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The charity working to support governor and trustee recruitment
Governors for Schools has supported the education sector with governance recruitment for nearly 25 years
In recent years, it's developed several dedicated recruitment streams to make sure schools and trusts have the volunteers they need to thrive.
We've been chatting to CEO, Hannah Stolton, about some of the common issues that boards face, the full range of services the charity offers, and why investing in governance is pivotal for schools and trusts.
Hannah, what challenges do schools and trusts typically face when recruiting school governors and academy trustees?
Recruitment can be time-consuming, especially when boards have multiple vacancies or are looking for a specific skill set. Schools and trusts sometimes then turn to existing networks, which is understandable when time is tight. However, existing networks often don’t provide the necessary levels of diversity – of thought, background, and experience - needed on a governing board to ensure sufficient and adequate accountability; we all know this is where robust challenge and effective decision-making comes from.
That’s why outsourcing the recruitment process can be so important and beneficial – it allows boards to focus on what they do best, while we find the right person from a larger, deeper and richer pool of volunteers. This is particularly valuable in the case of academy trustees, owing to the complexity, strategic oversight, potentially significant budgetary responsibility, and breadth of the role. This means identifying - and recruiting - those with prior experience. Comfort and familiarity with such elements is paramount. Our extensive headhunt work, broad network of corporate partners, third sector organisations and charities play a key role in providing people with the requisite expertise for academy trustee roles, alongside a rigorous pre-introduction assessment and evaluation of each candidate for suitability; not just for the role of academy trustee in general, but for specific and individual opportunities.
How does Governors for Schools help schools and trusts find the right volunteers for their boards?
As a charity, we have a number of services to support schools and trusts, depending on their recruitment needs and access to resources. This includes our:
- Free to access governor recruitment service: which connects schools with volunteers from their local area who have applied to become school governors through the charity. This is our basic level of service, with schools able to provide one skills area for volunteer matching.
- Enhanced Recruitment Service: this is ideal for boards who need to source volunteers quickly, have hard to fill /multiple vacancies, or gaps in specific skill sets. It’s also a great option for schools that have had gaps on their board for some time. Using targeted headhunting and recruitment tools, we undertake a more proactive approach, and schools can provide multiple skills areas for our team to search against. New starters get access to our school governor induction training, and our Enhanced Recruitment Service also sources volunteers for SAT trustee roles.
- Chair Recruitment Service: this offering focuses on identifying and preparing experienced leaders to step into the crucial role of chair of governors. It includes targeted headhunting, chair-specific training, and mentoring (provided through IGovS) for the first four months to ensure effective leadership.
- Trustee Recruitment Service: this is a premium, bespoke offering for recruiting academy trustees and members, as well as Chair of Trustee level roles. The service includes an in-depth assessment to understand a trust’s needs, after which we mobilise our network to find high-calibre candidates, ready to take on the role of trustee, member or Chair. We also provide detailed and in-depth onboarding support and specialised eLearning for new starters.
If you have multiple vacancies across levels of governance – for example a local board role, a trustee and a member role within the same trust – our services can be used collectively.
Why should schools and trusts invest in school governor/academy trustee recruitment?
A well-informed board is key to supporting strong leadership and ensuring pupils’ needs are met, so it’s crucial that schools and trusts prioritise and invest in strong governance that is proactive. That requires boards that are balanced – and diverse – in skills, knowledge, and experience. We know budgets are tight, but investing in governance ensures your board is as effective as possible. The right expertise can help to provide economies, savings and efficiencies that, over the course of a full term of office (or two), are many times the overall cost of their individual recruitment; It helps bring in the right people and allows them to access the right training.
The fees we charge for our services go directly towards keeping our recruitment team running and using specialist platforms to find the best candidates, using best practice and retaining the highest standards of calibre and integrity. As a charity, we work for the good of the sector and don’t profit from our work.
How can boards find out which service best suits their needs?
What has the feedback been like so far?
As our recruitment offering has evolved into specialist areas, we’re delighted to have received so much positive feedback across services:
"The expertise of Governors for Schools saved precious time which allowed us to... focus on other priorities." - Laidlaw Schools Trust, on the Enhanced Recruitment Service
“...an excellent service allowing us to address gaps on the board and think strategically about succession planning.” - InMAT, on the Trustee Recruitment Service
"I have been really impressed by the level of prompt communication... as well as the calibre of candidates." - Transform Trust, on the Chair Recruitment Service
Find out more
If you’d like more information about the recruitment support offered by Governors for Schools, visit their website or contact the team at [email protected]
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