BESST – Buckinghamshire Education School Support & Training

Dear Chair of Governors and Governor Clerks,

Please find attached above a newsletter introducing BESST – Buckinghamshire Education School Support & Training, a new traded school improvement and governor support service from Buckinghamshire Council.  BESST services are starting small and will be focused this term on governor support & training, the area where our research with headteachers, chairs of governors and clerks has told us the need is greatest.  More information about BESST is available to view on our new webpages.

A comprehensive governor training programme will be running throughout this academic year and will be starting with two sessions week commencing 20^th September:

• Governor Priorities – Autumn Term Agendas, a one-hour session with Paul Randall and Anne Sheddick from the BASG, on Wednesday 22^nd September.
• Prevent Duty – Guidance for Governors, a one hour training session with Alison Watts, Prevent Education Officer at Buckinghamshire Council on Thursday 23^rd September.

The whole autumn term training schedule, including the above two sessions, is available to book online.

We will also be running a New Governors Welcome Package, in both the autumn and spring term, to support newly appointed governors get up to speed as quickly as possible.  Please book online for the autumn cohort, before the 29^th of September.

Buckinghamshire Council will be renewing the NGA membership for maintained schools for this academic year.  Academies and free schools can purchase NGA membership at a discounted rate and maintained schools can upgrade to gold membership through the BESST webpages.  Please see the details and links in the newsletter for more information.

We hope that your governing boards will find this new service of use and we look forward to welcoming you onto BESST training throughout the year.

BESST newsletter Autumn 1 for governors

Kind regards

The School Improvement Team.