Governor Information
St Joseph’s School Governing Board play a vital role in ensuring the best possible education for our students that will take every child as far as their talents allow. They do this by raising school standards through their three core strategic functions:
- Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
- Holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils; and
- Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.
The different categories of governors on our governing board are:
Parent Governors who have a child in school at the time of their election, and are elected by the parents with children at the school.
- Staff Governors who are members of staff at the school and are elected by their colleagues.
- Foundation Governors are appointed in the name of the Bishop by the Episcopal Vicar for Education and they form the majority of the membership of our Board. They have a legal duty to preserve and develop the Catholic ethos of the school and to ensure that it is conducted in accordance with its Trust Deed.
- Foundation governors are expected to demonstrate a genuine commitment to the educational, personal and spiritual development of the children and in particular to the wellbeing of the school community as a whole.
- Co-opted Governors are appointed on to the governing board by the other members because they come from a specialist group, such as the business community or because they possess a particular skill which can contribute to the effective governance and success of the school.
- Local Authority(LA) governors who are nominated by the local councillor and appointed by the governing board;
The Headteacher (HT) is also a member of the governing board by right of the position they hold in the school; - Associate Members are not actually governors but can be appointed to serve on committees and attend meetings of the full governing board. They do not have the right to vote at meetings of the full governing board but may been given voting rights on the committees that they are a member of, but these rights can only be given by the governing board.
Governors attend many committees throughout the year with different focuses. The different committees our governing board has are:
- Resources Committee
- School Effectiveness Committee
- Head Teacher Performance Committee
There are also separate disciplinary and appeals committees which are convened if they are required.
Register of personal, pecuniary or business interests
All the governours and associate members of St Joseph’s listed in the table on Our Governors page have signed the Register of personal, pecuniary or business interests.
This is a declaration of any personal or business interest they or any relative or person closely connected with them, have with businesses or other organisations that may have dealings with the school. This could for example include owning or having a relative work for a business that had dealings with school; having a relative working in or for school or being a governor of another school.
If any interest a governor has could be seen to cause a conflict of interest they would be asked to withdraw from any decision making concerned. This is to ensure that our governors can always be seen to be putting the interest of the school first.
If there is a potential conflict it is shown in the table. This table also shows the category of governor each person is, any specific role on the governing board and the committees they are members of.
More information about the requirements to complete and sign the Register of personal, pecuniary or business interests can be found on Salford City Council’s Governor Services web pages at http://www.salford.gov.uk/schoolgovernors.htm where you will also find the links to all the other local authority’s (LA) governing boards personal, pecuniary or business interests registers.