The principal, overarching function of a school governing body is to set a strategy for the school to develop and grow. Governors do this in myriad ways, many of them right and some less so. Occasionally, governors decide to go on an away-day once annually or biennially to review how they (and the school) have been doing and set the objectives and strategy for the future. Others decide to do this with less frequency – i.e. once every three or four years.
A few governing bodies leave the construction of the strategy to their headteachers – who, in conjunction with their staff members – especially the members of the senior management teams – review the school’s strengths and weaknesses, audit the opportunities and threats in their environments and pull together the objectives and the School Development Plans (SDPs) for the following year, two years or three. These SDPs are then presented to their governing bodies for comment. Given the constraints of time at meetings, more often than not, they are rubber-stamped and approved with little or no comment.