Non-Executive Director - The Olive Tree Primary School

The Olive Tree Primary School

Non-executive director/ Trustee role

Could you be an Academy Ambassador in Bolton?  The Olive Tree Primary School seeks a new non-executive/director to join its board.

The Academy Ambassadors programme brings the expertise of the business world onto boards at multi-academy trusts (MATs) throughout the country to raise standards of education and improve the life chances of young people, which is critical to our social and economic success.

The opportunity

The Olive Primary School is a single academy trust, it opened as a brand-new free school in 2013 and was judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted at its first inspection in July 2015.  The school has 420 pupils, 55 staff members and a budget of around £2 million. Almost three-quarters of its pupils have English as an additional language.

The trust has experienced some challenges and has been criticized over some of it procedures. Financially the trust is sound with a healthy reserve but procedural practices have resulted in the Education & Skills Funding Agency (EFSA) issuing the trust with a Financial Notice to Improve (FNtI).  The FNtI has not yet been published but is available from the trust.  The DfE/ESFA have shared with Academy Ambassadors that the trust has responded positively and they welcome the opportunity to appoint some new, independent trustees to the board to help improve overall governance.

The board seeks a business leader with expertise in

• CFO/finance or
• audit

As a key member of the board you will support the trust in achieving the following over the next 12 – 24 months:

• Ensuring a stable and effective organisational environment and challenging the executive leaders.
• Strengthening governance through robust processes that ensure perceived conflicts of interests are managed at all levels. This will include the removal of the FNtI.
• Developing a high degree of financial probity.

What’s involved?

The trust board meets 5 times a year and board meetings tend to be held on Mondays at 7pm.  The subcommittees are Finance, HR & Standards, and Safeguarding.  Sub committee meetings may move around the week to match trustees availability but tend to commence around 5pm on a week-day.  In general trustees should be able to commit to around 6 hours per month (on average).You will be responsible for:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
• Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the effective and efficient performance management of staff; and
• Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent

As an Academy Ambassador, you will join our ambassador network which provides resources, guidance, networking events and webinars to support you in your role. All roles are pro bono.

What next?

Please register your interest now to be considered for the role.  

A full trust specification is available here: https://www.academyambassadors.org/board-opportunities/olive-tree-primary-school

Please be aware the closing date may change if we have received sufficient applications.