although we don’t things for Ofsted, it was reassuring to find that they thought the same as us, that we were providing an education which our children are entitled to. Looking back, the one thing which stands out about the two days is how the whole community pulled together and were happy to do so. Our children are amazing. The staff and parents too. I think that’s what makes it an outstanding school. Yes, results are amazing, behaviour impeccable but it’s the “this is my school, I’m proud of it and I’ll do my best for the children” attitude which makes me really happy. Looking to the next term, we will continue doing what we’ve always done; our best for every child under our care.

The second thing which has been keeping me busy is governor recruitment. We have been looking to fill our community governor vacancies. We appointed two governors last term; one who is a deputy head in a local secondary school and the other has extensive experience of stakeholder engagement and project management. I’m not sure whether it’s because we are in a leafy, London suburb or just lucky but to get such great governors to add to the skill set we already have bodes very well for us. These candidates came to us via Inspiring Governance and Governors for Schools.

Reflecting on the process, I’m quite happy with the way we did it. We gave the candidates all the necessary information, sent them links to the Governance handbook and made clear the responsibilities that we as governors have. We had an interview process where we probed how their skills could complement those already present. We also worked through some scenarios. Although both candidates were not current governors they were able to work through these scenarios and gave us answers which indicated that they were aware of issues such as conflicts of interest, confidentiality etc. I think we will continue to use this process when we have further vacancies. It gives the candidates an idea of what’s involved and it gave us a chance to see how they could fit in with the team. I’m also a firm believer that although we are volunteers we need to approach governance in a professional manner and going through an interview process makes that clear. I am, however, aware that there are areas where there aren’t many people who put themselves forward to become governors and so interviewing someone who does may be a luxury people can’t afford. If that is you, I would still encourage you to meet with prospective candidates so that they have a chance to find out what being a governor is all about.

We have also thought about how to ensure that these governors understand their role. The trust is putting together a training programme and the first one they’ve been invited to is an induction session. I am also in the process of putting together an induction pack which will be ready by the time we go back. Once they have had a chance to work through it, I would like to ask them their thoughts about the whole induction process. I’d like to know what worked best, what didn’t and what could be made better. They have been assigned a mentor each and maybe this is something they could discuss with their mentors.

While I was writing this blog, I was made aware of this tweet.

Looking to become a governor of a local school. There doesn't seem to be a set process or clarity on whether there are positions available on school websites. Any advice? I'm all ears! pic.twitter.com/dhnWsGmhdT

— Mide Ola-Said (@mide_9) April 10, 2019

This is something GBs should think about. If you have a vacancy then it may help to advertise the fact on your website. You never know, someone may come across it and decide to get in touch with you.

I have also been reflecting upon the Leadership Conference I attended as Chair of an LGB. My school is part of United Learning. Once a year they hold a two day Leadership Conference where all heads of schools and chairs of LGBs are invited. The members of the board, the CEO, Jon Coles, the Regional Directors and the Company Secretary attend too. This is a really good way to get to know other heads and chairs, to hear from the board and the CEO and to feedback to them. Communication in a MAT is very important and needs to be two way; from the board to the LGBs and from the LGBs to the board. The Leadership Conference is one way United Learning accomplishes this (there are other events too where the board and LGBs get together). Education with character is what United Learning is all about. This was evident at the conference from the keynote speech from Andrew Triggs Hodge OBE (retired British rower and a triple Olympic Gold Medallist and quadruple World Champion) to the stunning musical performance by students from Manchester Academy, a United Learning sponsored academy.

If MATs decide to have LGBs then these LGBs should add value and to do this LGBs should know what’s happening at the board level and should be able to communicate what’s happening at the local level. The vision and values that drive the work of the trust should be explicit and should drive the work of the LGBs. My other trust is a much smaller (and newer) than United Learning. Trust wide communication is something we are very keen to get right. We are exploring how we can best achieve this.

Looking ahead to the summer term we will continue looking at the curriculum, something we had started doing before the inspection. Communication, as I mentioned above, is another thing we will be working on. The board has started reviewing our vision and values. This is important as the trust is growing. On a personal level, I’m looking forward to attending educational events and presenting at some of these. I have the following events in my diary. It would be lovely to see you at some of these events.

• 4th June Delivering Better Governance in Changing Times
• 8th June #BrewEdEssex (one ticket remaining)
• 11th June Curriculum Thinking: Three Masterclasses (sold out)
• 15th June #rEDRugby
• 20th and 21st June Festival of Education (early bird tickets till end of April)

There will also be the summer term board and LGB meetings. Looks like the next term will be a busy one too but that’s just how I like it to be.

Holidays between terms are a good time to sit back and reflect and also to look ahead. What was your last term like and what are you looking forward to in the summer term?

Sixth anniversary matters

My blog is six years old today (28th March 2019)! When I started blogging I wasn’t sure how long I would keep going or if people would even want to read what I write. Six years later, here I am, still blogging and the number of people reading (and subscribing) steadily increasing. Thank you to all of you who read, comment on and share my blog.

A look at the past year:

The top ten most viewed posts were:

10. Schemes of delegation matter

9. Informing governors about inspection matters

8. SEND governor matters

7. Maximising governance time matters; a checklist. With thanks to Aidan Severs

6. Ofsted inspection handbook (Sept 2018) and governance matters

5.Elected governors and removal from office matters

4. Questions you may be asked and other Ofsted inspection matters

3.Good practice matters for governing bodies

2. Ofsted grade descriptors;Sept 2015; Guest post by Shena Lewington

The most read blog this year was

1. Ofsted questions for governors

The five most used search terms which led users to my blog were:

1. Ofsted grade descriptors
2. Ofsted questions for governors
3. Ofsted questions for governors 2018
4. Ofsted questions and answers
5. What are the procedures to remove a parent governor

This year two of my blogs made it to the Julia Skinner’s list of Top Blogs of the Week in Schools Week. The first was Why Blogging Matters and  the other one was Relationships between Charity Boards and Executive Teams Matter. 

This blog has been viewed in 104 countries (a big jump from 64 last year)! I’m sure most of them must have ended up here by mistake as I can’t imagine why anyone in Kyrgyzstan, for example, would be interested school governance in England. Most of the views, as expected, were from the UK, followed by the US.

I can honestly say that even after six years I still enjoy putting my thoughts down on here. It gives me a chance to tell people where I stand on various issues and enter into debate on governance related topics.

I also use my blog to review what has happened during the year and that blog serves not only as a review but also as a repository of important links.A shorter version was published by Schools Week too.

One of the things I enjoy blogging about is my account of the conferences I attend. I try and look at the presentations from a governor’s point of view. An example of this is my recent blog on researchED Birmingham (researchED is a grassroots movement trying to make teaching more evidence based). In this blog I’ve written about questions governors should be thinking about and asking about the topics covered in the presentations.

Lastly, I was really happy to see this tweet.

For one of the best ed-bloggers ⁦@5Naureen⁩ ⁦@RaeSnape⁩. I would ed-blog but would be de-platformed quickly 🤔 pic.twitter.com/Z9Rrrh3jIP

— Brian Crosby MBE (@Briancrosby163) March 9, 2019

It’s wonderful that Brian sent this during March. Best birthday present ever! Thank you, Brian.

Staff wellbeing surveys matter: Guest Post

Bruce Greig is an entrepreneur and school governor. He served as Chair of Governors through two Ofsted inspections and worked with four headteachers. He set up School Staff Surveys after discovering how enlightening an anonymous staff survey can be and decided to make it easy for every school to run them. Below is a guest post written by Bruce on the topic of staff surveys.

I’ve been a school governor since 2011. A long while ago we asked our headteacher to run a staff wellbeing survey. We had heard mutterings of discontent from some staff, but others seemed very happy. Sometimes governors’ work is like the blind men appraising an elephant: you only see little glimpses of what’s really going on.

That survey we ran turned out to be transformational. It started a gradual, but dramatic, improvement in our the school staff culture.

Culture is very hard for governors to assess. Staff are often on their “best behaviour” during a learning walk or other governor visit. You don’t necessarily get a sense of how staff interact, and how they feel, when governors are not around.

We now do the same survey every year, and I think that every school should do this. In fact, I became so taken with the idea I set up a little side business just doing staff wellbeing surveys for schools: School Staff Surveys.

Here are some of my favourite questions (there are 69 questions in all, adapted from the world-renowed UK Civil Service People Survey).

Simple questions, but telling. And you can’t really ask a staff member this face-to-face (or, if you did, you can’t be sure of getting an honest answer). Of course, this survey question won’t tell you for sure whether or not your head is doing a good job, but it will help inform you. Staff might answer “Agree” because they just love the fact that the head lets them hide away in their classroom untroubled by observation or feedback. Or they might “Disagree” because they dislike a head who is actually doing a great job.

So the survey digs a little deeper into this, with questions like:

You can see that these more probing questions would help governors understand in more detail how the school is being led and managed.

Developing staff

As governors, we are well aware that recruiting staff is difficult: distracting, time-consuming and hard work. So it is much better if schools can do everything they can to develop and grow their existing staff. How’s that going? This question gives you an steer:

Staff might agree to this because they think to themselves “yes, I could go on those courses if I got round to asking”. Does your school actually have the processes in place to ensure that that development actually happens, and is it worthwhile? This more specific question gets to the crux of that:

And if you are able to develop and grow your staff, you should then get a resounding Strongly Agree to this question:

Feedback and appraisal

Since the introduction of performance related pay for teachers in 2014, it has been absolutely crucial that schools get their appraisal process right. Back in 2013, the last TALIS survey showed that around half of all teachers in England felt that feedback and appraisal was just a box-ticking exercise. If that shows up in the next TALIS survey, a lot of schools will be sitting on a tinderbox of potential grievances.

You are unlikely to hear from a teacher face-to-face that they think their appraisal is a waste of time. But if they do quietly think that, you could have a big problem on your hands – if their pay has been determined each year by a process they think is inadequate.

A regular wellbeing survey can look at this issue with questions like:

It isn’t just about how teachers view their own appraisal. It is just as important that staff feel others are managed well too, especially if they think other staff are not doing a good job. A question like this addresses that:

Teamwork

There are few things more toxic for a school staff culture than a staff member who doesn’t muck in. Won’t share resources, makes no effort to help out colleagues. I have heard of a school where a teacher appeared super professional and dedicated in her interactions with governors, but completely wrecked the school’s team culture in her interactions with staff. Literally leaving other teachers in tears. Had it not been for other staff speaking up, governors would have had no idea of the effect this teacher was having on the rest of the small team.

Being fair and respectful

Now we are getting into more sensitive territory. You’d hope that, if staff were not being treated fairly, or were suffering harassment, they would speak up. But I’ve learned that teachers are very reluctant to speak out about anything which might rock the boat (compared to my experience of other modern workplaces). If they keep their heads down, they have a very secure job. If they rock the boat, they fear that they might attract the dreaded career-ending “capability procedure”.

Your survey should include a couple of basic questions on this, like:

But also explicitly ask about discrimination:

And harassment:

Now then if you get a “yes” to either of these questions, the school can’t necessarily take any action. The survey is anonymous. The respondent might wish to remain anonymous. But your head, or CoG, could at least say to staff that the survey has shown that someone feels they have not been treated right and make sure everyone knows how to address their grievance safely if they want to.

There are another 40 questions in the survey that I run. There are plenty of ways that schools can run a survey like this. The UK Civil Service People Survey questions are in the public domain – you can put them into a Google Form or into Survey Monkey for free. One step up from that is a simple paid-for version like mine (School Staff Surveys), which takes the time and effort out of doing it all yourself. Or there are other providers like the Education Support Partnership who will administer a survey for you and follow it up with consulting and advice to help you address the issues it raises.