Written by Dr Helen Wright, MA (Oxon), MA, EdD, PGCE, MIoD, FRSA

Despite the variety of contexts within which international schools operate, what will be familiar to most governors of international schools is most likely a focus in governors’ meetings on your school’s financial sustainability, and on ensuring great student outcomes – academic and otherwise. In fact, if as a governor you take time to reflect back over your last few board meetings, then I would venture to suggest – speaking from extensive experience of participating in and observing numerous board meetings – that they are likely to find that in one way or another, most of what they have discussed can probably be tied into these two main focuses.

When things are going well in schools (and even when they are not), it is easy for governors to forget that the largest single existential threat to their schools is not the risk to the profit that they are generating, or the risk that the number of top university destinations might drop this year. In fact, the largest single threat to the continued existence and profitability of schools has always been, and remains the risk that students might somehow be in danger, or not safe in school. Parents send their children to school with the basic, primal expectation that their children will return home safe and happy, having been well-looked after by the school staff; arguably, therefore, the absolute most important task that governors have, as guardians and overseers of the school, is to ensure that this happens.

No-one likes to think that any adult – especially teachers and school staff – could think of harming children, but experience and statistics tell us otherwise. Any governor who has completed basic safeguarding training will know that this harm can come in various forms, including physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect (in many forms). As an international school governor, you will no doubt be familiar with cases where your school leadership team have raised concerns about issues that children might be experiencing at home, or outside school, and you may well have wrestled with how to deal with these appropriately, especially when the situation is sensitive (as it usually is), and facts are unclear (as they often are). In such cases, you will be relying heavily on the expertise and actions of the leadership team, and you are probably relieved to be doing so … how often, however, do you consider the possibility that children in your school might conceivably be experiencing harm at the hands of the adults within the school itself?

This is a really uncomfortable topic, and our instant reaction is often to resist the idea; how, though, can we be sure that this is not happening? Do we take the word of the Principal for it? Is that really sufficient? One key factor in ensuring that children do not experience harm at school is to ensure that the quality of staff recruitment processes is impeccable. ‘Safer recruitment’ is a term used widely in the UK – and by COBIS - in their drive to ensure schools where children are free from harm. It refers to a set of practices to ensure thorough vetting of staff before they start at the school, including police checks, provision (and checking) of appropriate references, and questions at interview designed to probe whether or not potential staff understand what it means to create an environment at school where students will be safe from harm – a strong safeguarding culture.

How, then, are you as an international school governor able to assure yourself personally and collectively that your school is really doing its utmost to ensure that its staff will not harm children? My top 3 suggestions are as follows:

1. Ask to see the school’s Safer Recruitment policy, and consider this in detail together as a Board. Ask for a detailed explanation of how and why this Safer Recruitment policy was put together, so that you can reassure yourselves of its provenance, and that it is grounded in the best practice. Read Part 3 of ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’, published by the UK government every year, because this focuses on Safer Recruitment.
2. Ask about the school’s Single Central Register, which is where all details of staff recruitment should be recorded. Ask who checks it regularly, to ensure that there are no gaps. Ask to see evidence of this checking process.
3. Put ‘Safeguarding’ and ‘Safer Recruitment’ on the agenda for every single board meeting. Ask questions like ‘how do you know?’ and ‘what evidence do you have?’, and don’t be afraid to ask for other opinions. If a school senior leadership team takes safeguarding and safer recruitment seriously, they will welcome your probing questions, because it gives them confidence that you are as serious and concerned about it as they are.

Above all, be mindful of the constant need to ask questions about safeguarding and safer recruitment. Don’t leave this just to your designated Safeguarding Governor … you should all be asking the questions. Remember, as a governor, you are essentially taking on responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of every single child in your care. Take this responsibility very, very seriously … in many regards, nothing else really matters.

Dr Helen Wright has been a governor in international schools and UK schools with international branches since 2015. As an Associate with LSC Education, she is regularly asked to support international schools with their governance, and can be contacted on helen@lsceducation.com