Your school website governor information needs to be presented to meet the statutory school website requirements. There’s lots of useful and helpful information that should be published. However there’s more to your governing body than the statutory content. Their pecuniary interests and meeting attendance records are only a small part of their story. In this post we’ll review how to most effectively present your school website governor information to enhance your website, and show the important role your school governors hold.

Governor information that meets the statutory requirements

As mentioned previously, your school website governor information pages should be more than just the minimum statutory requirements. But to go above and beyond you must first make sure you have met all of the statutory requirements. For more details on this required information make sure you make use of our resources, including our School Website Compliance Software. Note that the requirements are slightly different for maintained schools and academies.

It is important that you read these requirements carefully and in full. When auditing school websites, we often notice that the governor page is full of content, however a small detail of the requirement is missing. For example, the requirements specifically states you must publish the full name of each person, not just their first initial and surname which is what we often observe.

Readily accessible (Statutory)

Technically part of the statutory requirements but worth an additional mention. The statutory governor information published on your school website needs to be provided in a ‘readily accessible’ format.

The DfE have defined this as:

“Readily accessible means that the information should be on a webpage without the need to download or open a separate document.”

Make sure you provide the information for this requirement in this format. Not buried away in documents that aren’t viewable on the website (instead require a download to the visitor’s device to view). The document groups functionality built into our system is designed to help you meet this requirement. We would suggest adopting this idea of making your documents “readily accessible” across all the documents on your site. It means your content is easier to engage with and works well on all devices.

Governor information that is easy to read

Is your governor information clearly laid out and split into sections? It’s not a problem to display all of your governor information on a single page on your website. However what you might find is that there’s just too much information on a single page. This can discourage visitors from reading your content, or make it more difficult for them to find specific information that they are looking for. Sectioning your content will be key to overcoming this obstacle. Split the content into different pages, or separate the content on the page into clear blocks or areas of content. Schudio users could consider using a feature such as tab groups. This is an interactive way to display the information in bitesize sections, while keeping it together on the same page.

Governor information that is easy to find

Now the layout and appearance of your content has been improved, it’s really important to make sure that this information is easy to find. Your school website governor information should be located in a logical place on your website. What is logical will be different for each school depending on the existing menu structure.

If your governor information is split into multiple pages an introduction page that links to more detailed governor information pages can be helpful. The introduction, perhaps written by the chair of governors, is an excellent opportunity to explain to your school community what the role of the governing body is at school. This is not part of the statutory requirements but will help people to understand what your school governors do.

Governor information best practice

After following the above tips your school website governor information should cover the minimum requirements, with clearly divided content and be easy to find within the site structure. Then you can focus on making it the best it can be!

Schudio Tips:

• A photograph and short bio for each of your governors
  The first governors page is usually a good place, with options to view different governor information on pages within the section. Take a look at our previous blog post about how to display staff and governor information.
• Highlights of the active role your governors play in the life of your school
  Related content is ideal for achieving this. Tagging a relevant main school news item with the governor tag to display relevant news articles published on the school website in the governors section.
• Useful information for prospective governors too
  Almost an advert for governors. This could be when you have spaces on your governing body, or when it’s time for re-election. Explain the types of governor on your governing body in easy to understand, education jargon free way. And the process for each type of governor to join your school’s team.

Further reading

• For maintained schools – Constitution of governing bodies of maintained schools
• For Academies – Academies Financial Handbook (paragraphs 2.49 to 2.50)