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Schools as organisations unit from page 13+ of the STL level 3 handbook on amazon.co.uk

Unit 302

2.1 – explain the strategic purpose of a) school governors, b) senior management team, c) other statutory roles e.g. SENCO, d) teachers and e) support staff roles.

Governors

The governing body is responsible for the conduct of its schools and must promote high standards of educational achievement at the school. It is the schools accountable body and as such

• Provides a strategic view of the school by establishing a vision and setting the purpose and aims of the school within an agreed policy framework. It appoints and performance manages the head teacher, agreeing the school improvement strategy which includes setting statutory targets with supporting budgets and staffing structures.
• Monitors and evaluates the work of the school by reviewing the performance of the head teacher, the effectiveness of the school improvement strategy.
• Signs off the self evaluation process and responds to school improvement service and Ofsted reports as necessary. In addition it holds the head teacher to account for the performance of the school and ensures that parents are involved, consulted and informed as appropriate, with information to the community being made available as required.

In order to do this, governors need to gain knowledge of how their school operates through training, by attending meetings and by getting to know their school community, for example through a small number of visits to the school during the school day.

Governors need to work together as a team, under the leadership of the chair of the governing body. Most governing bodies require their governors to sign a code of practice.

Senior management team

The senior management team is usually made up of the head teacher and deputy head. However depending on the school size the team could be bigger and more varied. Often you will find assistant head teachers or senior teachers with particular responsibilities – like leading one of the key stages or something like assessments across the school. The special needs co-ordinator (SENCO) might be a member.

Their role is to set the strategic direction of the school and then manage this, lead any changes and generally make sure that the school is doing the best it can for the children who attend.

They must be aware of the current state of the school, be imaginative in launching new and relevant initiatives in a way that can get the whole school behind the idea, be diligent in keeping track of these initiatives and their progress.

Other statutory roles e.g SENCO

The SENCO takes day to day responsibility for the operation of the SEN policy and co-ordination if the provision made for individual children with special educational needs, working closely with staff, parents/carers and other agencies.

Key responsibilities for the SENCO include:

• Overseeing the day to day operation of the school SEN policy
• Co-ordinating the provision for children with special education needs
• Liaising with and advising fellow teachers
• Managing learning support assistants
• Overseeing the records of all children with special educational needs
• Contributing to the in service training for staff
• Liaising with external agencies including LEA’s, support and educational psychology services, health and social services and voluntary bodies.

Teachers

Teachers prepare lessons and try to make them as interesting as possible. They prepare homework assignments and assessments. They ensure that the information they pass on is current and correct to the best of their knowledge. They deliver assessments to enable themselves to help each individual student to develop his/her knowledge. They do not judge any of their students. They feedback to parents/carers on the students progress.

Support staff roles

This refers to employees allocated to work in schools to assist administrators, teachers and school councillors to address special educational needs within the school.

They work under the supervision of school principles and the direction of certified teachers. They must be versatile, well trained and multi skilled in order to fulfil the requirements of their respective roles.

Support staff could include LSAs, educational psychologists and healthcare professionals.

This is what I put for these and as I said in my last post this was all marked and given back as being fine.

Laura

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