Yes. There are no rules to stop individuals from being a governor or trustee at two or more schools or academies.
However, the DfE recommend that someone only serves on more than two school governing bodies in “exceptional circumstances“.
“Governors are recommended to serve on no more than two governing boards unless in exceptional circumstances.”
DfE Maintained Schools Governance Guide
“DfE recommends that trustees serve on no more than two trust boards or governing bodies except in exceptional circumstances.”
DfE Academy Trust Governance Guide
The DfE does not define what it means by exceptional circumstances, but it might apply to a school that is struggling with its OFSTED rating and is in need of experienced governors, for example.
If you do decide to join the governing body of more than one school the details of all your governor roles must be published on the website of all your schools.
Can you be the chair of governors at two schools?
Yes. There are no rules that prevent someone from being the chair of governors at two different schools, or even at three or four (although as mentioned above the DfE does not advise governing in more than two schools in most cases).
The only concern might be whether the chair had sufficient time and energy to devote to multiple schools, but that would depend on their own circumstances.
Can a teacher be a governor at a different school?
Yes. Teachers, headteachers and other school employees are free to become governors at another school.
In fact, this is actively encouraged by the National Governance Association who run an Educators on Board scheme to persuade school employees to govern elsewhere.
The school governing body gets the benefit of the governor’s experience in education and the governor receives useful continuing professional development (CPD) from seeing how another school board works.
It is possible that a conflict of interest could arise, but any governor can experience a conflict and in most cases these can be easily managed by removing a specific governor from the decision-making for that issue.
For example, say a headteacher was a governor at another school. If governors were forming an interview panel to hire a deputy headteacher and a teacher from the head’s own school applied, the headteacher would not be allowed to sit on the interview panel.
For the bulk of the work governors do, however, it would not matter that a governor worked for another school.