Edgbaston High School is an independent girls' day school in Birmingham, providing a broad, modern and inspiring education for girls aged 2-18. For almost 150 years, it has provided an outstanding education in accordance with its motto – ‘Fideliter, Fortiter, Feliciter’ (Faithfully, Boldly, Successfully).

The school has a strong tradition of academic excellence and is renowned for its commitment to the development of the whole child. Renowned in the local area for instilling confidence, independence and leadership in its pupils, Edgbaston is proud to provide a rigorous, well-rounded and holistic education to more than 800 girls across its pre-school, preparatory school and senior school. Its students are guided to appreciate the impact that they have on others, and particularly the responsibility that they have to give of their time, talents and charity to the wider community.

Offering a broad and balanced curriculum including a wide range of academic subjects, the school has a strong emphasis on the arts, with excellent facilities for music, drama, and art alongside extensive opportunities for sport, with facilities for netball, hockey, cricket, tennis, and athletics.

With an excellent headmistress, Clare Macro, at the helm, Edgbaston is continuing to thrive. The Board of Governors has undergone a restructure within the last year and now has three newly-formed committees: Education & Welfare, Governance & Compliance, and Finance & General Purposes. This restructure enables Governors to tackle relevant issues in more depth at committee level, and allows each Governor to put their skills to best use. As Edgbaston looks forward to the coming years, its priorities include ensuring that its unique value is clear within the market; refreshing its infrastructure; and ensuring that pupil numbers remain high.

The Governors' primary responsibility is to provide strategic leadership, oversight, and support for the school's operations. The Board shares in the school's commitment to promoting the highest standards of academic excellence and pastoral care, and to ensuring it continues to uphold its high standards to produce confident, happy girls.

The Governors' duties include contributing to the development of the school's strategic plan, monitoring and evaluating the school's performance, and ensuring the school is compliant with all relevant regulatory requirements. The Board has ultimate responsibility for monitoring the school's budget, and for holding the executive leadership's performance to account.

This particular Governor will join the Governance & Compliance Committee, led by Committee Chair Laura Smiley. This Committee's remit covers all areas of governance and compliance outside of finance. 

Governor (Finance)

The Finance & General Purposes Committee plays a key role in ensuring the financial health of the school continues to thrive. The ideal candidate for this position will have a professional background in finance or accounting, including within a financial leadership role, or in practice in audit or related accounting areas. Whilst an accounting qualification is not necessary, candidates should have a strong understanding of financial statements and budgeting, and will be comfortable reviewing the performance of finance functions. They will have a good grasp of risk management and internal controls, as well as the ability to review financial reports and identify potential areas for improvement.

Additionally and with the Board's strategic priorities for the coming years in mind, any previous experience in real estate and infrastructure management would be beneficial in ensuring the school's property is managed to maximum advantage. As the school looks to ensure its IT infrastructure continues to be fit for purpose, prior experience of IT change management would also be of particular interest.

Previous board-level experience is welcome but not a requirement – training will be provided for new appointees taking on their first non-executive role.

Governor (Health & Safety)

To round out the skillset of the current Governance & Compliance Committee members, the Board is seeking a new Governor with some experience of health and safety in a professional context.

The successful candidate will bring a broad awareness of the legal obligations regarding health and safety, including compliance, training and safe working practices. They will ideally have experience of working in a senior health and safety role or will have held oversight of health and safety in a broader function. Candidates will bring a practical mindset, whilst being able to advise the Board and senior leadership team on mitigating risk. This appointee will attend a health and safety meeting with relevant executive staff each term, and will represent the Board and the Governance & Compliance Committee's perspective.

Whilst previous board-level experience isn't an absolute requirement, for this position in particular, the Committee would value the perspective of someone with experience of advising on health and safety in a non-executive capacity.

As several serving Governors are current parents of girls at Edgbaston, the Board would prefer to appoint Governors who do not have a current connection to the school for the sake of ensuring a balance of perspectives.

For more information on the school's governing body, please click here. 

There are four Board of Governor meetings per year, held in the evenings with a mix of in-person and virtual attendance. The Finance and General Purposes Committee meets six times per year, and attendance at other relevant meetings may be requested from time to time. This role is unremunerated, but reasonable domestic travel expenses will be reimbursed. 

Edgbaston High School welcomes applications from everyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, faith or disability. All appointments will be made on merit, following a fair and transparent process. In line with the Equality Act 2010, however, the organisation may employ positive action where diverse candidates can demonstrate their ability to perform the role equally well.