How our governors work with our academies
Sarah Clarke, our Director of School Improvement is responsible for supporting the Local Advisory Committees 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 in order for all our Local Advisory Committees to be ‘in tune’ with each other we set out our Annual Focussed Visits programme. Using this model all LAC's are concentrating their interactions with the academies on the half term focus and this then comes together to give the Trust picture. Great practice is shared and solutions to any short falls are found.
Every half term a representative from each of the Local Advisory Committees meet to discuss what they discovered in the previous connections with the academies and what actions should come out of their understanding. Sarah leads the discussions and agreement on how things should move forward is achieved, this forms the summary taken to the S&CC. At the same meeting the group prepare for the upcoming visits to the academies by discussing the focus and setting challenging questions to ask.
Supported in this way governors feel very confident to Learn, Support and Challenge what is happening within schools and report this to Trustees. Training for our governors is therefore ‘live’, pertinent, and specific to every half term focus so highly successful.
Examples of Learn, Support and Challenge in the Trust include:
Learn:
Support:
Challenge:
These are just some examples of the plethora of actions our Local Advisory Committees undertake.
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.