What do Governors do?

The three core functions. as defined within the Department for Education Governance Handbook, (January 2017), states that Board of Governors are responsible for:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
• Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the performance management of staff; and
• Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.

Governance in our school

In addition, as a Church of England academy and part of the Southwark Diocese, a “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) exists between REAch2 and the Southwark Board of Education. See links at the bottom of the page for further information.

We are a team of committed volunteers with differing backgrounds, skills and stakeholder interests. We work from our REAch2 Term of Reference and MoU. We act as one body, are involved with strategic management and ensure the Christian distinctiveness of the academy is maintained. However, we do not become involved with the day to day, operational running of the academy, as this is for the Headteacher and senior leadership team.

We look at what the academy provides for our children by monitoring the improvement plan, asking questions and seeking answers from our Headteacher and senior leaders besides ensuring our Christian characteristics are maintained. We oversee the financial health of the school within the LGB delegated duties. We also provide an important link between the community, academy, region, trust and diocese.

The LGB holds meetings during the year in which they help to support the school, its leadership and pupils, whilst challenging to make sure that everyone achieves as much progress as they can and should.

Link Roles

Some governors take on a specific (LINK) role. This provides an opportunity to effectively distribute some of our work, enabling governors to focus on specific areas and report their findings back to the LGB. A “Faith group” has been established to monitor our Christian Distinction. Valuable relationships with the staff, parents and pupils are developed over time, with governors seeing first-hand the policies and actions of governance direction from all levels.

Local Governing Body structure

Headteacher-ex-officio

Incumbent Foundation Governor – ex-officio

4 Governors -Trust and Diocese appointed (at least 50% are Foundation).

2 Staff Governors, appointed by staff

2 Parent governors, appointed by parents

Up to 3 Co-Opted Governors, optional positions, appointed by LGB

A Governor’s term of office is for 4 years, apart from the Ex-officio roles which come with the position held ie Headteacher, Incumbent.

All governors, in compliance with our safeguarding policy, have an enhanced DBS (Data and Barring Service) check. Please see the Declaration of Interest document below for all the details of current St Mark’s Governors.

If you are interested in becoming a governor and wish to know more or wish to contact us, please leave a message with the school.

The LGB also works alongside a cluster board where cluster-wide issues are discussed.  The Cluster Board is made up of volunteers, just like an LGB, head teachers and chairs of governors.  There is also a central team with officers and business partners who specialise in providing support in areas such as finance, HR, health and safety, estates and governance.

REAch2 Governance

We have 3 layers of governance in REAch2: local governing bodies which oversee individual schools, cluster boards who oversee each cluster and our Board of Trustees who are ultimately accountable to the Department for Education for the running of the Trust.

All our schools share the same governance structure and you can find information about the trust on the REAch2 website at www.reach2.org.  The Governance page gives details of how the Trust is organised, including the Articles of Association, the Master Funding Agreement and all the documents which relate to how the Trust was founded and how it runs today.  You can also find details of who our trustees are.

Our school, like most schools in the Trust, has a local governing body (LGB).  There are terms of reference, which detail how the LGB should work and what its responsibilities are.  On the REAch2 website, terms of reference are available for all our boards, including the Trust Board.  You can also find documents which show how all the different layers communicate and how responsibility and accountability is distributed.

We have to share this information with you about our governors and governance:

• REAch2 Trust website
• The local governing body’s terms of reference, detailed as an appendix in the Trust Scheme of Delegation