St Aldhelm's Church School is a member of the Bath & Wells Diocesan Academies Trust (BWMAT). The accountable authority for the school is the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the appropriate body for all the schools in BWMAT for the purposes of section 6 of the Education Act 2005 and, as such, is directly responsible, together with BWMAT leaders, for 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 members 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 a robust governance framework that enables oversight and assurance for the school’s safeguarding arrangements and its educational and financial performance. The LGC meets half-termly and its work reflects the Trust’s Scheme of Delegation that identifies the responsibilities delegated to the LGC by the Board of Trustees. Members of the LGC work very hard to ensure that they know what it is like to be a learner in the school. They undertake a range of activity in relation to the core functions of governance and these activities enable them to understand the school’s strengths and areas for improvement.

Their core work is as follows:

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

The LGC helps to shape the vision for the school and the LGC reviews this annually, as well as looking regularly 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 Executive Head Teacher and Head of School to develop this and then monitoring progress against the identified priorities for the year. Members of the LGC are linked to areas of the SDP and undertake a range of activity – 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. One member of the LGC is linked to safeguarding as this is such an important area of school life. This member’s role is to monitor the school’s arrangements to support safeguarding to ensure that the school is doing what it should in this area. Members of the LGC may also be linked to aspects of school life – e.g. Vulnerable pupils – where the area identified is of particular interest to the school. Members report on their activity to the meetings of the LGC so that all members of the LGC are aware of what is going well and what is in need of development. The LGC also identifies and manages any risks that might impact on the outcomes achieved by the school. The school’s risk register is then used to inform Trustees of any significant risks so that Trustees are aware and can monitor the impact of the school’s mitigating actions. 

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

The LGC acts as critical friend to the Executive Head Teacher and Head of School and is always striving to ensure that the school is doing the best it can for every pupil. Members of the LGC look at the information provided by the school on the progress and attainment of pupils and challenge the School Leaders 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. The LGC relies on the Trust to undertake the performance management of the Head Teacher on their behalf. The LGC looks at a range of external data and information to see how the school compares to local and national benchmarks. It also looks at the reports of external partners about the school so that it has as wide a view as possible of how the school is performing.

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

The LGC is 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. The LGC then receives 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. The LGC also receives 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, members of the LGC 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 members. All members of the LGC are expected to undertake regular, Trust-identified training. Members can also access on-line training as members of the National Governance Association. Newly appointed members of the LGCs 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 members 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.

The TLC has a number of areas of focus for 2024/25.  As well as looking forward to 24/25, the TLC also evaluates the impact of its work in the previous year and reports this to the Board.

For the Memorandum of Association, Articles of Association and our Funding Agreement, please see Bath and Wells Multi Academy Trust - Articles of Association (bwmat.org).  

Please see the Scheme of Delegation: Bath and Wells Multi Academy Trust - Governance Structure and Scheme of Delegation (bwmat.org)