Reviewing and improving governance is easy with iAbacus

You know strong governance is critical, but do you know your governing board is as good as it could be? What are your options for reviewing and improving effectiveness?

There are several things you could do.

1. Commission an external consultant to do a review. Not cheap, but can be effective. Typically the consultant will visit, collect evidence write a report that offers some ideas for improvement. The key question is what happens after the consultant has left you with the report. Do you have the skills and tools to make change happen?

2. Carry out a self-evaluation. Easy to implement: photocopy the NGA governance review; draft and circulate questionnaires; analyse results; make plans; implement and review. The key question is whether you confident you have the right skills to undertake the audit on your own. Are you sure you it is an objective and accurate appraisal? How do you benchmark your judgements?

3. Commission, or find governor training. There are plenty of training providers out there. You’ll need to agree the focus, research providers and costs, and decide which governors attend. The key question is what happens following the course. How will you use the learning to take action? If the training was off site with one or two governors, how do you ensure it is shared with all?

4. Trial and purchase the iAbacus. Of course we would say this, but we believe the iAbacus gives you a deceptively simple, effective online tool to support your governance reviews.

iAbacus comes preloaded with the Ofsted governance review criteria, but unlike other self reviews, the online tool guides you through each step of the process. It helps you to challenge your judgements to ensure they are accurate, collate evidence, analyse and plan for change. You can go back into it at any stage to track progress and review outcomes. With one click at the end, it prints a visually appealing, easy to follow report with your detailed planning and timeline in place.

Schools that have already bought iAbacus for their senior leaders can access the governance review as part of their subscription. If you haven’t already subscribed to iAbacus, check out our pricing page, or why not take out a free trial and see for yourself.

About iAbacus

The iAbacus grew out of successful school improvement work and is founded on the evidence from the theory and research of school and organisational improvement. It is therefore, a quality assurance tool as well as a professional development model, using a streamlined process for collaborative and sustainable development. The intuitive process is designed to build a school’s collective capacity to: make accurate criterion referenced judgements; identify meaningful data and evidence; analyse and prioritise key factors and produce detailed plans and reports of progress, over time.

Whilst the iAbacus process starts from an individual’s perspective, it encourage collaboration and, because it is a professional development model, it develops a common language and approach to progress across the school. The universal application of he iAbacus means that whilst the focus might change, with the range of templates, the step-by-step process remains constant.