• What is the most effective model of governance that will have a positive impact on school improvement?
• How does the CLF hold the Academies and the Executive Principal to account?
• How do we ensure that the strategic board fulfils its responsibilities for the overall CLF strategy?
• How do we ensure that there is good communication between the board and the Academy Councils so that the school improvement agenda is the core priority for each Council?
• How do we ensure that a 4-19 federation has cross phase governance embedded into it that is rooted in parity and a continuous cycle of school improvement that moves across the transition between the phases?
• How important is representation if it does not impact on school improvement?
• How do students and parents hold the CLF Board to account?

Holding the Executive Principal, the Chair of Academy Council and the Principal to account

The CLF will commission external reviews in order to ensure that there is additional challenge being brought to the Academies that DC, the Academy Principals and the Board and Councils could use as data evidence

• Each Academy will take part in a half day review in October each year where the performance of the previous year is reviewed along with the setting of targets for the next academic year. The outcome of this review would be fed back into the Principal’s Performance Management review in January each year. The review would be carried out by the Chair of the CLF Board or a person nominated by the chair, and the Executive Principal, Principal and Chair of Council would be challenged over the performance of the Academy
• The Academy Council would be responsible for critiquing the Academy Improvement Plan and/or linking to key priority areas that could then be fed back to the board in the Chairs of Council Meetings
• We will also publish an annual report to parents in January each year to talk about the progress made by the Academies. The Executive Principal will write a parent friendly annual report for circulation based on the one he produces for the board and then we could hold a series of CLF Parent Forum meetings where parents could attend to discuss the performance of both their Academy and the federation.

• Progress towards Academy Targets-CLF KPIs-Exec Principal Report
• Feedback on CLF Board Commissioned review-something that the board has asked for feedback on-(eg performance of different student groups, the integration of Primary Academies etc)
• Strategic Priorities-there are three core objectives in the CLF plan-we should take one at the three meetings in turn from December onwards
• Matters Arising from Chairs of Council
• Matters Arising from F and GP
• Matters Arising from the Academy Annual Reviews
• Matters Arising from the Achievement, Teaching and Learning Sub Committee
• Matters Arising from the Leadership, Ethos and Behaviour Sub Committee
• Feedback from the Teaching School via the CLF Board Teaching School link

Agendas will be built around the following standardised content:

• Current progress towards targets for student performance by whole cohort but also by sub student groups (SEN, FSM,CIC, BME etc)
• Attendance, Behaviour and Safety
• Current data on quality of teaching and learning
• Academy Improvement Plan-case study and staff presentations
• Matters Arising from the Academy Annual Review
• Student feedback via the Student Advocate Councillor
• Matters Arising from Board Meeting, Chairs of Academy Council, F and GP, Achievement Sub committees
• Council discussion of the Big Questions that the Board has asked to be debated

Meeting Cycle-2 meetings per year-Chaired by the Executive Principal

Terms of Reference

• To understand and challenge the performance data on the CLF Academies
• To review the progress towards the targets that have been set
• To monitor the quality of teaching and learning and to provide challenge and support for those teachers being coached for improvement
• To monitor the impact of CPD on student outcomes
• To ensure that each Academy Council understands it responsibility to challenge performance in their Academy
• To receive and review reports from external organisations on the performance of the Academies

This sub –committee will build its agendas around these aspects of the new OFSTED framework. This meeting could take place over a half day session so that there are opportunities for the group to sub-divide to look at specific phase and cross phase issues. A sample agenda could look like this and would be built around a monitoring and sharing best practice structure:

• CLF Commission and Review-each meeting can start with a review of how the most recent Academy Commission into an area of review has gone and what the outcome are from this
• Achievement-focus on KPI data and the interventions that are working
• Deepen Board and Councillor understanding of Raise on Line through analysis of student sub groups that can then be debated at the Academy Council meetings for each Academy independently
• Teaching and Learning-Outcomes of lesson observations and strategies from the Academies that are working to raise standards in the classroom as well as the strategy federation wide for managing poor performance

The Membership of this group would be representative of the board, the Academy Principals and the Academy Councils. The meeting would be flexible enough to be cross phase for part of the meeting and phase specific for another section of the meeting.

• Chair- (Exec Principal)
• 3 CLF Board Members nominated to attend to add input around post 16, teaching school etc-ideally both parental representatives would attend
• Academy Principals or representative of their SLT (10)
• Academy Councillor-one rep per Academy (10))

Meeting Cycle-2 meetings per year-Chaired by the Executive Principal

Terms of Reference

• To ensure that the Academies have a value added relationship with the sponsors
• To monitor the impact of the CLF leadership programmes across the federation
• To challenge and support the CLF strategy for Academy improvement
• To receive and review reports from external organisations on the performance of the Academies
• To monitor the data on attendance and exclusions across the Academies
• To monitor on behalf of the board the progress of the Teaching School

This sub –committee will build its agendas around these aspects of the new OFSTED framework. This meeting could take place over a half day session so that there are opportunities for the group to sub-divide to look at specific phase and cross phase issues. A sample agenda could look like this and would be built around a monitoring and sharing best practice structure:

• The role and impact of our sponsors
• The quality of leadership performance and development across the CLF
• The impact of leadership training and development
• Then strategies for supporting students in the Academies who are vulnerable to under-performance or falling behind
• Attendance, Behaviour and Exclusion data for each Academy
• CLF Studio
• Teaching School Progress

The Membership of this group would be representative of the board, the Academy Principals and the Academy Councils. The meeting would be flexible enough to be cross phase for part of the meeting and phase specific for another section of the meeting.

• Chair-DC (Exec Principal)
• 2 CLF Board Members nominated to attend to add input around post 16, teaching school etc-ideally parent representatives will attend these meetings
• Academy Principals (10)
• Academy Councillor-one rep per Academy (10))

This remains a key meeting for the CLF and I would keep the current model we have in place for meeting cycles-3 meetings per year. It is chaired by a board member. The membership of the Finance and General Purpose Committee needs to reflect the importance of an Academy Council rep from each Academy so that good quality information is passed back to the Academy Council. Therefore the membership is as follows:

• Chair nominated by the CLF Board and should be a sponsor representative
• One representative from each of the 10 Academies
• Two additional board members to attend -1 RR and 1 UWE representative

This group meets four times per year in the month leading up to the next board meeting and will follow the cycle of Academy Council-Academy Council Chairs Group-CLF Board Meeting. It is chaired by the Chair of the CLF Board. By placing this meeting in between the Academy Council and Board meeting it will enable the Chair to take Council matters to the whole group and then agree which issues are discussed at board level.

This meeting would have a regular set of agenda items but needs to be more responsive to the issues that the Chairs want to discuss. For example:

• Feedback from an OFSTED-this learning will be vital for the Academies expecting inspections and brings more consistency to the debate about how the Academy Councils relate to OFSTED
• Concerns or contributions to the strategic direction of the CLF
• Advice and Guidance on a governance issue
• Wider sharing of the Academy developments from the Council meetings and the meetings with the Academy Principals
• Agreement on the feedback the group wishes to make to the next CLF Board meeting

As suggested with the other meetings, some could be 4-19 or some more phase specific-it would be possible for some to start with the whole group and then divide into two meetings to look at issues that are phase specific of cross phase