Defining and Collecting Metrics on the Quality of School Governance: a Feasibility Study

Tami McCrone, Simon Rutt, Palak Mehta, David Sims, Kelly Kettlewell, Giulia De Lazzari, Ellie Cotgrave, Clare Collins

21 August 2017

Research report on the DfE website

This feasibility study examined whether it is possible to design and collect metrics to measure the quality of governance in the school system. The aims of the project were to:

  • Establish a set of criteria showing whether a governing board is effective or not.
  • Assess the quality of governance in a sample of schools through an external review of governance (ERG).
  • Compare the results of the ERG and survey to test whether the survey correctly measured the quality of governance.

The report describes in detail how we developed the metrics and the process we used to validate the metrics and reports on the outcomes. Key Findings from this feasibility study included that further development work is undertaken to improve the metrics. The metric requiring the most improvement was cohesion as there was poor alignment for this metric between the survey responses and the reviews. Additionally, cohesion includes many of the fundamental behaviours required for effective governance.

Additional information

Defining and collecting metrics on the quality of school governance

Related Titles

Defining and collecting metrics on the quality of school governance , Defining and collecting metrics on the quality of school governance , Executive headship , Capacity for collaboration? Analysis of school-to-school support in England

Sponsor Details

DfE