Your Right to Request a Meeting with the Governing Body
The Schools Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013 (The Act) removed the requirement for school governing bodies to hold an annual meeting with parents. Instead, new arrangements were introduced to enable parents to request up to three meetings in any school year with a governing body, on matters which are of concern to them.
If parents wish to use their rights under the Act to hold a meeting, four conditions will need to be satisfied:
1. Parents will need to raise a petition in support of holding a meeting. The parents of at least thirty registered pupils will need to sign the petition. If it is a paper petition, then a written signature must be given as well as the name and class of each child who is a registered pupil at the school. If the petition is in electronic format, the ‘signature’ required is the typed name of the parent plus the name and class of each child who is a registered pupil at the school and the email address of each parent who ‘signs’ the electronic petition.
2. The meeting must be called to discuss matters which affect the school. The meeting cannot be called to discuss such matters as the progress of individual pupils, or to make a compliant against a member of the school’s staff or governing body.
The petition should contain brief details of the matter(s) to be discussed, and the reasons for calling the meeting. This information should be clearly displayed at the top of the petition, with parents’ signatures appearing below.
3. A maximum of three meetings can be held during the school year. The law allows parents to use their rights to request up to three meetings with a school governing body during the school year.
4. There must be at least twenty five school days left in the school year. The law makes it a condition that at least twenty five school days are left in the school year when the petition is received so that the meeting can be held.
A “school day” means a day when the school is open to pupils: it does not include weekends, public holidays, school holidays or INSET days.
The address for service of a petition requesting a meeting with this school’s governing body is:
Mr Anthony Bibby, Chair of Governors, c/o Ysgol Emrys ap Iwan, Faenol Avenue, Abergele, Conwy LL22 7HE
Email : info@emrysapiwan.conwy.sch.uk
Further advice on how parents may to go about requesting a meeting with a governing body is available on the Welsh Government’s website:
Mr Anthony Bibby, Chair of Governors
Date: February 2016
