Nigel Richardson, Governance and Governors

John Catt is pleased to announce the upcoming publication of Governance and Governors, the eighth and final volume in the Leading Schools in the 21^st Century series organised by The Headmasters’ & Headmistresses Conference.

The new book, co-sponsored by the Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools (AGBIS), draws on the experiences of Governors, Heads and Bursars and covers many of the challenges Governors face. The volume is edited by Dr Nigel Richardson, who has co-edited the other seven titles in the series, and Stuart Westley, General Secretary of AGBIS and a former Head.

Among the topics covered are legal responsibilities; health and safety; risk management; public benefit and charity legislation; child protection requirements; inspection; the role of the Chairman; committee structures; complaints and appeals; strategic planning; finding a new Head; and appraisal.

Other books in the series cover the roles of Heads; Senior Management Teams; Heads of Department; Newly Qualified Teachers; Pastoral Work; Public Relations, Marketing and Development; and Bursars. Full information on how to obtain the complete set will follow shortly.

Subscriptions are available from the John Catt bookshop  and you can read and download a copy of the digital version via www.academymag.co.uk. Don’t miss your chance to find out more and be a part of this exciting publication.

It is another fantastic issue, truly an indispensable guide to one of the world’s leading curricula, featuring: information from the IB on their three programmes and their organisation, conferences, staff and facilities; directory information on every IB World School in almost 150 countries; and more detailed descriptions and photos of over 200 leading IB World Schools.

The book will be published next week and is available to pre-order here. In the meantime, here is a blog post written for us by Julie Booth, explaining why more and more schools are choosing to offer the International Baccalaureate and how technology can help manage the complexities of delivering it.

THE CHALLENGES OF MANAGING THE IB 

More and more schools are offering the International Baccalaureate (IB) alongside, or in some cases instead of, traditional GCSEs and A Levels as a way of attracting the best students. As the employment market becomes increasingly global, providing a qualification that is recognised across the world can be a decision-maker for many parents wanting to educate their child privately.

However, with a possible six different subject areas to be assessed, the breadth of study involved with the IB makes it more complicated for schools to manage than single subject courses.

Juggling timetables

The subjects covered in the IB include literature, one foreign language, a social science, an experimental science, mathematics and one arts course. Students can select the subjects they wish to study. This flexibility is one of the things that is boosting its popularity in many schools.

But creating individual timetables and ensuring the necessary staffing resources are available can be incredibly time consuming – particularly if the school is running the IB alongside GCSE and A Level courses.

The vast majority of schools use a management information system (MIS) to store school and pupil data electronically. Some systems offer powerful tools that use existing information on pupils and their subject choices to automate the timetabling process. The time this saves can be considerable but it also allows schools to match staff specialising in specific subject areas with the relevant pupils, whilst keeping class sizes to a minimum. This is essential to delivering the educational excellence that parents expect.

Raising attainment

Children who can study the subjects that interest them are more likely to achieve in school but they can be stronger in some subjects than in others. Tracking the learning progress of IB pupils in each area of study is key to raising their attainment across the curriculum.

By storing assessment results electronically, a broad range of data is available that can be analysed with minimum time and effort. This allows pupils’ achievement to be monitored more easily than it can when this information is held in paper files.

A child could be doing well in science but might be at risk of falling behind in German. With a clear picture of the progress pupils are making displayed on a classroom computer, teachers can quickly identify where action needs to be taken to ensure pupils have the best chance of achieving good grades in all their chosen subjects.

Simplifying the management of the IB is one thing. But what schools really want to ensure is that their pupils are benefiting from the highest standards of education – which in turn, will improve their chances of becoming parents’ first choice school. With the ability to track the impact of introducing the qualification on both achievement and pupil numbers through the MIS, the answer will surely be in the data.

Julie Booth is head of independent schools at Capita SIMS. www.capita-independent.co.uk

Keen to build on the positive response to the launch issue, our editor Paul Strong has gathered together a fine collection of articles from a varied and experienced group of contributors, covering a wide range of topics relevant to the sector.

Tom Clark CBE, chairman of the board of FASNA (Foundation, Aided Schools and Academies National Association) writes about the national funding formula, expressing concerns and doubts about the proposed future role for Schools Forums, while John Dunford, formerly general secretary of ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders) says that the key to academy success is positive, not negative, liberty.

A collection of articles on governance includes contributions from Emma Franks of the National Governors’ Association; Joan Binder, vice-chair of FASNA; and Geoff Taylor, clerk to the governing body at two academies. Meanwhile, Bishop of Grimsby David Rossdale writes about the role of the church in academies and Martin Skelton, co-founder of Fieldwork Education, discusses the equal importance of knowledge, skills and understanding in the classroom.

Academy is published three times a year, at the start of each school term, in September, January and April. Subscriptions are available: visit the John Catt Bookshop for more information.

As Conference & Common Room nears its 50th anniversary, the editorial is as rich as ever. Neil Carmichael, MP for Stroud and a former chair of governors and a member of the Education Select Committee, discusses, alongside Edward Wild, former Development Director of Wild Search, how the quality of governing bodies has never been more vital than in the upcoming years. Roger V Mobs, a regular guest at the Heatherblend Club Banquet, finds himself in a fairly precarious position, somewhere up a drainpipe. Fergus Livingstone, Headmaster of Lord Wandsworth College, raises issues about support for the academies programme. And the Headmaster of Ratcliffe College since 2009, Gareth Lloyd, looks back at the annual conference.

Meanwhile, Prep School, now in its 73rd edition, features Marion Scott-Baker, Head of Pre-Prep, Cheam School, strengthening the case for high quality early years education. She takes an in-depth look at how children learn to read and strongly promotes a unified approach to phonics. Headmaster, Richard Foster, of Windlesham House School in Sussex, beautifully details how the surprise addition of a Victorian ‘secret garden’, has inspired his year 2 class. Will Bersey, director of music at St Edmund’s School in Canterbury, explains the school’s exciting new friendship with the English Chamber Orchestra. And NQT teacher, Henry Lamb, shares his passion and personal experience of how sport has an amazing role to play in the life of a prep or junior school.

Lastly, the Spring issue of is comes, as always, with lots of photos from the ECIS Autumn conference – this year we travelled to Lisbon. Cue lots of smiling faces and a few glasses of wine to boot. Also included are the words of Dr Mary Hayden, as she looks forward to celebrating the tenth year of The Alliance for International Education, with details of their 2012 conference in Doha. Kevin Gilbert, Principal of the middle school, Collège du Léman, Switzerland and co-founder of the Serenje Orphans Children’s Home (SOCH) in Zambia, details the benefits of an ECIS Outreach Grant, as a fish farm is created nearby. David Thomas asks ‘how can a school be a true learning community if its governing body isn’t learning how to perform better?’ The importance of continuing professional development, he states, must extend to boards and governing bodies. David is Chair of ACS International Schools, UK and Qatar, and Chair of the ECIS Governance Committee. And Lacy Chapman, lower school Principal at ACS Cobham International School, explains why outdoor learning is not just about messing around outside.

We are extremely pleased with all three magazines, and look forward to hearing your feedback. Relevant issues will be making their way to a staffroom near you – do keep an eye out. Additional copies can be ordered through the John Catt Bookshop. Happy Christmas from all of us here.

Eminent journalist Gideon Haigh, writing about John Inverarity’s promotion to chairman of selectors for the Australian cricket team in a feature titled On the hunt for a few good men, explains how Inverarity spent some time as a teacher of mathematics at Tonbridge School in Kent, UK, where he met head of English Jonathan Smith. Haigh writes:

Perhaps the salient distinction between Inverarity’s career and that of one of his modern charges is that at the peak of his success he decided to put his career on hold, in January 1976 accepting a job in the mathematics faculty at Kent’s Tonbridge School, which came about through a friendship with the school’s most distinguished old boy, Colin Cowdrey.

“I felt that cricket was getting a grip of me, that winning the Shield had become an obsession,” explains Inverarity. “And things in Perth were at the time probably just a little easy. You had good standing, some authority. I thought: “It’s probably better for us as a family if we go off somewhere for a while on our own.”

At Tonbridge, Inverarity, his wife Jane and daughters Alison and Kate became friendly with the novelist Jonathan Smith, father of the future Test batsman and gifted journalist Ed. In Jonathan Smith’s recent memoir of life as a cricket lover and father, The Following Game, he describes Inverarity as possessing Montaigne’s quality of “severe gentleness”.

“There was kindness but there was toughness,” writes Smith. “There was understanding but there was expectation.” He describes Inverarity as possessing an ability to look “hard and straight at the world as it is, with hope, and certainly with a measure of idealism, but with clear eyes.”

I am delighted to say that the book arrived back from the printer’s just a few minutes ago – although the sub-zero temperatures inside the delivery lorry ensure it can’t accurately be described as “hot off the press”…

The Schoolmaster was originally published 100 years ago when the world was a very different place – and yet Benson’s strikingly honest words about his chosen profession are, in the main, still relevant today.

Benson was born at Wellington College, educated at Eton and Cambridge and spent his life and career at both. He also had a successful career outside of education; he was the editor of Queen Victoria’s letters, a lyricist and a prolific diary writer.

“…please, can we have this man as the Minister for Education, and can we have him now.” Jonathan Smith, author of The Learning Game and The Following Game, in his introduction.

“Benson was a man of many parts, but above all he was a consumate schoolmaster, dedicated, stimulating, idealistic yet wise to the ways of the world, and more importantly to the wiles and needs of teenage schoolboys. His book The Schoolmaster is personal and idiosyncratic and remains one of the best accounts of schoolmastering that has been written. I am delighted to see this work back in print, which for A C Benson is the most fitting memorial.” Tony Little, Head Master, Eton College, in his foreword.

The Schoolmaster is available via the John Catt Bookshop. The book follows on the heels of the summer publication by Peridot Press of Jonathan Smith’s acclaimed memoir The Following Game.

‘With an increasingly accomplished cast and a rich and resonant novel as its source material, we think this sounds like a promising little Brit-flick.’
- totalfilm.com

The Following Game is, of course, still available to purchase from the John Catt bookshop – a truly wonderful book and a perfect Christmas present.