Letter to governing bodies

To help enlist governing bodies' support in improving the work-life balance of senior leadership teams, ASCL and the National Governors' Association has written a letter to chairs of governors. 

The letter is for ASCL members to use with their chair of governors, as appropriate, to draw attention to the ways in which governing bodies can help to reduce leaders' workload. These include:

• Fixing a maximum time length for all meetings

• Reducing the number of written reports and making use of reports written for other audiences

• Re-prioritising the improvement plan when issues requiring urgent action emerge during the year

• Ensuring that the improvement plan addresses what needs to be done to improve, not every current initiative

• Being flexible about the timing  of governors' meetings

The letter follows a similar one from ASCL to governors in June 2005. Governors will have also received a letter on this subject from the National Governors' Association last year. 

A copy of the letter is in the May member mailing, or download a copy from www.ascl.org.uk