School governance

The burdens [school] governors are expected to shoulder are ludicrous. They are ultimately responsible for financial and personnel issues, buildings, the curriculum, admissions - virtually every aspect of a school's work. It amazes me that anybody volunteers these days for the role. The real problem, of course, is the vast web of regulation and bureaucracy the government has spun round schools.

Governors should be there to offer common-sense advice to the head and to represent the views of parents and the community the school serves, not to digest hundreds of pages of incomprehensible and largely irrelevant diktat.

Chris Woodhead, former chief inspector of schools, in The Sunday Times