Drive Team Application

The academy’s Drive Team welcomes the involvement of parents who hold good knowledge of the local community surrounding the academy, are enthusiastic to support the learning of young people in the academy and who are willing to undertake some basic training to support them in their role.

All Drive Team members will be expected to:

• Support the academy vision and ethos
• Exercise the highest standards of confidentiality and personal integrity
• Abide by the Trust’s Code of Conduct for Governance
• Contribute to the development of effectively sharing good practice
• Comply with relevant safeguarding processes – including proof of compliance with regulatory requirements relative to Disclosure and Barring Service Enhanced Criminal Record Checks
• Complete visit report forms, when appropriate, in order to report visit findings to the Accountability, Review and Challenge (ARC) group via the Rapid Improvement Group (RIG).

Support provided for Drive Team members

We appreciate that attendance at Drive Teams will need time and commitment from individual members and therefore to try and provide some support members will receive:

• An induction process to support new group members to understand how the Drive Team works and what is required from members within the group.
• Training for Drive Team members either through support from a Drive Team mentor and or providing access to external advice and guidance agencies and organisations.
• Opportunities to network with other Drive Team members either virtually or through network meetings. It is hoped that this will support skill development and experience of Drive Team members.

How to apply

If you are interested in becoming a member of your academy’s Drive Team, please carefully read the Drive Team Terms of Reference and the ‘Terms of the role’ at the end of this page before completing the below application form.

Terms of the role

Contributing to the growth and development of a school and seeing tangible improvements in the attainment and well-being of children and young people is a satisfying and important contribution to a local community.

The role of the Drive Team is to support school improvement working with the Principal to achieve this. The team may be made up of advisors from the community, parents, staff and pupils and will work on actions and priorities identified through the RIG. Parent and community advisors within this group will spend time in schools looking at identified aspect of the school and reporting back to the ARC group, via the RIG, using a standard reporting template. This does not include making judgements on the quality of teaching.

Two parents advisors from the Drive Teams across the Trust will be elected to sit on the regional ARC group. The ARC group community advisor position will be an associate advisor position and will be limited to a twelve month period.

Parent and community advisors will also engage with pupils through school visits or via the school council and use school visits to look independently at a school without direct intervention from the Principal.

This position is a voluntary position. Necessarily incurred expenses such as travel will be reimbursed. The majority of employers value voluntary activity of this nature as contributing to their corporate social responsibility and acknowledge the benefit to the individual in terms of professional development and many provide facilities to support such volunteering. Activity is expected to involve at least one meeting every term (3 times per year) to participate in a meeting (in person or via conference call) plus associated preparation time and will also involve additional time to support specific activities i.e. school visits

Under current Trust practice, successful candidates will be identified as a parent or community advisor within the Trust’s Model of Governance and as such will be required to comply with Education Funding Agency (EFA) requirements regarding declaration of Business Interests relevant to your activities and those of any close family members and these details will be published on the Trust’s website.