MESSAGE FROM WELSH GOVERNMENT 21 OCTOBER 2025

Dear Colleague

You will wish to be aware that the Cabinet Secretary for Education has today issued a written statement announcing a review of school governing bodies in Wales.

Terms of reference for the review are attached to the statement.

Written Statement: Review of school governing bodies (21 October 2025) | GOV.WALES

Should you have any questions about this, please contact SGOA@gov.wales.

Kind regards

Welsh Government School Uniform Update

Revised guidance for governing bodies on school uniform and appearance policies was published on 2 May 2023.

The new guidance states that schools should ensure that arrangements are in place so that second-hand school uniforms are available for parents and carers to acquire.

Uniform recycling and exchange schemes can vary. Here is a link to some different types of schemes schools could choose to operate.

https://www.gov.wales/school-uniform-exchange-and-recycling-schemes

Estyn Thematic – “School Governors – Acting as critical friends and the impact of governor training”

School complaints procedures: Guidance for governing bodies on how to deal with complaints.

(Updated 1 December 2022)

Action required

Governing bodies are required by law to establish a complaints procedure. It is recommended that governing bodies review their complaints procedures in the light of this refreshed guidance, which replaces previous guidance. Governing bodies may put in place a complaints procedure of their choice, but it is recommended that they adopt the model complaint procedure in Annex 1.

We will add this as a standard item on draft agendas for Spring Term 2023, along with a Word document version of the WG model policy.

What has changed since the last guidance?

• • References to Governors Wales have been removed throughout.

  • A new section on dealing with complaints about bullying has been included.

  • A new statement about zero tolerance for bullying and harassment has been included in the model policy.

  • Additional guidance in the event of independent investigations into complaints about the whole governing body has been provided.

Read more >

Sector: Secondary

Associate pupil governors

We have recently been reminded that Secondary School are expected to appoint Associate Pupil Governors.  We know many of you will have had this in place pre-Covid, but thought a reminder of the Welsh Government Guidance would be helpful:

“Associate pupil governors - The School Council (Wales) Regulations 2005 amend The Government of Maintained Schools (Wales) Regulations 2005 to allow for appointment of associate pupil governors to the governing body of all maintained secondary schools. The head teacher of a school must ensure that the school council has the opportunity to nominate up to two pupils from years 11 to 13 from its membership.”

Read more > (Page 6)