On 28 April the University held it’s 4th annual School Governor Conference at Chancellors Conference Centre. We had a fantastic turn-out of staff governors from across the Faculties and Schools and were delighted to also have many external guests from a range of institutions as well as three of our Manchester Alumni governors who came from much further afield. The feedback from the conference has been extremely positive and shows what a tremendous network of internal and external members it has become.

The event was officially opened by Prof James Thompson, Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility at The University of Manchester and Dr Christine McLean, Senior Lecturer from the Alliance Manchester Business School talked about knowing your school, and posed some key questions for consideration throughout the day. Our key-note speakers were Emma Knights, Chief Executive of the National Governors Association and Joan Bonenfant, Senior HMI at Ofsted. The conference was supported by a range of top class workshops on diverse themes such as safeguarding, pupil premium, qualifications reforms and fundraising. As always with the UMSGI conference we were able to draw upon the knowledge and expertise of both our University colleagues and the wider education network to bring timely and relevant information and resources to the network members. Our thanks go to all of our key note speakers and workshops leaders who did a fantastic job.

All the presentations can be viewed online. For more information about the governor initiative, please contact Alison Gregory.