B&W MAT / Governors

Welcome to our Governors’ section.

St Mark’s Primary School is a member of the Bath & Wells Diocesan Academies Trust (BWMAT). The accountable authority for St Mark’s School is the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the appropriate body for all the academies in BWMAT for the purposes of section 6 of the Education Act 2005 and, as such, is directly responsible for, together with BWMAT leaders, the quality of education and governance provided in the school.

The Board of Trustees of the Trust has identified that each school in the Trust will have a dedicated committee to oversee the governance arrangements of the school on their behalf. This committee is called the Local Governing Committee (LGC) and its governors work closely with the Head Teacher and the school’s leaders in order to achieve the best possible outcomes for all pupils.

The role of the LGC is to provide confident, strategic leadership and to create robust accountability, oversight and assurance for educational and financial performance. The LGC meets six times a year and its work reflects the Trust’s Scheme of Delegation that identifies the duties delegated to the LGC by the Board of Trustees. The school has formed a number of committees – (Ethos and Pay/Renumeration) to support this work and this enables specific areas to be looked at in detail.

Governors work very hard to ensure that they know what it is like to be a learner in the school and undertake a range of activity in relation to the three core functions of governance:

i) Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction.

The LGC helps to shape the vision for the school and governors review this annually, as well as looking at the progress being made against the school’s aims.

The School Development Plan (SDP) identifies the school’s priorities for the year and the LGC is instrumental in working with the Head Teacher to develop this and then monitoring progress against the identified priorities for the year.

Governors are linked to areas of the SDP and undertake a range of activities – meeting staff, talking to pupils, reviewing plans, looking at pupils’ work – so that they can see the progress being made against the priorities for themselves.

Governors are also linked to other areas and aspects of school life – Health and Safety, Early Years, Safeguarding, Pupil Premium (PP), Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) - and this helps them to understand the school and enables them to build relationships with members of staff. This ensures that the decisions they make are based on a good knowledge of the school.

Governors report on their activity to the meetings of the LGC so that all governors are aware of what is going well and what needs further development.

ii) Holding school leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the performance management of staff.

Governors act as critical friends to the Head Teacher and are always striving to ensure that the school is doing the best it can for every pupil.

Governors look at the information provided by the school on the progress and attainment of pupils and challenge the Head Teacher when performance appears to be uneven or inconsistent. They ask about the organisation of the curriculum and the quality of teaching in the school. They make sure that the school has a robust system in place for the performance management of staff. Governors rely on the Trust to undertake the performance management of the Head Teacher on their behalf.

Governors look at a range of external data and information to see how their school compares to local and national benchmarks. They also look at the reports of external partners about their school so that they have as wide a view as possible of how their school is performing.

iii) Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and ensuring that money is well spent for the benefit of all pupils.

Governors are involved in discussion about the projected budget for the year but the final decision on the school’s budget is taken by the Board of Trustees. Governors then receive regular updates on the progress of the budget for the year and challenge where there appears to be variations in what has been spent compared to what was expected to be spent.

Governors also receive information about the school’s plan for spending its Pupil Premium grant and PE and Sport grant. The school provides regular updates on the impact of these plans to meetings of the LGC.

As well as attending business meetings of the LGC, governors also attend regular training and development sessions. These relate to either the development of the LGC as a whole or to the personal development of individual governors. All governors are expected to undertake regular, Trust-identified training. Governors can also access on-line training as members of the National Governance Association.  Newly appointed governors receive a planned programme of induction support.

The LGC is always trying to improve what it does and an annual self-evaluation takes place at which governors decide, in terms of governance, what has gone well during the year and what the areas of focus need to be for the following year. This is based on the criteria for effective governance identified in the Governance Handbook (DfE)

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The LGC has the following as its areas of focus for 2023/24

1. Ensuring that the governors monitor their linked areas across the academic year
2. Ensuring that governors have a consistent overview of the key areas of school life
3. Ensuring that progress with the School Development Plan priorities is monitored through governor visits

Executive Pay

The Chief Executive and other staff Trustees only received remuneration in respect of services they provide undertaking the roles of Chief Executive and staff, and not in respect of their services as Trustees. Other Trustees do not receive any payments, other than expenses, from the Academy Trust in respect of their role as Trustees.

The value of Trustees’ remuneration and other benefits were as follows: N Edwards (Chief Executive and Trustee): Remuneration £140,001-£150,000 (2020 Nil) Employer’s Pension Contributions £35,001-£40,000 (2020 Nil)