Governance
As a Multi Academy Trust the Potteries Educational Trust embraces partnerships across all phases of education and is continually looking to expand to enable us to offer the best resources and facilities to all of our children and young people.
Educational providers from across the City of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and further afield are encouraged to contact us and explore how joining or working in partnership with the PET can help us all achieve even stronger learning outcomes, diverse and engaging curriculum and progression for our students.
Governance Arrangements
Combining individuals from across the Trust and beyond, our governance board provides confident and strong strategic leadership to foster robust accountability, oversight and assurance for educational and financial performance.
Governance Aims
Our governance board has three core functions:
- 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
- Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent
Governance Structure
Incorporating meaningful input from all members of the Trust, our Governance board reflects our core values and aims. Made up of Members, Trustees and Local Governing Bodies, our governance structure is designed to be efficient and effective.
Members
The Members are the ambassadors of the Trust and are responsible for high-level monitoring of the overall effectiveness of the Trust. Members have an overview of the governance arrangements for the Trust and have the power to appoint an agreed number of Trustees and remove these Trustees. Members are responsible for the appointment of the auditors for the Potteries Educational Trust.
Trustees
Trustees are both charity trustees and company directors of the Potteries Academy Trust. Trustees are the key decision makers and accountable body for the Potteries Educational Trust. They provide strategic oversight of the day to day management of the Trust, and are responsible for setting the vision, culture, values and ethos for the Trust and reviewing the performance of all of the academies within the Trust. Trustees are supported in their work by the Clerk and Company Secretary to the Potteries Educational Trust.
Local Governing Bodies
Each academy within the Potteries Educational Trust has its own Local Governing Body that has responsibility for the strategic oversight of the operational management of the individual academy. The Local Governing Body is a committee of the Trust Board and operates subject to the Terms of Reference agreed with the Trust Board and the Scheme of Delegation. The Potteries Educational Trust operates on the basis of subsidiarity and as far as is legally possible delegates decision making to the Local Governing Body and the Principal/Headteacher of the individual academies.
Executive Group
The Executive Group is made up of the Chief Executive Officer, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Director of Educational Improvement, Academy Headteachers/Principals, Chief Finance and Operations Officer and is supported by the Clerk and Company Secretary. The Executive Group provides the strategic oversight of the operations of each academy, develops and makes recommendation for Trust wide strategy and policies, and implements, monitors and evaluates the effectiveness of strategies and policies.
Academy Conversion Group
The membership of our Academy Conversion Group is determined at a time when support is required for our Associate Members to support academy conversion and due diligence processes. It will usually include a selection of delegated Trustees, the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Finance and Operations Officer, senior leaders, Clerk and Company Secretary, and governors and senior leaders from the school wishing to convert to become an academy of our Trust.
The Clerk and Company Secretary
The Clerk and Company Secretary to the Trust is Mrs Sue Hawley. All correspondence for the attention of the Board of Trustees should be sent to:
E: shawley@potteries.ac.uk
T: 01782 848736 (ext 307)
