Why reviews go wrong
Most schools do not fail to review policies because nobody cares. They fail because the work arrives all at once, nobody owns it, and the evidence is scattered across email and shared drives. Fix those three things and the review cycle stops being a scramble.
1. Keep one register
One list with a row for every policy. For each one:
- the owner, who writes and updates it
- the approver, who signs it off
- the date of the last review and the next review
- where the current version lives
If a policy is not on the register, it is not being reviewed.
2. Give each policy to the person who knows it
The Head cannot own sixty policies. A common split looks like this. Change it to suit your school.
| Role | Typically owns |
|---|---|
| Head | Behaviour, curriculum, staff conduct, admissions |
| Designated Safeguarding Lead | Child protection, online safety, safer recruitment checks |
| Bursar or Business Manager | Finance, procurement, premises, health and safety |
| Data Protection Officer | Data protection, retention, privacy notices |
| Governors or proprietor | Approve the key policies. Do not write them. |
3. Spread the reviews out
Do not give every policy a review date in August. Put roughly a twelfth of them in each month, with safeguarding policies timed for before September. Owners get a manageable load and the approvers are not asked to read forty documents in one meeting.
4. Review the policy, not just the date
Re-dating a policy without reading it is the commonest way to look compliant while not being so. A proper review asks three questions:
- Has the law or the guidance changed?
- Did something go wrong this year that the policy should have prevented?
- Does the school actually do what it says?
Write down the reason for each change in a line. In six months nobody will remember.
5. Keep the evidence as you go
When an inspector or a governor asks "who approved this and when", you should be able to answer in seconds. Keep each approved version, the approver, the date and a short note on what changed. Do not reconstruct it afterwards.
6. Tell people it changed
A new version nobody sees changes nothing. Publish the approved copy in one known place. For policies parents or staff need, give them a link to the current version, not a PDF that goes out of date.
How Poliview helps
Poliview holds the register, the owner and approver for each policy, and a review reminder that goes out before the date. Approvals run in order, each version is saved with the reason for the change, and the public portal always shows the current approved copy. See the features