Effective School Management

Participants may change according to the agenda item. For some items it may
be appropriate to have a fairly junior person ‘sit in’ or make a presentation.
It is important to ensure that the people needed at a meeting actually can
and do attend. To miss a meeting can waste the valuable time of the other
members, particularly if the missing member’s agreement is needed to some
key action. If a meeting can be missed fairly regularly the question should be
asked whether the person concerned ever needs to attend. Should he or she
just receive the minutes, or attend when specific items of interest to him or
her are discussed?
Preparation
Some schools and colleges develop a vicious circle whereby people are too
busy attending meetings to be able to prepare for a meeting and therefore
have to attend a further meeting to present what should have been prepared
for the first meeting.
Ability to prepare will depend on the circulation in good time of an agenda
for the meeting. Key items for inclusion in the notice of a meeting are
(1) date, time, place and intended duration of meeting;
(2) people attending and roles (e.g. chairperson, secretary);
(3) purposes of meeting (e.g. decision-taking, information-giving, informa-
tion exchange, brainstorming);
(4) preliminary documentation, preparation, etc.;
(5) agenda items with, for each item, relevant documents, etc., and a note of
the persons responsible for introducing the item (NB An early agenda
item should always be minutes of the last meeting, if any, and action
taken); and
(6) particulars of procedure for adding any items to the agenda.
For small, informal meetings it may be enough to say ‘I should like to
discuss…  Could you bring X, Y and Z with you?’