Board Members (Trustees) Valley Invicta Academies Trust

Valley Invicta Academies Trust (VIAT) provides world-class education to more than 6,000 children across Kent. With primary and secondary schools, and a successful teacher training and professional development arm, we are quickly becoming Kent’s most prominent multi-academy trust. We are looking for Trust Board members from both finance and education backgrounds who can add value to our strategic decision-making and organisational success.

Our Trust Board ensures our schools are delivering high-quality education and value for money, whilst we deliver our mission, and the Executive Leadership Team are achieving our strategic intent.

Being a Trust Board member, you will contribute not only to the strategic development of the Trust, but also to the growth of VIAT schools. As such, it is important that you are passionate about providing the best opportunities for our children and staff. This requires the necessary strategic leadership experience to support and challenge our leaders. VIAT is proud to have a culture that puts the learners at the heart of everything that we do, and we need our Trust Board to reflect this.

Candidates will need to be prepared to commit to six Trust Board meetings per academic year. In addition to these, you will be invited to join at least one sub-committee per academic year and will have the opportunity to be involved in various other key events.

Financial leadership

We are open to the backgrounds of individuals, and we would welcome someone with the following:

• a positive track record as a finance leader
• an executive-level background
• someone who has made a significant impact within their current or former organisation
• an understanding of the public sector

Whilst the children are at the centre of everything that we do, it is fundamental that our Trust Board recognises the need for VIAT to continue to remain financially healthy and able to identify the areas that require investment. Our new post holder must be able to contribute to the development of strategy, propose change and ratify key decisions to ensure that this happens.

Educational leadership and quality improvement

We are seeking someone with educational leadership experience. As our Trust Board is comprised of ten expert individuals from a variety of sectors, we are keen to welcome a Trustee who has a background rooted in education leadership and school improvement.

We are incredibly proud that our schools are all rated either good or outstanding by Ofsted, and the person appointed should be well versed in what ‘outstanding’ looks like, and support to us achieve this across our Trust.

We are specifically looking for people with a background in school or academy trust leadership, with local authority or educational charity leadership experience, or experience of being an Ofsted inspector. These skills would greatly complement our existing membership.

VIAT is actively encouraging applications from under-represented groups and from candidates based outside of Kent. As we build our organisation, we understand the value of drawing on expertise from outside our locality to help us continue delivering the best quality for all the children in VIAT schools.

Closing date: 9 a.m. Monday 25th July 2022

Please click ‘Apply via website’ to be directed to the Peridot Partners website and to contact the advising consultants to discuss this role in more detail.