The spirit of the school governance community is enduringly optimistic, despite the challenges and the growing expectations we face. That said the best mental image I can conjure of governing boards throughout 2024 is of a group of meerkats.
Among our community are those who stand to attention, alive to new threats and opportunities on the horizon. Then there are those of us busily scurrying around, digging shelters and seeking out reserves (what is left of them) and those who forage and explore for sustenance.
This year has kept every member of the gang busy. Politically, 2024 has delivered something of a half-way house (or should that be a half-way burrow?).
Major policy developments since the election have spoken to our campaign for the simple-but-vital cause of ambition. So there is a sense of optimism. But as strategic decision-makers, balancing ambition with reality continues to be difficult.
The resource challenges Edward Vitalis spoke of this time last year are still assailing our remarkable resilience. And in addition to those, the governance community has quietly and diligently battled vast swathes of additional pressure points.
Among these, this year’s NGA annual governance survey report highlighted a decline in confidence around school finances, concern about SEND provision, the growing role of our schools in bridging the gap with extended services, the deteriorating school estate, accountability pressures and slow progress on the sustainability agenda.
2024 has brought us to a simple yet poignant conclusion: the growing challenges our school system faces are due to an increasingly frail and wanting societal offering for children and young people.
The new government offers some fresh perspectives, far beyond what seemed a myopic emphasis on school structures. However, while governing boards will no doubt endorse the new emphasis on “fixing the foundations of education”, they will be less enamoured with the lack of detail about how this is to be done.
There has been no real sign that governance is respected
On school structure alone, it’s still unclear what “smoothing the differences” between academies and maintained schools will look like in practice.
Meanwhile, funding remains our dominant concern. Only 19 per cent of schools and trusts consider themselves financially sustainable in the medium to long term. The proportion of governing boards citing budget balancing as their top challenge has reached an all-time high of 60 per cent.
So the autumn budget’s announcements of £1.4 billion for school buildings, £1 billion for SEND provision and £2.3 billion for core budgets are a welcome recognition of sector need, but the truth is that they don’t add up to anything transformative.
What could be transformative is the introduction of regional improvement (or RISE) teams. These signal a shift toward more collaborative, sector-led improvement and represent a moment of needed change and a cause for governance self-reflection.
The year started with a ‘Big Listen’ from Ofsted, and its immediate consequences offered hope. However, recent Schools Week coverage shows the potential of more, not less, Ofsted-dominated accountability.
That simply would not be right. NGA’s annual governance survey revealed 51 per cent of respondents identify Ofsted as the single most significant factor shaping practice in their school or trust. The balance between accountability, incentives and local needs is dangerously out of alignment.
Unlike the time-limited assessment that external inspection or desk-based exercises from the DfE offer, governing boards offer persistent, consistent oversight informed by a deep understanding of local context.
Sadly, the past year has shown no real sign that governance is being recognised and respected for this. In 2025, we must continue to make the case that inspection and DfE-driven interventions are just one part of a much wider, more holistic accountability system.
In all my time in governance, I’ve never known our mob to simply burrow and shelter, though who could blame it after the past few years?
Next year, our sentries will have an eye on the new government’s commitment to breaking down barriers to opportunity, as well as new challenges ahead.
But as resources continue to be scarce, our most valued contribution might well be foraging. A mission-led government, at least, opens up new opportunities to do that.
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