Reviewing policies: questions to ask

Thanks to Jackie Beard, Jonathan Gower and Vicky Redding, our associate education experts, for their help writing this article.

Your role in reviewing policies

As a governing board your role is to ask challenging questions so that you can satisfy yourself that the policy is robust. In particular you want to know that the policy is:

• Up-to-date with relevant requirements
• Fit for purpose and tailored to your school
• Aligned with your school's improvement strategies and ethos

Use our questions below to help you find out. 

It's not your role to:

• Write or revise policies
• Search for other policies to compare your current policy to
• Seek stakeholder feedback on policies

Remember: the actual policy-making is operational and should be left to senior leaders. Don't insert yourself into the policy-making process. 

Use our questions to interrogate the policy

Invite the relevant member