Use your Spare time wisely
Schools, including academies, in the Medway towns and surrounds are always looking for great people to volunteer to get involved in their governance and help ensure that young people get the education they need to ensure they succeed in later life.
Schools now operate a variety of governance structures and vacancies exist at every level including as Multi Academy Trust trustees, with governance responsibility for several schools, Local governing or advisory boards within those trusts and as governors in Local Authority maintained schools.
In every instance the responsibility is a corporate one, which means that no individual has personal authority or accountability (other than to the board) but that authority and accountability rests with the governing board as a whole
About You
You don't need a background in education or be a high flying executive to make a successful contribution to school governance, but you will need to be over 18 with some essential skills and attributes.
Chief among these are:
- The time and commitment to actively participate in the work of the governing board including through taking responsibility for your own training and development;
- A genuine and significant interest in all children getting the education they need to succeed
- Personal integrity and the ability to set aside personal or partisan interests in favour of those of the whole community the school serves
- The ability and willingness to work as part of a group, engaging actively, assertively and constructively in debate and shared workload (often those panels and monitoring visits mentioned earlier) but honouring group decisions when they are made
- The ability to zoom out from the detail and primarily think and operate at a future focused and big picture macro rather than micro level
- An intellect that allow you to think critically about and make sense of a wide range of information and data. This includes having the foresight to be able consider the impact of current decision-making on future outcomes
- A willingness to support the executive leader and his or her wellbeing and at the same time have the confidence and inquisitiveness to ask curious, sometimes tough questions and contribute objectively to strategic decision-making, in the interests of the school or Trust community and its children
Individuals who bring specific skills and/or successful experience related to any of the following areas in addition to those listed above are particularly encouraged to put themselves forward. It is not expected that these skills are used in any kind of pro bono sense, rather to equip the board with the knowledge to underpin its decision-making and ask more of the right questions when supportively challenging the executive leadership, as well as identify when the school or the board itself should engage professional advice.
- Serving on a board in another sector
- Leading organisations
- Financial skills including those related to income generation, budgeting, financial efficiency, auditing
- Human Resources
- Legal services and compliance
- Land, premises and facilities management
- Health and Safety
- Growth, change and risk management
- PR, marketing and social media
- Impact and data analysis
- Education
Career Development
While its never a good idea to get involved in school governance just to further your career, it would be a mistake to ignore its potential to provide excellent professional development for those aspiring to leadership roles in both schools and other fields.
We particularly encourage school middle and senior leaders aspiring to headship to gain a wide range of governance experience, preferably in a school other than that in which they work.
We also very much welcome interest from university students and young professionals who are willing to commit at least two years to a governing board to bring a younger perspective - You'll get a great grounding in strategic leadership in return!