Help to play a vital role in education: Trustees

Become a Trustee 

The Partnership Trust is, like other Multi-Academy Trusts, a charitable company limited by guarantee. As such, the Trust is governed by a board of Trustees.  The strategic role that the Board plays is integral in ensuring that the Trust delivers its mission and vision for more than 3,000 young people that attend our schools.  Our Trust Board focuses on the following three core functions of governance, ensuring that the Trust does the right things in the right ways for our young people, employees and communities: 

• 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 performance management of staff
• Overseeing and ensuring effective financial performance.

Our Trustees

Our Trustees are a group of volunteers with a diverse range of backgrounds, experience and expertise who dedicate their time to supporting the Trust and improving pupils’ lives and life chances.  Our Trustees know that collectively they are adding value to the trust, our employees, our pupils and the communities that our schools support.

As directors of the Trust they are legally accountable for providing effective and ethical governance and our Trustees support and challenge the CEO and Central Executive Team, ensuring that there are clear strategic plans in place and delivered.  

Find out more about being a Trustee

A Trustee is a voluntary role and collectively Trustees use their varying skills, strengths and expertise from all walks of life to enrich the governance of the Trust. In return, being a Trustee at The Partnership Trust is a valuable addition to both personal and professional life, providing an opportunity to make a real contribution to shaping the future of our schools, and to gain high level strategic experience and insight into becoming a non-executive director.

Being a Trustee enables you to:

• Play a strategic role in supporting the future of the Trust and enhance the life chances of the children and young people that attend our schools.
• Work closely as part of a team of similarly committed volunteers.
• Develop and enhance Board level experience.
• Engage with professional development to grow your knowledge of the education sector and Multi-Academy Trusts and governance.
• Contribute positively to the Trust community and the communities its schools serve.

Trustees must have the time to ensure that they are able to fully commit to supporting the Trust; this involves approximately 4-6 hours every month including:

• Sitting on the Board of Trustees meeting six times a year.
• Sitting on either the Finance Audit and Risk Committee, the Standards Committee and the People Committee, which each meet three times a year (we work together with our Board to schedule meetings that, as much as possible, fit in with other professional and personal commitments).
• Fulfilling a role as a Link Trustee:  by taking a special interest on behalf of the Board in a specific area of responsibility i.e.  safeguarding, special education needs, finance or health and safety.

How to Apply

If you are interested in becoming a trustee, we would love to hear from you!

There are no specific qualifications or requirements to be a trustee. Professional backgrounds in areas such as education, law, finance, HR, estate management and marketing are key skills needed, but general management skills such as negotiation, problem solving, and leadership, are also great additions.

To be eligible to volunteer as a Trustee within a Multi-Academy Trust, you need to be aged 18 or over and must complete a number of safeguarding checks. 

Please contact our Chair of the Board, Alison Reevey, via the Trust’s Governance Manager Amy Chadburn or Tel 01761 404207 for an initial conversation and further details.