As the Autumn term draws to a close, we’re delighted to report a highly successful first term for our 125,000 challenge. Through our work with our wonderful corporate partners, we aim to place enough governance volunteers into enough schools and academies to have a collective impact on 125,000 children.
Our corporate partnerships are at the heart of our work as a charity, helping us recruit volunteers from diverse backgrounds with the skills to support schools across England and Wales.
How is the challenge going?
Since the 1st September 2022, we’ve appointed 100 volunteers from these partners into 97 schools across 58 different local authorities – which educate a combined total of 50,097 pupils.
These volunteers add to the diversity of the governance talent pool, with 45% of our volunteers coming from an ethnic minority group and more than 49% aged under 35 and 79% of those appointed under 45.
In terms of skills and knowledge, 78% have strong financial acumen, 77% bring excellent data analysis skills, and a further 38% have well-developed HR knowledge – all skills that feature highly in the requests we receive from schools and academies across England and Wales.
How is next term looking for the challenge?
The future for the challenge is looking bright, with another 79 volunteers currently meeting with schools and another 72 under initial consideration for roles across both England and Wales.
In the same period, we’ve seen 138 applications from 16 different corporate partners. We’ve achieved such impressive numbers by holding over 20 different recruitment sessions with our partners and maintaining strong communication channels with partners and potential recruits. We’ve also benefited from those we’ve helped appoint spreading the word among colleagues.
A volunteer’s voice:
Mahrin Fayyaz was one of the volunteers appointed this term, joining a primary school in South Wales.
I was born and raised in Pakistan and had very little knowledge of the school system here in Wales. My intention in becoming a school governor is to help shape the future of our children by helping to provide them with the best possible experience and life skills.
Find out more about our corporate partnerships
We’re looking forward to continuing our work and progressing towards our 125,000 target in the months ahead. Thank you, as ever, to our corporate partners, who are a key part of the work we do as a charity. To find out more about our partners and corporate offerings, visit our corporate page.