How we work with schools

We work with schools and trusts of all types across England and Wales to find high quality governance volunteers.

What does Governors for Schools do? 

As a charity, we’re proud to support all types of state-funded schools and academies including mainstream and special provisions, from nursery up to further education, to find school governors for their school governing board.  

An outline of our process

  1. Register your school governor vacancies online.  
  2. We will search our database of volunteers to find a suitable match in your school’s local area. 
  3. If both you and the volunteer are interested in moving forward, we’ll make an introduction via email. 
  4. You can then arrange a meeting with the volunteer(s) at the school to talk more about the role. 
  5. Once you have appointed the volunteer, let us know and they’ll get 12 months free access to GovernorHub Knowledge to support them in their role. 
Register your school governor vacancy

Enhanced Recruitment Service

If you’re looking for school governors with a specific skillset, or are struggling to fill your role, we also offer an Enhanced Recruitment Service (ERS). This paid for offering is ideal for schools who need a more proactive approach to school governor recruitment through targeted headhunting.  

Using a range of recruitment tools, we’ll engage potential candidates who may not have considered school governance before but have the necessary skills to support your board. This allows us to find the right person in your local area, by reaching a largely untapped pool of talent.

Through the success of our Chair Recruitment Service (CRS), we know this targeted approach to school governor recruitment produces great results.

Find out more about ERS How we find schools a chair of governors

Diversity on governing boards

Inclusion is at the heart of what we do. 

A diverse governing board is a stronger board, reflecting school communities and the wider country. You can read more about how we work with schools to improve diversity on governing boards on our page. Furthermore, you can find out about how we measure up with board diversity in schools in a blog post produced as part of our Inclusive Governance campaign. 

Remote Governance

Volunteers who don’t live in the school’s local area can join the board through remote governance. By joining meetings remotely through video calls, they can bring their skills to schools struggling to fill vacancies and offer an outside perspective. 

Remote governance enables schools to: 

  • Improve board diversity. 
  • Find a particular skill set that current volunteers don’t have. 
  • Gain the experience and perspective of someone outside the community. 

While remote governors will attend board meetings virtually, the skills they bring and the difference they make will be tangible. Indicate your interest in remote governance when you register a vacancy. 

Terms of service and fair usage policy

Our ambition is to ensure every school in England and Wales has excellent governance, which drives improved outcomes for all children and young people. We want to help as many schools and volunteers as possible – but we can only do this with support from the schools and trusts we work with. To help us deliver the high level of service we hold ourselves to, we ask that when registering your vacancy, you agree to our terms of service and fair usage policy. In the case of all of the below, the expected timescale is within two term-time weeks. 

Due to differences in the education system, we aren’t able to work with schools in Scotland or Northern Ireland. 

Read our terms of service and fair usage policy