The School Council governance
tool with the lot.
Unlocking the full potential of your School Council and of individual councillors sometimes seems a daunting task. Where does a School Council turn to for sound governance advice and guidance?
In many cases the same issues arise again and again. For councillors (new or experienced) there’s still often an a degree of uncertainty over their roles and responsibilities with respect to school governance.
Some Executive Officers find difficulty distinguishing between their management role as school principal and the governance role of School Council. If their Council is not working effectively and to its full potential, their task is made unnecessarily more difficult.
Over many years members (and non-members) have turned to ASCIV for accurate, appropriate and timely advice and professional learning. All too often though we have found ourselves reacting to problems and assisting schools to find workable solutions after things have got out of hand either through accident, ignorance or misinformation.
Why? Probably because there is insufficient attention paid to providing proper council training. Without training (or worse still, with poor training or poor advice) members of Council can be tempted to micro-manage their school rather than provide effective governance or they can be led to make poor decisions. Worse still they can abrogate their governance responsibilities altogether.
ASCIV recognised the need for an authoritative handbook of best practice for School Councils. ASCIV would draw on its own experience and collective knowledge and take the advice from experts in particular fields where it was felt that was appropriate. ASCIV recognized however, that in an ever changing world, such a guide would also need to focus on worlds best practice in a more wider business governance sense.
Such a guide needed to be clearly written, logically structured and easy to use.
Consequently, a collaborative partnership between ASCIV and Dench McClean Carlson (who created an exclusive on-line diagnostic tool for us) was formed to carry out this project. A panel of experts regularly reviewed progress and together we have produced the first definitive governance guide for School Councils in Australia
Performance Improvement Through Responsible Governance:
A Guide for the Education Sector
Advance copies of the guide have been warmly received and endorsed by our peers in the educational community and our strategic partners including Jardine Underwriting Agency Pty Ltd who have lent unqualified support to this project.
Copies are now available to member schools/colleges for $150.00 (
including GST) each. Non-members may also purchase copies for $175.00 (
plus GST) each.
E-mail ASCIV today to order copies for your school or college.