Transforming communities; embedding regenerative economic principles into institutions and organisations
Community Ownership models for schools;
Last edited 235 days ago by James Gardiner
The success rates of community owned organisations speaks for itself. Communities, when they have vested interest, when they have a stake and a voice are stronger and more resilient. A Community Owned MAT (COMAT), incorporating a voice that represents the entire community is as much about community wealth building as it is about individual agency that can demonstrate an interconnectedness and entangled relationship with community and the environment.
Operating a COMAT will mitigate against any perception of public assets being transferred to private ownership, while also ensuring that broad community governance enables transparency and accountability, protecting the functions that are valued while transforming the potential operational capacity.
The current education system and, for the majority, Local Authorities have not been afforded the opportunity to develop their capacity to support communities with everyday life, and everyday functions. The severity to trigger any intervention has risen as funding and capacity falls. Perpetuating a status quo is a choice, it does not need to continue in the same vein once consideration is taken of what social enterprise might achieve through the development of services from our existing public assets.
What does this transformation look like:
The COMAT will become an integral part of organisations like Future Folk Sussex (Mutual Home Ownership Society) and Education Health and Wellbeing CIC. Both of these organisations' visions and values are aligned to a community focus but underpinned with a commitment to environmental sustainability through ethically just and socially equitable practices.
Both Future Folk Sussex and Education Health & Wellbeing CIC have collective community support and are developing links with local institutions and organisations.
The COMAT is as much a vehicle for successful operation as it is a structure for support. Its trustees are from a broad spectrum of community organisations.
The COMAT will bring all HR and Finance functions to a central location, providing support for all community academies through a team of HR and finance professionals.
The main concern the COMAT has with the continuing push for academisation is one of governance, accountability and transparency. The COMAT will continue to support Head teachers to operate their academy site and will provide additional management planning and operational support as and when identified by each Head Teachers.
The offer that a Community focused MAT will enable for schools is one of flexibility whilst ensuring that broader community services are enabled from each of the school facilities. These additional services will be enabled through additional employments, directly by the COMAT, bringing additional staff into the academies to reduce workload and provide additional support for students, professionals and the community.
The services the CoMAT will offer are as follows:
Full wrap around enriching, childcare provided for 50 weeks of the year.;
Youth club operations each evening at each site;
Community restaurant linked with food hub and food producers;
Climate aware and environmental curriculum focus;
Programme director for nature and biodiversity;
Programme director for sustainability and behaviour change;
Asset management linked with future folk mutual home ownership, providing affordable homes;
Therapeutic and trauma informed practitioners and continuous training and qualifications for all staff;
Medical training emergency response and GP emergency access;
Full HR central support services along with CPD package for school leaders;
Integrated software systems that are tailored to needs, linking seamlessly to reporting functions with LA, DfE, HSE and alike through API;
Operate programmes that are linked to not-for-profit industries that are focussed upon sustainable practices opposed to unethical and destructive ones;
Collectively purchase goods and services for the community;
Develop programmes that have direct routes through to employment through enterprise development.
Sociocracy and consent based decision training for all students and professionals, enabling decisions that enrich and engage young people within the democratic learning process;
Development of legal understanding through art, embedded into creative curriculum, that enables students to explore legal policy, social justice and equality;
Access to First Aid, mental First Aid, Emergency response and incident management training for all staff;
Each of these operational elements enables resilience through a circular economy. Schools could enable a range of not-for-profit elements that they link with.
Project proposal for the development of a sustainable infrastructure to coordinate community outreach programmes from Primary schools.
As an outcome of mounting research, a need has been highlighted for developing services during school holiday periods that have strong governance, focusing upon affording opportunities for disadvantaged children and young people to participate in engaging and enriching holistic wellbeing programmes.
This proposal forms part of a wider agenda to develop an effective administrative support network that enables schools to operate a level of service during all out-of-school-hours; breakfast, after school, weekends and holiday periods, that is comparable in quality, governance and due diligence to that of the statutory school offer.
Developing a community enterprise, we aim to support three hub sites, Lewes, Hailsham and Hastings to enable 32 children each day, from disadvantaged backgrounds, to become involved in holiday and food programmes, every day for four weeks of the summer holidays.
Each site will employ teachers from the local schools to operate the programmes, with teachers remunerated accordingly for their time during the summer. These hubs will directly employ four teachers each day per site, with one of the staff at each site being nutritionally trained, to implement the food programme, built in as part of the day’s activities.
It is important to ensure that there is a continuity of care for all children and young people attending. Having developed a resilient connection with staff within their respective schools, it is important for this consistency to be maintained.
All activities will be booked under one booking system and managed by the community enterprise, linked through to the school website via API integration, where possible. The governance of the data is critical, and it is here that the security built into the architecture will be of the highest encryption. The schools and ESCC would then have a clear oversight and direct access to the reporting of children involved. As part of this software programme the children will be able to immerse into a personal learning journey, evaluating their own achievements.
In order to operate this service effectively it is anticipated that a project lead will be appointed to coordinate with senior leaders to ensure both the quality and impact reporting functions.
The ask from the ESCC HAF is to fund the set-up, staffing, administration, food and sustainability element of this programme. The continuing function of this enterprise will then be able to support additional schools to become part of the network.
