The Governing Body

Governing Body Vacancies

We currently have two vacancies for Parent Governors to join our Governing Body.  Our Governors come from a range of different backgrounds, and offer a wide range of skills and experience.  They are all volunteers who work together for the benefit of the school, and parent governors in particular play a vital role in ensuring that the governing body is aware of the views of parents and the local community.  If you have an open and enquiring mind, the ability to look at issues objectively, the confidence to ask questions and join in debate, and enjoy working with others, then you could be just the person we are looking for.
If you have any further questions then please send an email through for the attention of the Chair of Governors to belperschool@belperschool.co.uk.

Governors Links

Introduction

Belper School and Sixth Form Centre is a Foundation School.  Foundation Schools are devolved from the Local Authority and the governors of the school have increased roles and responsibilities.

Governing boards have three core strategic functions:

  1. Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
  2. Holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its students, and
  3. Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent

Committees

Our full Governing Body meets regularly over the year. Responsibilities are also delegated to sub-committees in certain areas. These sub-committees are:

  • Education Committee
  • Facilities and Resources Committee
  • Joint Consultative Committee

At meetings, our Governors receive information, discuss key issues and are involved in the decision-making process on matters affecting the strategic direction of the school.

External Review

We commissioned an external review of Governance in the summer term 2022. The review found the following:

  • This is currently a strong board.
  • All governors articulated a strong sense of the culture, vision and ethos of the school.
  • The board drive the direction of the school through scrutiny, question, and challenge
  • The curriculum and performance committee and the student matters, equality and community committee both received presentations on key topics during the year giving governors an insight into school issues and the chance to ask questions in more depth on a topic. This is good practice and can also been seen as developmental for senior and middle leaders.
  • The board has a mixture of long-standing and newer governors. Long-standing governors have kept up to date with good governance practice. Newer governors seem confident to contribute to meetings and seem to understand their role.
  • Governors understand their legal, regulatory, contractual, financial requirements and these are all explained fully during induction training

Further Information

Further information on the membership of our Governing Body, Governors pecuniary interests and the committee structure can be viewed/downloaded by clicking on the links below.

Attendance at Governing Body Meetings

Governing Body Committees – Terms of Reference

The Terms of Reference for the Governing Body and its committees are shown below:

Terms of Reference of committees will be reviewed and published in January 2023 to take account of sub-committee changes.