Trustee (Property)

“We started as one school and have become a movement for change. Progress towards equality for autistic children and young people has been made and we’re proud of our role in this. But there is still more progress to be made and this is an opportunity to be part of a charity that is ensuring we live in a world where autistic children and young people can be themselves and realise their ambitions.”

Closing date: Tuesday 2nd January 2024
Time commitment: The equivalent of one pay per month

Who we are

Ambitious about Autism is the national charity for autistic children and young people. We were established in 1997 by a group of families of autistic children who were concerned at the lack of appropriate provision for their children. Following a major capital fundraising campaign and a series of temporary locations and premises, the school and charity moved into purpose-built accommodation in 2008, together creating the Pears National Centre for Autism Education. Since then, we have grown our education services opening both Ambitious College and extending our national influencing and enabling activities.

We run specialist education services, an award-winning employment programme and children and young people are at the heart of our charity’s decision-making, policy work and campaigning. We also use our expertise to deliver training and consultancy to a wide range of organisations to improve awareness and understanding of autism. We want to help even more autistic children and young people to improve their quality of life and secure a fulfilling and rewarding future.

Even during the pandemic we lived up to our name as we achieved so many goals and plans. We developed our Right from the Start toolkit, we launched our Employ Autism campaign and we have grown and evolved. Although the pandemic has had an impact on our fundraising activities, we acted quickly and after the first lockdown, we launched our Emergency Coronavirus Appeal. We exceeded our ambitious target to help us address the crisis that autistic young people and their families were and are still facing.

About the role

Given we run schools we created Ambitious about Autism Schools Trust (AaAST), following a governance review in December 2019, we implemented several new changes including Joint Trustees and a joint committee structure wherein there are five trustees each of the Charity and Trust Boards and three Trustees who are Trustees of both Boards who serve as the joint Chair, Vice Chair and Treasurer of the Charity and Trust. All Trustees of the Charity and Trust are members of a Joint Group Board Committee to ensure oversight of the Charity and Trust.

We have been chosen to open a new school – Spring School which will open in September 2023. Spring School will support up to 90 pupils at capacity from ages 4-19. Although this is exciting, we have a battle on our hands as we call on the government to follow their solutions in the SEND Green Paper. We’re concerned that some of the proposals will make it even harder for autistic children to access support in education and so we are asking for a public commitment from the government to fund support for children with SEND. There are more than twice as many children with SEND in schools and colleges now than there were in 2010, but the government has not set out what funding will be available to pay for the additional support they need.

We are excited to announce the merger of Ambitious about Autism and St John’s School and College which took effect on Friday 1 September 2023.

We launched our three-year strategy, Time for Ambition, which sets out our aims. These include ensuring autistic children and young people have an excellent and inclusive education, alongside striving for every autistic young person to have good careers education at school and in further and higher education, including experience of work. Autistic people need services that support good mental health by reducing isolation and so we want to ensure early intervention through signposting to specialist support. We aim to ensure peer networks are available alongside uplifting but realistic information tailored to autistic young people and their families. We also want to further develop our Ambitious Youth Network and expand nationally to empower young people to connect with one another and to influence societal change.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for a new Trustee to join our Board, in particular, to be a Trustee of AaAST but of course to sit on the joint Board. We are looking for someone with senior commercial property experience who will bring strategic leadership experience. This person could come from a variety of backgrounds and sectors, including but not limited to property, residential, development, construction, and/or estates and facilities management. It would be helpful if this person had some board experience previously.

The Board meets once a term and has an annual strategy away day. We would like for our main board meetings to be in person moving forward, but there is flexibility to join remotely. Our committees meet once a term for an hour or two, depending on the committee, and this can be attended virtually. We envisage our Trustee with experience in property will be a member of our Finance and Resources Committee.

We expect the time commitment to be one day a month spread across various activities such as preparation of board meetings, reading board papers, ad hoc discussions and conversations with board members and the executive team, and attending events throughout the year.

Our Board is diverse in many ways, including autistic people being part of our Board alongside a balance of gender, ethnicity and age. We want to continue to ensure our Board represents our society and the people we work with and support every day. We are very keen to continue to have more people join our Board with lived experience of autism, either directly or through a family member.

Please click 'Apply’ to be redirected to the Peridot Partners website, where you can find full details of the candidate profile and register your interest to apply.

Applications for this role close on Tuesday 2nd January 2024.