Drive Team Application

Drive Teams have been established to drive forward school improvement within the Trust’s academies by holding the academy Principal to account. The group will consist of the school Principal, parent, community, staff members, a co-opted member and the Regional Executive Principal who will attend to provide a quality assurance function.

Parent and community members within this group will spend time in schools looking at aspects of the school which have been identified through the RIR as requiring intervention and improvement. The group therefore takes its lead from the RIR.

The Chair of the Drive Team will liaise with their regional National Leader in Governance, who sits on the ARC Group, and who will report to the ARC group on individual Drive Team priorities and actions.

It is not the remit of the parent and community members to quality assure teaching within the school.

The Drive team meets half termly and parent members are required to engage with pupils through school visits or via the school council.

Parent and community member visits are an excellent way of looking independently at a school.

The academy’s welcome 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.

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 drive forward school improvement within the Trust’s academies by holding the academy Principal to account. The group will consist of the school Principal, parent, community, staff members, a co-opted member and the Regional Executive Principal who will attend to provide a quality assurance function. Drive Team members will spend time in schools looking at identified aspect of the school and reporting back to the ARC group, using a standard reporting template. This does not include making judgements on the quality of teaching.

The Chair of each academy Drive Team will be invited to sit on and be a member of the regional ARC group.

Drive Team members 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. These visits do not involve making judgements on the quality of teaching as this is not a role of the Drive Team.

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 half term (6 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 regulations, successful candidates will be identified as a Governor 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 the Drive Team member activities and those of any close family members and these details will be published on the Trust’s website.