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COVID-19 resource hub: governing your school during coronavirus
Latest news and developments affecting schools
- School reopening: what's changing in autumn
- School reopening: what we know so far
- Round-up of the current situation for schools (exams, inspection, safeguarding, free school meals, and more)
Your role and how to work with your school now
On school reopening:
- How to scrutinise your school's plan to reopen
- How to respond to the guidance on reopening
- Protective measures for your school
- What to monitor now
- How to monitor safeguarding
- Role of the curriculum link governor
Longer term - school recovery:
- Setting your school on the road to recovery
- COVID-19 retrospective: how to help your school learn lessons from lockdown
- How to organise your board to support school recovery
More widely:
- FAQs about governance during coronavirus – based on the DfE's latest governance update (4 June)
- How to monitor and support your headteacher's wellbeing
- Strategic vs operational during coronavirus
- 'Chair's action' – when and how the chair can make urgent decisions on the board's behalf
If parents approach you: now, perhaps more than ever, it’s important to avoid mixed messages. If parents come to you with questions or complaints about the school, refer them directly to the headteacher, or to your school’s complaints procedures.
How to hold and manage your meetings
- Summer term 2020 agenda items and how to prepare
- Virtual meetings: your complete guide
- Virtual meetings policy – a model policy to download and adapt
Support with key tasks this term
Budget approval
Policy approval
- How to approve your remote learning policy
- How to approve your safeguarding/child protection policy addendum (to set out any specific arrangements during COVID-19)
School improvement planning
Recruitment and induction
- Headteacher recruitment - how to manage it remotely
- How to induct a new governor remotely
- How to deal with expired terms of office
Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks: your school can still do these checks remotely. The DBS has temporarily relaxed its rules on checking identity when applying for a check, so your school can now use a live video link to validate scanned identity documents, rather than having to be in physical possession of the documents. Your school should only do this in urgent cases though, and the applicant must still bring original versions of the documents when they first come in to school.
Support for your school leaders
Make sure your headteacher and their leadership team know they can use our COVID-19 resource hub on The Key for School Leaders for the latest information on dealing with the challenges this situation presents. We're adding to it daily.
Help us guide you and boards like yours
Tell us what you need help with, or how you're working with your school right now to overcome challenges, at enquiries@thekeysupport.com. We'll do our very best to support you. And we'll spread the best of how schools and boards are working together under these difficult circumstances to help guide others.
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