Mr. Ken Fennelly:

I thank the committee and the Chairman for the opportunity to make a short presentation this afternoon. I am the secretary of the General Synod Board of Education of the Church of Ireland, which is the body within the Church of Ireland's structures that has responsibility for the Church’s education policy. In that capacity the board represents the interests of the Church of Ireland in education. It provides an advisory service to boards of management in Church of Ireland primary schools and also to the ten Church of Ireland school patrons at primary level. The joint managerial body is responsible for advising Protestant second level schools on school management issues. I am joined here this afternoon by Ms Joyce Perdue, who is the principal of Rathfarnham national school and who is also a member of our General Synod Board of Education.

As the Committee is aware, the current term of boards of management at primary level expires in November 2015. We welcome today’s meeting as a timely opportunity to reflect on the role and functions of boards of management in running our primary schools. An important starting point from our perspective is to highlight that each of the 1,300 board of management members, with approximately 20,000 nationally, give their time entirely voluntarily. This amounts to a significant commitment of the personal time, which is given freely by each individual to the service of their local community through being involved in their local school. This is a level of commitment and engagement that ought to be acknowledged by all of us today. Those volunteers serve on boards which operate in an increasingly complex legislative and legal environment, with ever-increasing levels of responsibility. It should come as no surprise to members of the committee to learn that despite the high levels of local commitment to schools, it can be a challenge at times to get people to serve on boards of management.

As we are all aware, boards of management have come a long way from the days when the local national school was run by a single manager, usually the parish priest, appointed by the patron. The Education Act 1998 codified the development of boards of management and placed them on a legislative footing, giving them a corporate identity. In the context of the provision of Irish education, it is important not to underestimate the significance this structural change made to the role of the school in the local community. Responsibility for the running of the school cannot be abrogated to some other entity, either church or State, but rests with that particular group drawn from the school itself and local community. It is also worth noting in passing that this is in harmony with international best practice across the world in terms of school governance.

This is not of course to suggest that schools are unaccountable or can operate in a singular fashion. They are subject to the oversight of their patron for the general management of the school. They are subject to inspection by the inspectorate of the Department of Education and Skills through both whole-school evaluation and school self-evaluation. In the context of compliance, boards are bound by the circulars of the Department of Education and Skills in nearly every aspect of school life and are subject to national agreements on various management policies as agreed between the teacher unions, the relevant management body and the Department of Education and Skills.

They are also of course subject to the law and can be sued. Should it be necessary, any board member can be removed by the patron and the board itself can be dissolved. The primary legislation regulating the operations of Irish schools is of course the Education Act 1998 but schools are also subject to a variety of other pieces of legislation listed in my submission to the committee. Therefore, boards of management at both primary and secondary level operate within a highly complex legal context. The Education Act 1998 marked the first codifying of the provision of education in Ireland, putting it on a statuary footing. Prior to this, the primary source for the provision of education in Ireland was the Stanley letter of 1831. The regulation of the management of primary and secondary schools has developed into a complex regulatory area in a short period.

The board of management of a primary school does not work in isolation. There are a variety of external groups and bodies who interact with the school such as visiting teachers, other principals, the HSE, the HAS, the Department of Education and Skills, the Irish National Teachers Organisation, the Irish Primary Principals Network, the National Parents Council, the relevant management body, the National Educational Welfare Board, school suppliers, and the local parish and clergy. The composition of boards of management reflects both the internal and external nature of the relationships within the life of the school community. The board has representatives of the patron, elected nominees from the school's teaching staff, parents of children in the school and others drawn from the local community. The membership of boards is therefore finely balanced between all members of the school community.

The central message we try to get across to board members in our training sessions is that, once appointed, all members of the board must leave behind the individual constituencies from which they have either been nominated or elected onto the board and work together as one unit. This can be a difficult concept to grasp as some boards might feel an obligation to either bring matters to the board on behalf of their electors or to report back to their electors on the outcome of matters raised at board meetings. We are clear with boards that this is not an acceptable practice given that all members of the board have an equal collective responsibility for the running on the school.

Within the school community, there are key relationships that are essential to supporting the educational development of pupils. Good staff relationships among the teaching staff, SNAs, secretarial and caretaking staff are also of vital importance in ensuring that a proper learning environment is created and maintained. Ongoing communication with parents about the progress of their child is the priority relationship for all schools. A large body of academic research internationally underpins this. As any teacher will attest, there is a well-charted correlation between the support a child gets at home and educational progress.

Communications are also important where difficulties arise between parents and the teacher or the school in regard to the experience of their child. Members of the committee will be aware that there is a procedure for dealing with complaints by parents. The procedure was agreed between the INTO and management bodies a number of year ago. There is a provision, section 28 of the Education Act 1998, for the Minister to make regulations in relation to the resolving of disputes and grievances in schools. In that connection, the former Minister for Education and Skills indicated on a number of occasions that he was exploring the possibility of a parents’ charter. Boards of management will be interested to see the proposals for this concept, especially given that two elected parents already sit on every board of management. Boards are already accountable to the patron, Minister, inspectorate and the law. It will be interesting to see how it interplays with existing structures.

The letter inviting us to attend this meeting mentioned the Department of Education and Skills, with which we have a good working relationship at senior level. The feedback from schools is that the customer service from the Department is positive.

Boards of management are volunteers who give free of their time out of a sense of dedication and service to their local community and school. The model of local boards of management running local schools for the local community is one which we, as a nation, should be proud of. In the case of the Church of Ireland, it reflects very closely our system for the running of parishes through select vestries and it is a model with which we are comfortable. We thank the committee for the invitation to attend and look forward to trying to answer any questions.