Trustee

Location: Sutton

Salary: Reasonable expenses paid

At Orchard Hill College & Academy Trust (OHC&AT), we are a family of specialist education providers from pre-school through to further education based across London, Surrey, Sussex and Berkshire and we fully represent all designations of special education needs and disabilities (SEND).

Working together to transform lives is what we do, and, across the whole organisation, we have a range of experts and practitioners who advocate for children and young people with SEND to ensure they receive the best possible opportunities to achieve their full potential.

Since the College was established in 1983, it has grown from a small hospital provision into an Ofsted-rated ‘Outstanding’ college that operates from eight college centres and provides post-16 education for students with moderate, complex, and profound learning needs.

In 2013, the College established the Academy Trust to share its expertise and provide services and support to specialist schools. Orchard Hill College Academy Trust is now home to 14 special schools, and we have three live Free School projects in progress with projected opening dates ranging from 2024 to 2026.

As an organisation, we adhere to the seven principles of public life to drive our behaviours and provide a framework for our actions. These are loyalty, openness, objectivity, selflessness, honesty, integrity, and accountability.

Within this framework, we have defined our own set of core values and behaviours:

Confident, Respectful, Equitable, Advocacy, Teamworking, Enabling

As a community of learners, families, and colleagues, our ethos is that by working collaboratively, with energy and ambition we can always effect positive change. At the core of our ethos is the conviction that there should be no limit placed on what is possible and that everyone has the ability to be the very best they can be.

Our collaborative board, referred to by us as the Family Board and comprised of both our College and Academy Trustee Boards, meets three times each academic year. This innovative governance structure demonstrates our partnership ethos whilst also serving to help Trustees from both our College and the Academy Trust gain insight into the plans, policies, challenges, risks and finances of both the College and the Academy Trust.

Our two Chairs work together to share the leadership of meetings and encourage contributions from everyone in support of OHC&AT’s shared strategic agenda and our executive leadership team.

Together, our Trustees form the non-executive body of Orchard Hill College & Academy Trust. They attend meetings of the Family Board plus additional committee meetings. It is expected that each Trustee devotes additional time to joining one to two of our committees:

·        Quality, Standards and Safeguarding Committee

·        People Committee

·        Finance and Resources Committee

·        Audit and Risk Committee

·        Governance Steering Committee

The committees are the heart of our governance structure, where policy, plans and reports are debated and challenged. Through having developed an excellent working relationship between our Trustees and the executive leadership, our Trustees feel comfortable asking difficult and searching questions, and in return, our executive team welcomes the professional experience that Trustees can share with them.

The expected time commitment works out to be 1 – 2 days per month.

We are a significantly sized and financially complex organisation operating across multiple English counties and boroughs of London. We have recently built new schools, have more being developed, and have grown exponentially over the past few years because of our excellent reputation for the delivery of high-quality and supportive education.

Whilst our financial health is in a strong position, we, as a large provider of public services, are not isolated from the challenges affecting many education providers across the country and must manage our risks well.

Through a recent skills review of our current Board of Trustees we have highlighted professional expertise in the following areas as skills gaps, which we are looking forward to recruiting to:

1.       Financial management and accounting

2.     Teaching and learning (ideally gained from further education or the independent SEND sector)

3.     Human Resources and People Transformation

To succeed in the role of Trustee, we require the ideal blend of specialist knowledge, to add value to the discussions in both formal meetings and in informal one-to-one settings with executive team members and capacity.

Whilst it is important that you are sufficiently qualified and experienced in the specialist areas mentioned above, we also need to feel confident that you have the necessary time to devote to preparing for the meetings and reading the papers, attending the meetings, attending other formal events, and visiting our academies and college sites to see the wonderful things which happen at OHC&AT.

We encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply and are open to the type of industry and level of leadership/management in which you have experience.

We welcome interest from both experienced and strategic leaders of large and complex businesses, and aspirant leaders for whom becoming a Trustee can support their own leadership journey.

Our employees and Trustees are, put simply, brilliant!

Everyone employed here, whether in strategic, management, or operational delivery roles knows how important OHC&AT is to our children, young adults, their parents and carers.

It is important to us that you feel a strong connection to our core purpose and feel compelled to help us become even better than we are today.

If, having read through this information and visited our website, you too believe that no limit should be placed on what is possible and that everyone has the ability to be the very best they can be, then please do contact our advising consultants at Peridot Partners to arrange a discussion.

For further information about the role, or to arrange a confidential discussion, please contact our advising consultants at Peridot Partners:Chloe Cox | chloe@peridotpartners.co.uk | 07539 386980 Eddie Caviezel Cox | eddiec@peridotpartners.co.uk |07951 920768

Closing date: Monday 20th May

Peridot Partners and Orchard Hill College & Academy Trust are, together, committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and our client expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced DBS check and satisfactory references before any final offer can be made.