Expectations of your board
Every governing board has a responsibility to evaluate its own effectiveness. This includes setting aside a budget for the training and development it needs to fill any skill gaps, including financial knowledge.
These expectations are outlined in the governance guides (section 1.2 for maintained schools and 4.8 for academy trusts) and the Academy Trust Handbook (paragraphs 1.26 and 1.27).
Consider having a link governor for governor training and development
It's not a statutory requirement, but your board should consider giving specific responsibility for training and development to the vice-chair or another governor/trustee.
While the chair holds overall responsibility for making sure that board members have the right skills to contribute to the board, the training and development link governor can monitor governor development in more detail and make sure it happens.
Your role and responsibilities
If you're the link governor responsible for training and development, your responsibilities will be to:
Be the board's training specialist
Your role is to help make sure every governor develops their skills so they can make a valuable and active contribution to the board.
You’ll likely:
- Help with the induction of new governors and recognise their skill gaps
- Assess the training needs of the governing board as a whole and identify gaps, such as in finance or data
- Identify the training needs of other link governors, such as Prevent training for the safeguarding link governor
- Encourage governors to attend training courses and report back to the board what they’ve learned
- Track attendance at training and development courses
Work closely with your chair
The chair also has a key role in making sure everyone on the board builds their skills, knowledge and experience to create an effective team.
They’ll want to make sure everyone participates in meetings and actively contributes their skills. You’ll work with them to make sure this happens through training and development opportunities.
As you’ll be monitoring everyone’s development, you’re also likely to recognise when governors persistently don't participate in training or development opportunities.
In this case, governors may be in breach of the board’s code of conduct, as laid out in the governance guides (section 4.1.2 for maintained schools and 4.7 for academy trusts). You'd then need to have a discussion with the chair to see if any action needs to be taken (i.e. suspension).
Find out what skills and gaps you have on the board
Use our board effectiveness tool to help you do this.
This will help you get a better understanding of your board’s strengths and weaknesses. You'll then be able to identify where the board needs extra training and development.
Use our article on governing board self-evaluation to help you with the process. It includes a list of key questions to ask.
You can use the feedback to set actions for improvement for the whole board, plus targets for individual governors.
Access our on-demand online training
Use our range of courses to help the governors or trustees on your board get to grips with their roles. They'll receive a certificate once they pass the final assessment, and the completed course will appear on their GovernorHub training record.
Invite all of your new governors to complete our comprehensive induction programmes for:
- Maintained school governors
- Academy governors on local governing bodies
- Academy trustees
- Parent governors/trustees
- Staff governors
They can also take our safeguarding for governance training course to fulfil their statutory training requirement. Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2024 says governing boards and school proprietors should make sure all governors receive appropriate safeguarding and child protection training at the point of induction.
Point your board's link governors and committees towards our other specific courses to boost their knowledge and confidence:
- The Prevent duty
- Safer recruitment
- SEND link governor
- Safeguarding link governor
- Health and safety link governor
- The pupil premium