Trustee Recruitment                                                                                                                                                               

Do you have a passion to see children’s life-chances transformed in northeast England? Are you ready to apply your skills at Board level to support a leading group of schools to grow and thrive?  If you answered ‘yes‘ to these questions, please consider whether you could join us as a Trustee of Smart Multi Academy Trust. This could be a great opportunity for you to give back some time, expertise and enthusiasm to help develop our trust to benefit the pupils, families and staff at our wonderful primary schools.  

Our Trust 

At Smart Multi Academy Trust we provide a high quality, bespoke education full of the best opportunities and experiences to help every child learn, be happy and ultimately successful in life.  

We are a family of 8 primary schools currently all in Newcastle upon Tyne who have formed a Multi Academy Trust because we share a collective vision for excellence in education. We believe passionately that the children within our communities deserve nothing less than the very best of opportunities and experiences to become successful citizens and lifelong learners able to lead happy, fulfilling and healthy lives. We live by our vision and values every day in all aspects of what we do and its important anyone joining the Trust does as well. Many of our pupils are disadvantaged but we work hard to prevent this being a barrier and ensuring every single one is advantaged by the education and opportunities we provide.  

We are entering an exciting growth phase which will see us adding more schools to our Trust. This will give us increased resource to widen and improve our networks that help us support the pupils, families and our employees to thrive. To do this well we need committed and engaged trustees who can advise and support this work. 

Smart Multi-Academy Trust - our Vision & Values

Our values are the principles to which we work and are central to all that we do as a Trust and in the life of our schools. It is important that each of our schools retain their own unique character reflective of their community, however all of us share our vision and values.

We care committed to following an ethical approach based on trust, empathy and respect in which everyone is included and supported to be the best they can be.

At Smart we provide a high quality, bespoke education full of the best opportunities and experiences to help every child learn, be happy and ultimately, successful in life as a global citizen.

Our Trust Board 

Our Trust Board has a wealth of expertise from the education, business, HR and finance sectors. We are interested in growing our Board to include people with experience in law, change management, organisation management, or facilities management at a strategic level. Our aim is to build a Board with the skillset to provide outstanding support and challenge to the Executive team, holding them to account as we strive to build an organisation that has a great reputation in the region and beyond.  

The Role 

We understand that being a trustee is a responsible role requiring an investment of time and energy. Nonetheless, we believe that we make this manageable for our dedicated volunteers. We draw upon the accessibility of Microsoft Teams to share resources and papers for the six meetings that we hold each academic year. In addition, Smart Trustees serve on one of the committees, which entails a further four meetings.  Meetings, which tend to run from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., can be joined via Teams or in person and move between sites so that Trustees get the opportunity to see the schools within the Trust.  As the Trustee role is “eyes on, hands off”, there is no requirement to undertake additional visits to our schools (though Trustees are always welcome!) and we ensure that our Trustees receive excellent support and training. 

For more information 

If you would like to know more and have a conversation, please contact Sandy Christie, Chair of the Trust Board, via email at chair.trustees@smartacademies.net or Colin Lofthouse, CEO at colin.lofthouse@smartacademies.net  

The Board of Trustees of Smart Multi Academy Trust is seeking to develop working relationships with the Northern Guild by offering placement opportunities for counselling and psychotherapy students. This is an excellent opportunity to work in a multi-agency-faceted role where students will be welcome to develop their skills across a number of disciplines across the eight schools in the Trust.
 

Overall purpose of the role: To provide emotional and therapeutic support to children aged 4-11 within the school based counselling service, whilst working within the BACP/UKCP ethical framework for counselling professionals (or other relevant Professional body) to improve and maintain the mental health and well-being of children.
 

Duties and responsibilities: The successful candidate will be required to work within the developing guidelines of the SMART Multi Academy Trust:

• To provide one to one counselling or therapeutic work within the SMART school counselling service for children aged 4–11 years old in an allocated school.  The number of allocated sessions will depend on relevant experience and the availability of the student.
• To provide a counselling needs assessment with parents/carers for children accessing counselling.
• Manage their own caseload diary, ensuring accurate record keeping and working in-line with the Trust’s safeguarding policy and procedure.

• Create and maintain excellent working relationships with parents and school staff. Liaise with the appropriate professionals in relation to the child.

• Provide information and case material to contribute to the annual evaluation report.  

• The Volunteer School Counsellor/Psychotherapist (VSC/P) will be required to work in-line with SMART’s confidentiality and information sharing policy.
• To work alongside and be supported by pastoral leads within school settings to work with identified children, including, where appropriate, liaising with external agencies.
   

Clinical Supervision: Successful VSC/Ps will be responsible for their own clinical supervision arrangements that comply with their course requirements.  Within school, they will report to the school SENDCo who will provide line management supervision and ongoing support.  The Trust is dedicated to promoting the mental health and wellbeing of our children. As a result, the Trust will contribute to the costs of clinical supervision and we would be happy to discuss this with successful candidates.
 

Closing date for applications: Applications are welcome over the course of the year and informal interviews with prospective candidates will be held at a mutually convenient time.
 

Applying

If you decide to apply for this post, please complete the Smart Multi Academy Trust application form and all supporting documentation.

Smart Multi Academy Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.  All posts are subject to an enhanced disclosure check from the Disclosure and Barring Service.  Please note that in all cases, written references will be taken up and made available to interviewers before the final selection stage; even if you indicate otherwise.
 

Please send all completed applications and supporting documentation to enquiries@smartacadmies.net for the attention of Jenny Spoors, Administration and Finance Support Officer.

The Board of Trustees of Smart Multi Academy Trust is seeking to develop working relationships with the Northern Guild by offering placement opportunities for counselling and psychotherapy trainees.  This is an excellent opportunity to work in a multi-agency-faceted role where trainees will be welcome to develop their skills across a number of disciplines within the eight schools in the Trust.

Overall purpose of the role: To provide emotional and therapeutic support to parents and staff within the school based counselling service, whilst working within the BACP/UKCP ethical framework for counselling professionals (or other relevant Professional body) to improve and maintain the mental health and well-being of adult stakeholders.

Duties and responsibilities:  The successful candidate will be required to work within the developing guidelines of the SMART Multi Academy Trust:

• To provide one to one counselling or therapeutic work within the SMART school counselling service for parents and staff in an allocated school.  The number of allocated sessions will depend on relevant experience, service requirements and the availability of the student.
• Manage their own caseload diary, working in-line with the Trust’s safeguarding policy and procedure.
• Create and maintain excellent working relationships with parents and school staff. Liaise with the appropriate professionals in relation to the adult.

• The Volunteer School Counsellor/Psychotherapist (VSC/P) will be required to work in-line with SMART’s confidentiality and information sharing policy.
• To work alongside and be supported by pastoral leads within school settings to work with identified families, including, where appropriate, liaising with external agencies.

Clinical Supervision: Successful VSC/Ps will be responsible for their own clinical supervision arrangements that comply with their course requirements.  Within school, they will report to the school SENDCo who will provide line management supervision and ongoing support.  The Trust is dedicated to promoting the mental health and wellbeing of our families and staff, as a result, the Trust will contribute to the costs of clinical supervision and we would be happy to discuss this with successful candidates.

Closing date for applications: Applications are welcome over the course of the year and informal interviews with prospective candidates will be held at a mutually convenient time.

Applying

If you decide to apply for this post, please complete the Smart Multi Academy Trust application form and all supporting documentation.

Smart Multi Academy Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.  All posts are subject to an enhanced disclosure check from the Disclosure and Barring Service.  Please note that in all cases, written references will be taken up and made available to interviewers before the final selection stage; even if you indicate otherwise.

Please send all completed applications and supporting documentation to enquiries@smartacadmies.net for the attention of Jenny Spoors, Administration and Finance Support Officer.