The Governing Board are a group of parent-elected and community representatives with a wide variety of experience, each with a commitment to give their time to benefit the school and ensure all pupils have access to a good education.

Currently our Governing Board consists of 10 governors, who work on a voluntary basis: 3 parent governors, 1 Local Authority governor, 1 staff governor, 1 headteacher governor and 4 co-opted governors. The term of office for all governors is 4 years.

To find out more about the work we do, please see the information below.

The role of the Governing Board

There are three key roles of governance:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
• Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils, and the effective and efficient performance management of staff;
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent.

The main purpose of the governing board is to provide strong strategic leadership and to ensure accountability for the school’s education and financial performance. Often, governing boards are described as a “critical friend” to the school. Our role is strategic rather than operational, which means we set and champion the schools’ vision, ethos and strategy. We are ambitious for all children and young people, and seek to enable the best possible outcomes for all pupils by asking challenging questions, gathering and representing a range of views, and taking a longer-term view of school improvement. However, we don’t take part in the day-today running of the school.

Each Governor takes on a minimum of one area of responsibility, as part of which we ensure we understand the relevant policies, regulations and guidance as defined by the Department of Education, Surrey County Council or any other official body, in order to be able to effectively challenge our own school’s corresponding policies, and to ensure we are effectively meeting those requirements. Currently these areas of responsibility include safeguarding, vulnerable learners, curriculum, health and safety, attendance, finance, and data protection.

Governors undertake regular visits to the school; meeting with SLT, staff and pupils in order to assess how we are performing and to identify opportunities to improve. We help to document evidence that the school is meeting requirements, to challenge and question where needed, and to satisfy ourselves that our school is able to provide the best, safest and the most inclusive educational setting we can for all our pupils.

We also work with Governors of other schools to share knowledge and best practice, as well as working with Surrey County Council and the Schools Alliance for Excellence (SAfE) to ensure we receive the correct guidance and support where necessary.

Should you wish to contact the Governing Body, you can do so via the school office or contact the clerk via email: Clerk@bucklandprimary.surrey.sch.uk

Our  Governing Body

How to become a Governor

If you think you have what it takes to be a school governor there are a number of ways of finding schools that have vacancies:

• You can contact your local school to ask if they need a new governor.
• You can contact the School Governors’ One Stop Shop, which recruits Governors nationally.
• You can contact your local council.

Schools financial benchmarking

Buckland Primary submits information regarding its income, expenditure, and balances to the DFE on an annual basis.

This information is published on the DfE’s School’s Financial Benchmarking website which enables you to view school’s financial data and see how it compares to other schools in England.

Maintained schools must publish on their website the number of school employees (if any) whose gross annual salary is £100,000 or more in £10,000 bands. There are no staff at Buckland Primary who earn more than £100,000 a year.

Please click on this link to view Buckland Primary School’s Financial Benchmarking Information

If you have a concern about our school or would like advice who to contact outside of the Headteacher or the Governing Body, please click on the links below