LOCAL Academy councillors 

Millennium Primary School and Timbercroft Primary School - Local Academy Council (combined)

 Past Councillors who have served in the last 12 months

Contact Details:

C/o Stewart Kiddell, Timbercroft Primary School, Timbercroft Lane, Plumstead, London SE18 2SG 

Attendance & Declaration of interests 2023/24

Attendance for year 2022/23

Attendance for year 2021/22

Attendance for year 2020/21

Local Academy Council

The Role of the Local Academy Council

The Local Academy Council is responsible for the conduct of its school, and must promote high standards of educational achievement at the school. It is the school’s accountable body and as such:

• Provides a strategic view of the school by establishing a vision and setting the purpose and aims of the school within an agreed policy framework. It appoints and performance manages the headteacher, agreeing the school improvement strategy which includes setting statutory targets with supporting budgets and staffing structures;
• Monitors and evaluates the work of the school by reviewing the performance of the headteacher, the effectiveness of the policy framework, progress towards targets, and the effectiveness of the school improvement strategy;

• Signs off the self evaluation process and responds to school improvement service and Ofsted reports as necessary. In addition it holds the headteacher to account for the performance of the school and ensures that parents are involved, consulted and informed as appropriate, with information to the community being made available as required.

In order to do this, councillors need to gain knowledge of how their school operates through training, by attending meetings, and by getting to know their school community, for example through a small number of visits to the school during the school day councillors need to work together as a team, under the leadership of the Chair of the Local Academy Council. Most Local Academy Councils require their councillors to sign a code of practice.

Activities

As part of the Local Academy Council, a councillor is expected to:

Contribute to the strategic discussions at Local Academy Council meetings which determine:

• The vision and ethos of the school;

• Clear and ambitious strategic priorities and targets for the school;

• That all children, including those with special educational needs, have access to a broad and   balanced curriculum;

• The school’s budget, including the expenditure of the pupil premium allocation;

• The school’s staffing structure and key staffing policies;

• The principles to be used by school leaders to set other school policies.

Hold the senior leaders to account by monitoring the school’s performance; this includes:

 Agreeing the outcomes from the school’s self-evaluation and ensuring they are used to inform the priorities in the school development plan;

• Considering all relevant data and feedback provided on request by school leaders and external sources on all aspects of school performance;

• Asking challenging questions of school leaders;

• Ensuring senior leaders have arranged for the required audits to be carried out and receiving the results of those audits;

• Ensuring senior leaders have developed the required policies and procedures and the school is operating effectively according to those policies;

• Acting as a link councillor on a specific issue, making relevant enquiries of the relevant staff, and reporting to the Local Academy Council on the progress on the relevant school priority; and

• Listening to and reporting to the school’s stakeholders : pupils, parents, staff, and the wider community, including local employers.

Ensure the school staff have the resources and support they require to do their jobs well, including the necessary expertise on business management, external advice where necessary, effective appraisal and CPD (Continuing Professional Development), and suitable premises, and that the way in which those resources are used has impact.

When required, serve on panels of councillors to:

• Appoint the headteacher and other senior leaders;

• Appraise the headteacher;

• Set the headteacher’s pay and agree the pay recommendations for other staff;

• Hear the second stage of staff grievances and disciplinary matters;

• Hear appeals about pupil exclusions.

 The role of a councillor is largely a thinking and questioning role, not a doing role.

 A councillor does NOT:

• Write school policies;

• Undertake audits of any sort – whether financial or health & safety - even if the governor has the relevant professional experience;

• Spend much time with the pupils of the school – if you want to work directly with children, there are many other voluntary valuable roles within the school;

• Fundraise – this is the role of the Parents Council – the Local Academy Council should consider income streams and the potential for income generation, but not carry out fundraising tasks;

• Undertake classroom observations to make judgements on the quality of teaching – the Local Academy Council monitors the quality of teaching in the school by requiring data from the senior staff and from external sources;

• Do the job of the school staff – if there is not enough capacity within the paid staff team to carry out the necessary tasks, the Local Academy Council need to consider and rectify this.

As you become more experienced as a councillor, there are other roles you could volunteer for which would increase your degree of involvement and level of responsibility (e.g as a chair of a committee). This document does not cover the additional roles taken on by the chair, vice-chair and chairs of committees.

In order to perform this role well, a councillor is expected to:

• get to know the school, including by visiting the school occasionally during school hours, and gain a good

• understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses;

• attend induction training and regular relevant training and development events;

• attend meetings (full Local Academy Council meetings and committee meetings) and read all the papers before the meeting;

• act in the best interest of all the pupils of the school; and behave in a professional manner, as set down in the Local Academy Council’s code of conduct, including acting in strict confidence.

Time Commitment: Under usual circumstances, you should expect to spend between 10 and 20 days a year on your governing responsibilities; the top end of this commitment, which equates to about half a day per week in term time, is most relevant to the chair and others with key roles, such as chairs of committees. Initially, we would expect your commitment to be nearer 10 days a year. However, there may be periods when the time commitment may increase, for example when recruiting a headteacher. Some longstanding councillors may tell you that they spend far more time than this on school business; however, it is fairly common for councillors to undertake additional volunteering roles over and above governance. Under Section 50 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, if you are employed, then you are entitled to ‘reasonable time off’ to undertake public duties; this includes school governance. ‘Reasonable time off’ is not defined in law, and you will need to negotiate with your employer how much time you will be allowed.

Expenses: Councillors may receive out of pocket expenses incurred as a result of fulfilling their role as councillor, and NGA recommends that a Local Academy Council should have such an expenses policy. Payments can cover incidental expenses, such as travel and childcare, but not loss of earnings.

Scheme of Delegation

For more detail information on:

• Scheme of Delegation
• Decision Matrix
• Code of conduct
• LAC terms of Reference
• Sample Job Description
• RASCI

Please see the Maritime Academy Trust Website 

More...

Annual Governance Statement

If you are interested in finding out more about the work of the Local Academy Council, how to become a councillor or wish to contact the Chair then please contact the School Office on info@timbercroft-maritime.org. 

Maritime Academy Trust Diversity Indicators