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LEIGH ACADEMIES TRUST


                                                                                             

 

Background

The Trust was formed in August 2008 to facilitate the sponsorship of our second academy.  The Trust now manages both The Leigh Technology Academy and Longfield Academy.  The Trust has a Board of governors and a chief Executive Officer who is also Executive Principal of each Academy

Essential features of a Leigh style school are:

  • Modular culture for teaching, learning and management information
  • Vertical view of education: tutoring and teaching
  • Schools within schools structure: human scale education
  • Vocational (Applied Learning) programmes as entitlement for all in KS4
  • Industrial links in all areas of Learning
  • Leadership and Networking capacity: All senior staff are involved in working with other schools and organisations
  • Innovative/ 'can do' approach

 

Organisation

Leigh style academies are divided into small schools of between 350 and 400 students per school, each with its own Principal and Vice Principal.  Overall sizes can thus be multiples of that, around 750, 1150, 1500 students.

Each Principal is the Head of their College and the team of Principals are thus overall Academy Principal.  They have a team of staff to support them and most students spend in excess of 50% of their time within their College.  The principals have responsibility for all that happens to and with students in their College, but they will also lead on a range of academy tasks and ensure that they are consistenly implemented and delivered across the academy.

With two academies the overall view of the Trust is now like this:

 

Currently there are to be 6 staff that will work across and for both academies, to provide the essential core services that require consistency of approach from all Colleges.  As the Trust grows then this group is likely to increase.

Summary job descriptions from one of the academies are given at the end of this paper.

Governance

The Trust currently has a single Board of Governors of up to 16.  The Trust is a charitable company limited by guarantee so that the Governors can also be referred to as Trustees, when dealing with the Charities Commission and Directors when dealing with Companies House. 

The Trust also has a group of Members, who are in essence the 'shareholders' of the company.  This currently a group of 6 people which will always include the Chairman of Governors.  The Members have 3 functions:

  • approve the accounts through its audit committee and appoint the auditors;
  • appoint Governors;
  • appoint the Chief Executive Officer.

As an Academy the Board has all the other functions and can delegate most of them to the Executive through the CEO.  Their primary role is holding the Executive to account and challenging them, they also set the strategic direction of the academy.  Each academy has a Principal who is on the Board as well as the CEO, which enables much more robust discussion and debate than when a single senior executive is a governor.

The governors currently have two permanent committees:  Standards and Resources, but whilst Longfield Academy is in its infancy, there is also a Longfield Development Group.  For day to day relationships, each College has two governors attached to it who are expected to make at least two visits to their College during the year (3 overall) so that they can gain a better understanding of the organization.   There should also be a strong link developing between governors and Principals.