Local Governing Board

What’s the Local Governing Board?

Our school is part of a family of schools supported by the Bellevue Place Education Trust (BPET). BPET are responsible for our core educational vision, for setting rigorous academic standards, and for supervising the quality of teaching and the school’s progress.

To assist BPET in these tasks, we have a sub-committee of local advisors called Local Governing Board appointed by the BPET Board of Trustees.

The local board's main focus is educational strategy, school outcomes and high educational aspirations that meet the needs of our local community. They are responsible for:

1. Setting the vision, ethos and strategic direction for our school, within the BPET overall vision
2. Holding the headteacher and senior leadership team to account for the educational performance of our school, the pupils and the performance and management of staff
3. Ensuring investment in educational improvement is value for money and having a real impact.

These functions have been formally delegated to the local board by the BPET Board of Trustees, which is the maintaining authority for our school. The formal delegation for Whitehall Park School is set out in the BPET Scheme of Delegation.

Structure of the Local Governing Board

The chair of the local board formally appointed by the BPET Board of Trustees, serving at the discretion of the BPET Board. Together with the headteacher, the chair can appoint local advisers according to the skillset needed in the group. The suggested group size is 6-10 people and there must be a minimum of two parent advisers (no maximum).

The local governors are provided with the BPET Local Governance Handbook  which sets out the terms of reference and structure of the group, along with a code of conduct.

See the members of our Local Governing Board.

Funding Agreement

Academy free schools, like us, are funded by central government and have the freedom to govern independently. However, they are fully accountable to the Secretary of State for Education. You can read more on the BPET’s governance structure and how this oversees our strategic governance.