My Journey to Becoming Chair

October 2022

Chair, The Olympus Academy Trust

So how did I get here? How did I become the Chair of a successful and respected Multi-Academy Trust in the South West?

I would like to say that this was borne out of my strong moral compass, my desire to give back to my community or my desire to give every child the best possible opportunity to become successful members of society - all of that comes later. If I’m truly honest, it was because I’m nosy.

Soon after the birth of my first child, my cousin (a teacher in a deaf school), said to me, "If you ever want to really know what’s going on in a school, become a governor”. That stuck with me. So, when my child started at a local pre-school, I immediately put my hand up and volunteered to become a Trustee, and that was where it all began. I have since been a Governor/Chair of a maintained school and Director/Trustee/Chair of a School Trust.

In preparation for my current role as Chair of a School Trust, I became the Vice-Chair and immersed myself in meetings with my Chair to ensure that I was part of the conversation, understood where we were and had the experience to step in should my Chair be unavailable. I wanted to know what would be expected of me should I take on the role, and if I had the capacity and capability to undertake it. Most importantly, I spoke with my CEO. Our values are already aligned – otherwise why would I be sitting on the Trust Board if my own values did not align with the Trust’s values? If I were to take on the role of Chair, I needed to know how we would work together, if our priorities aligned, what he needed and expected from me and in turn, what I needed and expected from him.

Once I took on the role of Chair, I asked myself several questions – what did I want to achieve during my tenure? How could I build on the brilliant work that had already been undertaken? How could I make the role appealing to my successor? What would be my legacy?

I want all children, regardless of their background, to have an educational foundation that brings out the best in them.

I decided to do an audit of governance and speak to as many stakeholders as I could (Trustees, Governors, Staff, Learners, Parents), to determine what was/was not working, how they saw the role of governance, what their vision and ideas for successful governance looked like and to clarify my vision.

The outputs from this became a four-page to do list, and this is where my Governance Professional became invaluable. Using her expertise, she helped me to implement processes to make our systems slicker. She reviewed a vast number of governance documents to ensure they were fit for purpose and oversaw the huge recruitment drive we undertook for new governors to join our team – all the while taking on board the feedback we had received as part of our audit and being my carer!

Leading our culture with my CEO has, and continues, to be a focus. I wanted a sense of a "one governance team”, working together for every learner we have the privilege of being accountable to/for. So, we now have Trust Governors rather than Parent/Community/Staff Governors, we have an induction process which clearly supports and outlines our ethos of "one team”, we have networks in place for our Trust Governors and Trustees to aid communication and allow us to work closely together and, as part of our ongoing CPD package, we encourage professional working relationships across our Trust so that we can learn from each other and share best practice. The thing that I am most proud of, however, is that the learner voice is interwoven throughout our governance structure. The strongest feedback I had was from our learners. They told me that they just wanted to be heard.

It hasn’t all been easy, we have lost some governors and potential governors along the way, which has caused additional workload for some. But I’m fine with that. I have a strong vision for our learners, and I want to work with people who buy into this vision and will support our team to do this. The amount of background work – the preparation, the planning and the paperwork has been immense. My Governance Professional and I just kept repeating the mantra "Short term pain for long term gain” whenever we felt overwhelmed with the amount of work we had to do.

I’ve made mistakes too – I’ve tried to keep control of too much and haven’t been forthcoming in asking for help. Only recently, I wrote the strategic plan for governance – should I have done this sooner as part of my conclusions from the audit I undertook? Would the Trust Board have found this easier to help me achieve my vision? How can I share this more widely so that everyone is clear and understands the role of governance and what we are trying to achieve?

We are still on a journey of constantly improving our governance model and I am by no means the finished article when it comes to being the Chair of a School Trust. I spend at least half of my time in training sessions, reading and networking so that I can learn from others. I am still on a learning journey, and as you know, constant Government-led changes mean we can never rest on our laurels.

At the start, I told you that I began this journey because I’m nosy – in some respects that has served me well (I can put you in touch with people who have found my questioning to be annoying at times), but what continues to drive me to give my time so freely is because I care deeply and passionately about our children. I want all children, regardless of their background, to have an educational foundation that brings out the best in them. I want them to have equitable opportunities to succeed in life. I want them to be well-rounded, positive members of society who constantly have a desire to learn, be happy and be the best possible versions of themselves that they can be.

The CST Blog welcomes perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.

Sarah is a guest contributor to CST's Chairs Development Programme.

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