School governance self-assessment template
The governance self-assessment that finds the gaps before a review does
School Governance Self-Assessment, free for independent schools.
A self-assessment is a school grading its own governance honestly, before an external review or an incident does it for them.
The EthosOne school self-assessment tool gives you a structured, framework-mapped self-assessment with scoring and a board summary, so leadership can rate where governance, risk and compliance actually sit, see the gaps, and show the board a credible picture mapped to the review frameworks.
What does a governance self-assessment cover?
It works across the domains a board is accountable for, strategy, risk, compliance, policy, child safety, finance and assurance, rating maturity in each from ad hoc through to embedded, with evidence prompts so a score is justified rather than asserted. The self-assessment tool asks the questions, scores them and writes the board summary, so the output is a one-page maturity picture the board can read, not a raw questionnaire.
Maturity self-assessment
Rate each domain against clear maturity levels with evidence.
Scoring sheet
Turns ratings into a comparable picture across domains.
Board summary
The result on one page, with the priority gaps surfaced.
Run at any scale. From one campus to a diocese, with every entity reporting the same way.
- Switch
- from your existing platform, for a low cost
- 25
- policy domains help you make sense of the policies you have, and the ones you need
- Every regulator
- in Australia and New Zealand supported
- Safe
- data, processing and AI based in Sydney and Melbourne via AWS
Coverage spans the eight Australian states and territories, with Commonwealth law applying across all of them, and separately New Zealand. Domain figures come from the PolicyAI Research Atlas.
How often should a school self-assess?
Annually as a baseline, and again before a registration review, an audit or a major change of leadership. Repeated on the same instrument, the self-assessment becomes a trend, showing the board whether governance maturity is improving or drifting.
In EthosOne the self-assessment is continuous: maturity is inferred from the live state of your risk, compliance and policy work, so the picture is always current rather than reconstructed once a year.
The two we are asked every time.
Still weighing something up? Thirty minutes with us, on your own registers, answers the rest.
Book your school a demo01Who should complete it?
Usually the leadership team, with the board reviewing the summary. The evidence prompts keep the scoring honest across whoever contributes.
02Is it mapped to a particular framework?
It is structured around the domains common to the independent school review frameworks, so it lines up with what an external review will examine.
Run it now
- Stored in AustraliaAWS Sydney and Melbourne, one database per school
- AI stays in the country tooAmazon Bedrock; never trained on your content
- Published, not describedTrust Centre · ISMS policy · How we handle your data
How ready is your school for its next review?
Free, under ten minutes, and yours to keep whether or not you talk to us.
Supporting the frameworks and compliance schools already rely on
Know where you stand against the standards before anyone asks
The self-assessment runs as a tool now: answer the questions online and keep the result, framework by framework. See the requirements as your regulator lists them, or start with the AI maturity assessment.
“It meets all of the real frustrations of business directors in one place.”
“School governance and risk is a complex area without a clear solution.”
