Dudley Association of Governing Bodies Christine Quinn Regional - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Christine Quinn Regional Schools Commissioner for the West Midlands Christine.Quinn@education.gov.uk April 2018

Dudley Association of Governing Bodies

Damian Hinds - Secretary of State

Nick Gibb – Minister for School Standards Anne Milton – Minister for Apprenticeship and Skills Sam Gyimah – Minister for Higher Education Lord Agnew – Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the school system Nadhim Zahawi – Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

How we work at National and Regional level

National Schools Commissioner

• Responsible for the delivery of the programme
• Holds the RSC team to account
• Oversight of the 12 largest national sponsors

Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs)

• Monitor performance and intervene to ensure that underperforming

academies improve

• Decide on the creation of new academies and trusts, and support good

schools to convert

• Ensure the sponsor market meets local need
• Advised by a Headteacher Board

Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC)

• Monitor performance and intervene to ensure that underperforming

academies improve

• Decide on the creation of new academies and trusts, and support

good schools to convert

• Ensure the sponsor market meets local need
• Advised by a Headteacher Board

How academies fit within the wider school system

2001

First academy

2010

203 academies

2018

• c. 7,500

academies

• Overall, around one third of state schools are now academies.
• ‘Sponsorship’ is a key mechanism for turning around failing
• schools. Sponsors raise standards by injecting strong

leadership and school improvement expertise. The majority are school-led MATs, but they could also be MATs established by FE colleges, universities, businesses and charities.

• Academies are one type of institution in a diverse system of 24,000 schools (alongside

community, foundation, selective, faith and independent schools).

• Momentum continues with a steady stream of

new academies – with 369 new converter academies in the six months between July – December 17

The role of the RSC in working with partners in the current and changing context

• Ensuring the support and resource gets to where it is most needed
• Identifying where the capacity is to drive up the number of good and

better schools

• Supporting good effective governance as a lever to secure

sustainable improvements and VFM

Academies and MATs in West Midlands

Over 1000 Academies in West Midlands:

• Roughly 700 Converter

academies

• Roughly 300 Sponsored

academies

54 Free Schools 233 MATs

• 78% of the academies in the

region are in MATs

Multi Academy Trust governance expectations

• Good and effective trust governance is key to a sustainable, school-led,

academies system. Both skills and structures are important in effective MAT

• governance. Individuals need to have the knowledge, skills and behaviours,

as well as the capacity and commitment to deliver effective governance. A strong board, allied to proper structures and an executive leader, helps to deliver the dual responsibility of strategic planning to deliver strong outcomes for children, and the culture of accountability that is necessary across the

• rganisation

Effective governance is based on six key features

• Strategic Leadership that sets and champions vision, ethos and strategy
• Accountability that drives up educational standards and financial

performance

• People with the right skills, experience, qualities and capacity
• Structures that reinforce clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• Compliance with statutory and contractual requirements
• Evaluation

Example MAT Governance Structure

• Structures may vary depending on MAT schemes of delegation, the size of the trust, and the types of school in the trust.
• The level of delegation to committees and local governing bodies is at the discretion of the trust. Trusts may choose to vary the powers they

delegate to LGBs within the trust, or give them a purely advisory role.

• A scheme of delegation must be published online by the trust. The ISBL and ESFA provide a library of model terms of reference and schemes of

delegation.

Trustees (WM RSC Preference for an odd number between

7 and 11)

Appointed by members Both company directors & charity trustees The accountable body for the Trust Strategic responsibility for the running of the trust:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic

direction

• Holding exec leaders to account for

educational performance of the MAT & its pupils and performance management of staff

• Overseeing financial performance of the

MAT

Members (3-5) *strong preference for 5

Like company shareholders, members guard goverance

• Signatories of, with power to amend the Articles of Association,

which define how the trust will run

• Appointment/and power to remove Trustees
• Appoint the trust’s auditors and receive the trust’s annual

audited accounts

• Power to wind up the Trust

Trustees

• The trustees should have expertise on all aspects of trust business, for

example, HR, financial administration, legal work etc. Where this is not possible, the trust should have links in place with professional experts.

• All trustees should have an understanding of the statutory and contractual

requirements around financial accountability and good financial management.

• All boards, however many schools they govern, need people with skills appropriate

to the scale and nature of their role; and no more people than they need to have all the necessary skills to be effective. Where this expertise is not currently present, the trust can recruit through Academy Ambassadors and/or Inspiring Governance, or develop their current trustees.

• Where there is a gap in the required skills, the board should ensure that this is

addressed through recruitment, induction or training.

Additional requirements

• The trust must appoint a named individual who is both the senior

executive leader and Accounting Officer (this may be the CEO). This position cannot rotate. There is no requirement that the CEO should be a trustee.

• All trusts must have a named CFO and all trusts must approve a written

scheme of delegation of financial powers (as per the Academies Financial Handbook).

• We strongly advise that members/trustees should include at least one

person not involved in any previous/other activities related to the trust, to provide a measure of external challenge (effectively a non- executive director).

What underpins the way that the school led system delivers improvement?

• Secure Sustainable Improvement TAKES TIME but leaders

need to prioritise and sequence the changes they need to make

• Schools and Trusts need to see themselves as capacity

givers and capacity takers over a period of time

• Schools improve sequentially and in stages
• School Improvement is the product of high quality leadership

so understanding the stage of the improvement journey is important for getting the right leaders in place

• School Improvement can be judged through the lens of results

and OFSTED inspections but not exclusively.

• STRATEGY+CAPACITY + PACE = Improvement

‘Secure Sustainable improvement TAKES TIME and leaders need to prioritise and sequence the changes they need to make’

• The school can only really improve in line with the time it

takes to raise the quality of leadership and teaching

• The four phases will overlap so there is no defined start and

end date

• Teams, year groups and departments will progress through

the stages at different rates.

• Maths might be in the improve phase at the same time

that Science is in repair and PE is in sustain

• Big implications in a primary school if EY and Year 6

were to be in need of repair at the same time

• Seeing cross subject and cross team trajectories as

part of the whole enables the strategic focus and resources to be targeted at the right areas

What are the key questions for governors in the Improve Phase?

The questions posed in the Stabilise and Repair Phases will apply up to a point but some will no longer be needed. These are the focus questions for the Improve phase

• 1. Have we articulated the lessons learned so far and are we sharing

them more widely?

• 2. Are we getting the balance right between quality assurance and
• perational improvement
• 3. How do we make sure we are not institutionally blind to the challenges

we still face?

• 4. What are the areas that still need repair?
• 5. As a board of governors do we need to refresh our professional

expertise and capacity?

• 6. What is our strategic plan to train and develop our team of governors

as we move towards becoming a very good school?

What are the key questions for governors in the Sustain Phase?

The questions that governors should be asking in the Sustain phase are about sustainability and wider system participation

• 1. What are the risks to us reaching a performance plateau

and how do we avoid that?

• 2. What capacity do we have to support another school?
• 3. Can we be confident that the areas of expertise we

believe we have really are that good

• 4. Are the strategies we have implemented scalable and

replicable?

• 5. Have we allocated key areas for sustainable performance

to members of the board. (Dis-Advantaged students, able students, collaborative practice)

SoS 10th March 2018

• There can be no great schools without great teachers to motivate

children and inspire curiosity. Teaching is still a top destination for graduates and there are more teachers in our schools than ever. But I recognise that recruitment and retention is difficult for schools and that one of the biggest threats to this is workload.

• Above all else, the key to education is the person standing at the

front of the class. I believe we need to get back to the heart of successful teaching – to strip away the workload that doesn't add value and give teachers the time to focus on what actually matters. Together with Ofsted and the Association of School and College Leaders, we will take collective responsibility for this issue and tackle the workload burden on our schools."

SoS 10th March 2018

• A strategy to drive recruitment and boost retention of teachers

working with teaching unions and professional bodies to devise ways

• f attracting, and keeping, the brightest and best graduates
• A commitment to work with Ofsted, regional schools commissioners,

the Education and Skills Funding Agency and multi-academy trusts – to clarify their roles and ensure teachers and school leaders have a clear understanding of who they are accountable to, and for what

• That there will be no new tests or assessment for primary schools

and no changes to the national curriculum, GCSE or A levels for the remainder of this parliament, beyond those already announced

• HTBs are responsible for advising their RSC to help the

RSC’s decision-making.

• This can involve assessing school performance data,

reviewing the governance structure of a new MAT or challenging a school’s improvement plan.

• RSCs and HTBs also make use of local networks to gather

information to support the RSC’s decisions.

• Each HTB is made up of 4 to 8 members. HTB members are

academy sector leaders (e.g. CEOs or executive headteachers, former headteachers, trustees or business leaders).

Head Teacher Boards

West Midlands Head Teacher Board

Christine Quinn Regional Schools Commissioner for the West Midlands Christine.Quinn@education.gov.uk