About Ormiston Maritime Academy

Ormiston Maritime Academy is a friendly, welcoming, and vibrant 11-16 academy with a ‘Good’ Ofsted rating (July 2022).

We are currently searching for a new chair of governors to lead its Local Governing Body. As Chair, your experience and skills will help to support our students to give them the best opportunities to thrive and achieve.

• You will have governance experience and knowledge of the education sector
• You will lead the governing body in shaping strategy and holding the leadership team to account
• You will support the students and staff to be the best they can be

This position would suit someone with management experience and a keen interest in the development of young people and education.

The LGB meets 4 times per year (twice in the autumn term and once in both the spring and summer terms) and meetings are approximately 2-2.5 hours long.  The Chair of Governors may also attend termly Performance Board meetings, which focus closely on key priorities with regard to attainment. In addition to these meetings, the Chair will meet regularly with the principal.

About OAT

Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) is one of the largest not-for-profit multi-academy trusts in England. Our aim as a charity, alongside our schools, is to help provide local children with a great education. We educate over 30,000 pupils across five OAT regions, in over 40 schools – currently 32 secondary schools, six primary schools, three alternative provision schools and one special school. We are one of the longest-established trusts and have been sponsoring academies since 2009. Our sole purpose is to provide OAT pupils with excellent learning opportunities inside and outside the classroom.

Role of the chair

The chair of governors plays a pivotal role in the leadership of an academy, taking on many roles such as leader, confidante and critical friend; ‘critical’ in the sense of their responsibility for monitoring and evaluating the school’s effectiveness, asking challenging questions and pressing for improvement; ‘friend’ to promote the interests of the academy and its students.

Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) believes that good governance and an effective governing body is vital for the successful operation of an academy. The chair has an important part to play in this by ensuring the governing body works as a cohesive team, setting the vision and ethos of the academy whilst challenging and supporting the senior leadership team and contributing to the strategic leadership of the academy.

Key functions

Leading effective governance by ensuring that the governing body works as an effective team in a clearly defined direction while understanding their role plays a significant part of the strategic leadership of the academy. Part of their focus should always be about academy improvement.

Building the governance team by ensuring the right people are on the governing body is an essential duty of the chair. Undertaking the annual skills audit along with conducting exit interviews at the end of governors’ terms of office helps the chair and governing body focus on governor recruitment. The chair provides opportunity for the governing body to constantly reflect on their own effectiveness and readily make changes to improve.

Train and develop the LGB by ensuring that an effective training and development plan has been populated and that it includes regular stakeholder engagement and feedback from those sessions to the LGB. The chair will support the clerk in ensuring that all governors update their own training records in the GovernorHub profiles. It may be appropriate to add extra meetings for the LGB to consider training and development.

Being a ‘critical friend’ to the principal is one of the main parts of the chair’s role. The chair should offer support, challenge, and encouragement, as well as working with the OAT education director (ED) to ensure the principal’s appraisal is rigorous and robust. The chair should not get involved with the day to day running of the academy but be there to provide help and support to the principal.

Ensuring the focus is always on improving the academy This is achieved in many ways but should be at the heart of all academy policies and strategies. The chair should ensure that governor monitoring should also reflect academy improvement priorities identified in the academy development plan.

Leading the business The chair should ensure that statutory requirements and regulations are met, working in partnership with the principal to ensure the academy provides value for money in its use of resources and that governing body business is conducted efficiently and effectively.

Key Duties

The chair of governors will:

• Be responsible for ensuring, on behalf of the Trust, that the LGB is discharging all its delegated responsibilities for the academy within the law and in accordance with statutory guidance.
• Ensure that the LGB also discharges its duties in accordance with OAT corporate policies and strategic vision.
• Ensure that OAT policies and corporate decisions are implemented as directed by the OAT executive team.
• Promote and support the values and policies of OAT with governors, staff, parents, students, community members and academy partner
• Abide by OAT confidentiality requirements at all times.
• Promote, support and implement good governance practice.
• Alert the appropriate contact at OAT at the earliest opportunity regarding any matter or incident that may bring public attention to the MAT (positive or negative) and/or which requires OAT support/intervention.
• Discuss with the OAT regional ED any specific issues with reference to the academy’s budget, admissions, staffing and school improvement targets.
• Attend any planned OAT chair forums and training sessions as appropriate
• Take responsibility for keeping up to date with both local and national developments in education and governance.
• Ensure that all governors and the clerk attend any OAT briefings and training as required/appropriate and that they are keeping themselves up to date with both local and national developments in education and governance.
• Actively participate in OAT’s Delivering Excellence Framework (appraisal process for principals), led by the ED.
• Work with OAT to agree a succession plan for the role of chair of the governing body by identifying and developing leadership talent from within the LGB, knowing where strengths lie and performance needs development.
• Endeavour to foster a culture of diversity, equality and inclusion, so that the LGB recognises and reflects the unique communities it serves by recruiting governors with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, and actively works to support and retain those members.
• Ensure there is fair and effective delegation in place with equal access to opportunity based upon skill and knowledge.
• Treat sensitive or confidential OAT information within the confidentiality requirements of the Trust.
• Establish effective committee structures and membership that reflects the strategic direction of the academy and has the right people with the right skills in the right place.
• Co-operate with other agencies to support academy improvement and to ensure the well-being of children in the community.
• Appropriately delegate roles and tasks, encouraging all governors to support and contribute to the work of the governing body and to concentrate on their strategic role, in particular the priorities identified in the academy development plan (ADP).
• Represent the governing body in its dealings with external parties and be a loyal advocate for the academy
• Encourage all members of the governing body to undertake appropriate training, especially induction training for anyone new to governance
• Participate in the recruitment of the academy principal

Working with the principal

The relationship between the chair of governors and the principal is critical to effective leadership of the academy and good governance. The chair should aim to develop a positive and professional working relationship with the principal.

The relationship should be based upon trust and openness and encourage a culture of support and challenge as part of the chair’s role as “critical friend”. The chair should not get involved with the day to day running of the academy but be there to provide help and support to the principal.

It is essential that both understand the parameters of each other’s role and maintain respect for this. To achieve this the chair and principal should arrange regular meetings so that the chair can be provided with an overview of what is happening within the academy, be a listening ear, and offer support to the principal.

It is important that the chair encourages other governors to have links with the principal so that the chair/principal relationship is not seen as exclusive.

Working with the clerk

It is important to have a good working relationship with the clerk and work closely together to organise the work of the governing body. OAT recommends that the chair and clerk meet regularly to review the LGB’s work plan. Prior to each LGB meeting, the agenda items should be reviewed, especially those for discussion and/or action and the LGB minutes should be approved according to agreed deadlines.

The chair will monitor the workload of the clerk, agree priorities and provide support to the clerk in their role and jointly plan the induction of new governors.

The chair should arrange (or delegate) an annual appraisal with the clerk in order to monitor the clerk’s own professional development, including active engagement with OAT governance team, OATnet, and attendance at clerks’ briefings.

Governor relationships

The chair should strive to build good relationships with governors and support them in having an impact on the LGB. All governors should ask questions in meetings and partake in training and stakeholder engagement. Chairs may need to manage individuals where there are issues in any of these areas.

Managing meetings

Successful meetings are run by chairs who understand the content of the agenda, giving time to the items that need discussion and ensuring there is pace through the other items so that the meeting is not sidetracked. Governors should equally share the proportion of the discussion and questioning. Any contentious items should be discussed with the principal or chair of the relevant committee before the meeting.

LGB meetings should be productive, and decisions and actions should make a difference to the academy. To achieve this, it is important that papers are circulated in advance of the meeting and a positive culture is engendered amongst governors of coming to meetings prepared.

As leader of a team, the chair will need to remain impartial and reduce any potential tensions between individuals, protect the minority view, and make sure that all governors feel that they have had equal opportunity to contribute to discussions and that no governor feels their viewpoint has not been valued or considered.

To discuss the position or arrange a visit, please contact the Clerk to Governors, Heather Wells via email wellsh@omacademy.co.uk or telephone 01472 310015

To apply for the position, please provide a cover letter and CV by 9 a.m. on Monday 6 January 2025 to the Governance Team via email at governance@ormistonacademies.co.uk

Ormiston Maritime Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share in this commitment. Ormiston Academies Trust embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity.   

All successful appointments will be subject to suitability checks in accordance with KCSIE, including identity, online searches, two references and enhanced DBS check.

The post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. Guidance on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975, which provides information about which convictions must be declared during job applications and related exceptions, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-guidance-on-the-rehabilitation-of-offenders-act-1974