Our Company has for some years supported two schools: Rokeby and Mulberry Academy, Shoreditch (formerly Bethnal Green Academy). Both schools are now part of different Multi-Academy Trusts. The purpose of the webinar, which took place on 23 February 2022, was to understand why they had joined trusts; how students, staff and the communities will benefit; the implications for their governance and how Livery Companies, for whom the support of education was a traditional role, can help.

Liveryman David Gracie, who is a Trustee of the Mulberry Schools Trust and Chair of Mulberry Academy Shoreditch and Anthony Wilson who is Chief Executive of Newham Community Schools Trust, of which Rokeby is a constituent part, made presentations. Liveryman Christina Parry, who is a trustee of Newham Community Schools Trust and Liveryman David Lock, who is a governor of Rokeby School, also made contributions.

The benefits of operating as trusts come from having a larger community to provide more support for, for example, quality enhancement, especially when a subject is below the quality that a school aspires to, student leaders as they learn leadership skills with pupils from other schools, a more comprehensive range of curriculum and other opportunities (in and outside the schools) and specialist services for pupils and providing more opportunities for career progression for staff and administrative efficiencies. Certain administrative functions can be undertaken centrally and not duplicated across multiple sites and more support is provided for head teachers.

Although the core values that unite the schools in each trust are similar, which facilitates working together, each school has a distinct ethos and remains unique. Hence, each school will retain its own governing body and control over policies that are mission critical.

But with this increase in scale and complexity of organisation structure come governance challenges. ‘There is a scaling up challenge,’ said David Gracie. The annual budgets and combined value of the physical estate are big numbers and trusts need to professionalise their governance to ensure that the trusts best serve their pupils, staff and communities, and do so in ways that make optimal use of their resources and are fully compliant with the raft of regulations to which schools are subject. Hence the trusts and the schools require governors of a high calibre.

Appreciation was expressed of the contribution which governors proposed by our Company had already made to the trusts and their schools. The strategy of the Education Committee is to extend the Company’s involvement to all schools in the two groups as and when opportunities become available. The trusts welcomed this. The professional and personal satisfaction from being involved as a school governor or trustee was reported to be very high with one of the speakers saying that it had given him some of the proudest moments of his professional career.

Past Master David Lock, Chair of the Education Committee