Our education experts, Brendan Hollyer, David Driscoll and Jane Owens helped us with this article.
On results day
Initial discussion between the chair and the headteacher
The chair of governors should be responsible for discussing the exam results with the headteacher. You should:
- Ask the headteacher for their thoughts on the results to get a sense of whether the outcomes were expected or not, before asking questions
- Be honest and focused on supporting and challenging the headteacher rather than trying to tell them what to do
- Be sympathetic - this will be a difficult time for all school staff
- Discuss how best to present these results to the rest of the board (for example, including a breakdown of data for individual groups and subjects)
You or your headteacher should communicate the results to the board. Make it clear to the board that the data is unvalidated and some results may change.