eduGeeks and Governors

[MkII]

I'm a staff governor at my school, not that it's really helped at all with anything to do with IT, I've had more involvement when a governor is involved in the procurement process and I present the alternatives.

 

Things are quite bad at present, which is down to leadership style I think. In the past we've had it very good, with a lot of communication going on, although of course there are always those requests plucked out of that pie up there somewhere.

 

As a governor, I'm on the only committee that has never met in 2 years at least - the Communications Group!

 

I don't understand why a school pays someone they must believe has some sort of technical knowledge, and then doesn't use it!

 

Here here!

[Ashers]

I've worked in two schools in the past year, both full time. The first was excellent, all new staff were introduced to the governors at an informal meeting and the IT and chair of governors would regularly come and see us and ask questions. We had one advantage in that we reported directly to a deputy head that was not afraid of saying no we won't do this until we (the IT team) have looked thoroughly at it.

 

Also as someone mentioned earlier having a good relationship with the procurement team meant that any orders for IT based kit would not be put through unless it was counter signed by IT.

 

It all worked well and every department ended coming to us first, which meant we could advise them on the best way to spend their budget on IT and even get departments to work together and get better deals from suppliers.

 

My new school could be more different, the word no from IT send some members of staff crying (yes I do mean real tears) to the head and then us being TOLD that they get what they want, in the end it didn't work as circumstances changed and the teacher changed jobs and didn't care anymore! So we didn't do it.

 

What got me was that we weren't asked as to why we couldn't/wouldn't do it!

 

As for the governors, not seen or heard from any of them. We also report to the 'Director' of ICT, can't see the sense in that. We have to explain everything to them in layman’s terms (nice guy but not a geek) and he gets caught like most teachers by the sales pitch and we end up having to convince him again that we don't want that solution.

 

Finally (I hear the sigh of relief) the SLT, in this school the, them and us really does prevail and maybe it is because the governors are so distant from the admin side of the school. It could be that my last school was exceptional, but the difference between the two is amazing.

 

Well I feel a lot better now I've got that off of my chest.