Introduction

To aid your understanding in Effective Minute Taking we take a look at getting to know you and provide an outline of how writing about yourself can enhance your ability to improve your sentence construction and understand the principles of turning notes into readable documents.

Types of Meetings

Full Governing Body meetings are not the only ones you may be required to minute, so here we outline a range of different meetings, including some ad hoc ones like Exclusions, AGMs, Grievance etc and how you can approach them.

Why do we have meetings?

Knowing how and why minutes are a vital part of the school’s audit trail is fundamental (and scary sometimes). Here we focus on the 7Ps of meetings and how you can draft sections of your minutes in advance of the meeting, to save time.

Key elements of a successful meeting

When meetings jump around the agenda or go on much longer than necessary, your minutes are impacted, usually detrimentally, so here we try to show you ways in which you could steer things in the right direction.

How do you take minutes? (Part 1 of 4)

Where you position yourself in the room is just as important as what you use ie notepad or laptop. Should you sit next to the Chair? Given the growth of technology, what about using laptops and recording devices? We look at all of these and offer our views. This module is split into 4 videos, so grab a coffee before starting this one! When you finish this part, move onto the next one.

How do you take minutes? (Part 2 of 4)

Where you position yourself in the room is just as important as what you use ie notepad or laptop. Should you sit next to the Chair? Given the growth of technology, what about using laptops and recording devices? We look at all of these and offer our views. This module is split into 4 videos, so grab a coffee before starting this one! When you finish this part, move onto the next one.

How do you take minutes? (Part 3 of 4)

Where you position yourself in the room is just as important as what you use ie notepad or laptop. Should you sit next to the Chair? Given the growth of technology, what about using laptops and recording devices? We look at all of these and offer our views. This module is split into 4 videos, so grab a coffee before starting this one! When you finish this part, move onto the next one.

How do you take minutes? (Part 4 of 4)

Where you position yourself in the room is just as important as what you use ie notepad or laptop. Should you sit next to the Chair? Given the growth of technology, what about using laptops and recording devices? We look at all of these and offer our views. This module is split into 4 videos, so grab a coffee before starting this one! When you finish this part, move onto the next one.

Effective listening skills

Listening effectively goes beyond just listening; it's about hearing what’s not being said and how to interpret what you hear, in a meaningful and succinct manner for your minutes. We’ve also got some tips on how to stop your mind from wandering during meetings and ensuring you capture the relevant questions (and responses).

Minuting a meeting

Watch the training video and then in the downloadable resource you’ll find the link to the exercise on YouTube. It’s embedded in the workbook so it’s clickable. Don’t forget to get yourself ready, those 6 minutes will fly by!

Examples of draft minutes

Of course you could cheat and jump straight to our version of the minutes from the previous module, but what’s the point of that? Here we will walk you through our example so you can compare and contrast your version - which is not something many Clerks have the opportunity to do.

Editing draft minutes

This is a practical exercise where you need to download the resource and highlight key things as explained within the video. This is a great example of how to proof and edit your minutes too.

Practice, practice, practice

Working Clerks are isolated but that doesn’t mean you have to be alone. In this module we outline how you can identify support and practice your minute taking skills in different ways.

Before your meeting

Using your diary (electronic or paper based) is key to minute taking, so your focus is not just on the meeting itself but the work required in advance ie the call for papers and communicating with your Governors.

After your meeting

Minutes are not the only thing you need to do after the meeting but you do need to carve out sufficient time to draft them. We explain the ‘sandwich’ effect of drafting minutes and having a ‘cooling off’ period before sending them out.