How our Local Governors work with our Academies
Charlotte Roe, our Academy Trust Governance Professional is responsible for supporting the Local Advisory Committees (LAC) to have the greatest impact they can on improving the quality of Teaching and Learning the pupils in the Trust receive. Our watch words are:
Learn, Support and Challenge
Governors are the ‘eyes and ears’ of the Trustees in the academies. They are of the highest importance in our Trust where every child matters, so we invest in them, and they are passionate about our school successes.
We structure the governor support to give maximum impact and for all our Local Advisory Committees (LAC) to be ‘in tune’ with each other. The Standards & Curriculum Trustee Committee (S&C) sets out the Annual Focussed Visits programme. Using this model all the LACs are concentrating their interactions with the academies on the half term focus and this then feeds into the S&C meetings to give the Trust picture. Great practice is shared and solutions to any short falls are found. After each school visit, the Local Governor will complete a visit note which is shared in their LAC meeting and then with the Standards & Curriculum Trustees.
At the LAC meeting, not only do the governors discuss the half term focus but also prepare for the upcoming visits to the academies by discussing the focus and ensuring that the governors are confident with what is expected. Supported in this way governors feel very confident to Learn, Support and Challenge what is happening within the academies and report this to Trustees. Training for our governors is therefore ‘live’, pertinent, and specific to every half term focus so highly successful.
Each LAC meeting is clerked by one of our experienced, professional Clerks and attended by the Governance Professional as a conduit between the Trustees and the LACs. Minutes for each LAC meeting is drawn up and included (along with the visit notes) in the agenda paperwork for the S&C meetings. The observations of the Local Governors in each academy are considered and discussed within the S&C meeting.
Examples of Learn, Support and Challenge in the Trust include:
Learn:
Support:
Challenge:
Standards & Curriculum Meeting
The S&C meets six times a year and oversees all issues relating to the educational provision of the Trust. As well as the Trustees’ attendance, the Director of Education, and representatives of the LACs (usually the Chair or Vice-Chair) attend to ensure an effective two-way communication between Trustees, Executive Improvement Team (EIT) and Local Governors. Other officers from across the Trust are regularly invited to update the meeting on the specific focus. The outcomes from the Local Governors’ academy visits and the Minutes from the LAC meetings are reviewed and discussed by the Trustees at S&C meetings. This provides a platform for Trustees to learn from, support and challenge Local Governors in their work, seek further clarification and request further action if necessary. The minutes from the S&C meetings are also reviewed by the Board of Trustees.
For example, if the focus is Attendance, S&C will obtain their information from the Trust Attendance Officer, Director of Education AND the Local Governors’ visit notes and LAC Minutes to ensure that they have a clear understanding of the focus across the whole Trust.
This meeting run by the Director of School Improvement and is designed to discuss current issues in education facing our Trust - it is a forum for debate and clarification to ensure Governors are confident when going into schools and are focused on achieving the required scrutiny and evidence gathering linked with the Annual Focused Visit Programme. The Chair would usually attend this group, but this can be passed to another member of the LAC if appropriate. Other members can attend if they find it useful. Feedback at the LAC meeting is a standard agenda item, these then must be posted on the Academy Website and kept fully updated.
LAC Governors are expected to visit individual Academies to support and consider the development of Teaching and Learning that takes place within them. These visits involve Governors going into Academies and reflecting, alongside the Academy Head, on structures, processes, and systems linked to the Curriculum that support day to day running and development. The Learn, Support and Challenge system enables Governors to learn about an area of practice in detail, then support and challenge an Academy Head in order to ensure the best possible practice is followed and developed. The termly focused visit detailed on the ‘LAC Focussed Visit Calendar’ must be completed and reported to the Standards and Curriculum committee, but other visits may also take place in consultation with the ATSIP or AH to support Academy development. Visit notes are used as a record of ‘learn, support and challenge’ and these are reported at the LAC meetings, as well as being used in support of the report to the Standards and Curriculum committee if required.
These take place half termly and are organised by the Chair, following a standard agenda available from the Clerk. It is an opportunity for visit notes to be collated and shared. A maximum of two AH’s from the Hub will attend on a rolling programme basis in order to clarify any upcoming queries and support the Trust picture. Any further queries can be fed back to the DoSI who will manage and resolve these. The Clerk sets the agenda with the Chair, records the minutes and uploads them once agreed as a true record.
This report will be requested by the Clerk to the Trust two weeks before the date of the meeting. It is a summary report compiled from the focussed visit and other visit notes from all Governors. The Summary report should follow a standard reporting procedure including main findings, outcomes and actions. The members of the S&C committee will read these reports and consider queries, patterns and possible areas of action individually or across The Trust. The S&C committee also have access to the minutes from the previous LAC meeting.
A representative from each LAC is expected to attend The Standards and Curriculum Meeting. This meeting gives a platform for Trustees to learn, support and challenge Local Board members in their work, seek further clarification and request further action if necessary. The minutes from The Standards and Curriculum meeting will go to the Full Board meeting where they will be further scrutinised, and possible future action will be requested through the S&C committee.