Our Governance

The Diocese of Chelmsford Vine Schools Trust

The ultimate accountability for Colne Engaine Church of England Primary School lies with the Board of the Trust. Through the scheme of delegation most of the responsibilities are delegated to a Local Governing Body appointed by the Trust.

Find out more about the Vine Schools Trust Board.

The Local Governing Body

The Local Governing Body (LGB) of Colne Engaine Church of England Primary School, formed on April 1st 2019, is a sub-committee of the Diocese of Chelmsford Vine Trust Board (VTB). Details about that can be found in the Articles of Association and the Funding Agreement of the VTB. You can view the Annual Accounts of the Trust for 2018/2019 here.

What this means is that responsibility for monitoring the day to day running of the school rests with the LGB while the accountability to the Regional Schools Commissioner, the Secretary of State for Education and the Education and Skills Funding Agency rests with the VTB. Part of the role, therefore, of the LGB is to provide the VTB in a timely fashion with the information they need about the school to evidence their accountability.

What we do

The Terms of Reference indicate what the VTB expects from the LGB. As a corporate body we believe that we have a wider range of responsibilities which we sum up in our annual Governance Statement:

We agree with the three functions which the current government thinks we have:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
• Holding the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure its money is well spent

We believe, however, that  we have a range of other functions which are equally important and without which the three functions above would be meaningless.
•    We have an overriding duty of care to the staff and the pupils of the school (some Well-being information here)
•    We must act as a critical friend to the headteacher in the hugely demanding job she has
•    We must ensure that the curriculum on offer to our pupils is broad and balanced and encourages learning and success
•    We are a church school and fostering our links with the church must be very important to us
•    We must recognise that we work within a community and we must embrace everyone in the community and help encourage the development of the community both inside and outside the school
•    We must support the school in working with other schools, giving expertise and experience to and gaining expertise and experience from other schools

A great deal of responsibility is delegated to the LGB by the VTB as you can see in the Scheme of Delegation.

Keeping an overview

To make sure that at all times we are keeping our eye on a wide range of aspects of the school we annually review our statement of Strategic Focuses.

Acting within the Nolan Principles

The business and personal interests of governors, along with other information about their roles, can be found in Register of Business Interests 2020/21

Information about any gifts or hospitality received by governors can be found in Gifts and Hospitality to Governors.

Governors annually sign a Code of Conduct which defines how they should act.