"Governing boards are the strategic decision makers and vision setters in every school and academy. They play a vital role in ensuring the best possible education for every child by creating robust accountability for school leaders. I want everyone involved in governance to be confident in tackling underperformance, challenging mediocrity, and setting the highest of expectations; refusing to accept second best for any child."

Lord Nash, Governance Handbook (November 2015)

As the Local Academy Committee (LAC) we are committed to ensuring, as the words of Lord Nash state, that every student at the academy receives the best possible education. We, along with the headteacher, are the strategic leaders of the academy and have a strong focus on three core strategic functions:

a.   ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and setting the strategic direction of the academy;

b.   holding the Headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils;

c.   overseeing and ensuring the financial health, probity and value for money of the academy and making sure it is money is well spent.

Communication

The Local Academy Committee is chaired by Judi Dumont-Barter. The Local Academy Committee members  are committed to ensuring that there is a high level of engagement with stakeholders so that the LAC can genuinely listen to the issues young people have and take the views of parents, teachers and the local community into account.

In order to support this vision, we contribute a regular feature in the academy’s newsletter, which will provide parents / carers with information relating to our current work plan and ideas about how they and the young people of this academy can get involved.  Parent / carers can find information on our current full Local Academy Committee here.

Should you wish to contact the chair of the LAC, Judi Dumont-Barter, please write to her at the school address. Alternatively, you can contact the LAC via email on: governors@chestnutgrove.wandsworth.sch.uk

The Local Academy Committee meets twice in the autumn term, and once in the spring and summer terms. We have made a commitment to work in a fully-transparent way and thus from mid-July 2016 and within four weeks after each subsequent meeting our FGB minutes will be accessible from the link on the right hand side of this page.  Additionally governors are normally present at school performances and parents’ evenings and are keen to hear parent and carer feedback.

Work plan

The work of the Local Academy Committee is extremely varied as we seek to ensure that all aspects of the academy are developing at a level which is commensurate with our outstanding status. Alongside the LAC meetings, each term four sub-committees meet. The four sub-committees are: 1) Resources (Finance and Human Resources), 2) Children, Families and Communities, 3) Teaching, Learning & Assessment and 4) Site and Infrastructure. The items below will give you a flavour of what the LAC is currently working on:

Curriculum reforms – having discussions with Heads of Department in order to ensure that young people are adequately prepared, not just academically but through adherence to the academy’s behaviour policy, which supports learning.

Finance – overseeing the academy’s budget, setting a 3-5 year plan and supporting and raising the profile of fundraising through facilitating the work of the Development Manager and working with the Friends of Chestnut Grove.

Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) - The government’s White Paper ‘Educational excellence everywhere’, outlined the government’s plans for education in England. The governing body have a working party on MATs to enable us to consider the wide variety of options available to us as an already established outstanding academy.

Business Interests