St Bede's Inter-Church School

Governing Body of St Bede's Inter-Church School

With 20 members, St Bede's has an unusually large governing body for a school of its size. This is because as a joint church school there are two dioceses represented. Thus the governing body consists of 6 Anglican foundation governors, 6 Roman Catholic foundation governors, 3 governors elected by the parents, 1 teacher and 1 member of the support staff elected by the staff, 2 governors appointed by the LEA and the Head.

Because we are a voluntary aided school the governing body is legally the employer of all the staff which adds significantly to their responsibilities. The governors' job is to set the direction to be taken by the school and to be custodians of the character and ethos it believes parents and the dioceses will expect. Although our responsibilities require us to be occasionally involved in management detail, the governing body does try to concentrate on broad policy issues such as priorities in the School Development Plan or admissions policies and expansion plans.

We meet twice in each of the three terms and also have three main committees covering admissions, curriculum/personnel and finance/sites/buildings. As would be expected in a church school, there is also a Chaplaincy Council which has oversight of the spiritual aspects of school life. We also assign ourselves to different curriculum areas as supporters and sponsors of those areas, try to support school events, and promote the school within our individual neighbourhoods and spheres of influence.

Being a governor is becoming an increasingly time consuming activity, particularly in a joint church school like ours, and the system relies very much on peoples' commitment to the well-being of the school. The governors regard themselves as holding the school in trust primarily on behalf of the students and their parents, but also of the staff and the dioceses, and this is what motivates us to serve.