The problem
Curriculum, safeguarding and finance all have systems. Governance has volunteers, papers and memory. When governance feels uncertain, the missing piece is usually a system, not effort or goodwill.
What I built
A framework with two connected models.
The quality model says where a board stands, in three stages that build on each other. Compliance proves the board is lawful and fit for purpose. Assurance proves it knows improvement is happening, priority by priority. Continuity proves its governance would survive a change of chair or headteacher. Inside each stage, every part of governance is marked Secure or Developing, with descriptors that say what good looks like before anyone answers.
The assurance model says how a board earns the Assurance stage. Each priority in the school's own improvement plan gets one named governor and three phases across the year: early implementation in the autumn, threats and risks in the spring, and outcomes and consolidation in the summer. The questions change with each priority; the phases do not. That consistency is what lets a board say every priority was held to the same standard.
Design decisions
The framework is built from the school's own improvement plan, never a template, so it fits the school rather than asking the school to fit it. Doing the governing and producing the evidence of it are the same act: every completed step ends in a record, so the proof is the work rather than paperwork laid on top. The elements are anchored to the Department for Education governance guide, the Ofsted inspection framework and National Governance Association guidance.
What you can see
The free Quality Standard places a board on the quality model, and the Governor Assurance Plan runs the assurance model across the year.
(opens the full-size screenshot in a new tab)The result
One shared language for where a board stands and what it does next. Every other app in SGAF either feeds the framework or reads from it.