On Saturday we were delighted to see our Members, Trustees and Governors come together for the Annual Trust Governance Conference 2023. This is an important event in our calendar for our governors to hear the key messages about our Trust family of schools, and our ambition for what we can achieve this year to benefit all of our young people, staff and community. Governors drive our organisation forward, setting the vision and direction for our Trust family of schools, whilst holding leaders to account and challenging us all to always be our very best.

We are incredibly fortunate in Batley to have such strong governance at every tier. This aids us significantly in delivering our Articles of education for public benefit. Nationally many schools have struggled to recruit governors, but in Batley we have bucked that trend and in the past 12 months we have recruited an extra 15 people to further strengthen our leadership. We are proud to say we now have over 60 talented individuals leading our organisation at every level. We have parents/carers, professors, community leaders, highly-skilled business leaders and industry experts, Justice of the Peace, school leaders and inspectors, school improvement specialists and published authors; to outline just some of the skills, roles, experience and attributes different colleagues bring to this crucial role.

We would like to say a huge thank you to all of these colleagues who give their time so generously as volunteers to lead our Trust family of schools. You are highly valued and highly appreciated. Exciting times ahead in Batley!