I work as Chief Education Officer in a multi academy trust (MAT) of 24 schools. Within those schools we have around 36 senior members of teaching staff, below the headteacher. In our smaller schools there may be one assistant headteacher (our smallest schools may have none) and in our larger schools, a deputy headteacher and several assistant headteachers. Recognising that being part of a MAT is about working together (we have a strapline, ‘better, together’) we have created a network of assistant/deputy headteachers and they came together this week for our first conference.

Towards the end of a stimulating day on ‘courageous leadership’, our leaders were asked to consider becoming local committee members in another trust school.

In this trust we have local committees. Other MATs might call them local governing boards or bodies; they are part of governance and have some delegated responsibilities from the trust board, but are not governors in the traditional sense. There will probably be a chapter in my thesis all about that!

On each local committee we have the headteacher, ex-officio, two elected parent members, one staff elected member, and five general members. Whilst ideally these five general members would be independent and slightly removed from school, in order to have an interest in the school and to want to volunteer, they are likely to have some community connection with the school. In some cases these defined groups ‘bleed’ over with a general member also having a child at the school, or who was previously a parent of a pupil at the school. It is important that one group does not dominate the discussion.

Finding five general members, who are not parents of pupils, can be a challenge, especially in some of our smaller schools. With 24 schools, we’re expecting to have 48 parents and 120 other volunteers. Unlikely. 

One solution we have in some of our schools is to have a local committee across more than one school. This works best, we think, where the two schools are an infant and a junior school on the same site. It becomes more challenging in situations where we have an executive leadership model across two entirely separate schools in different locations. The parent and staff elected members can be complicated.

Our trial is to have members of staff, particularly senior leaders who could benefit from the experience of being on a local committee and who will bring a huge wealth of knowledge and experience to the group, join a local committee of another trust school. This new member will be a general member and not a staff elected member. This should enable expert leaders and good governance.