🏢 About us
Helping Every Child Find Their Voice
Smart School Councils is a charity helping every child to find their voice. At a time of deep division in society, too few young people get this opportunity.
💡 Our simple idea
We believe that the most powerful tool is your voice, and learning to use it takes time, practice, and belief.
Our award-winning, easy-to-use platform supports over 700+ member schools and helps 250,000 young people to speak up and make change in their schools. Schools in the most disadvantaged areas are hugely over-represented on our programme.
Our schools use a simple tool to organise short, student-led class meetings that lead to real change and build oracy skills. Schools pay an annual subscription to access the platform.
We generate income from this trading activity, and partnerships and philanthropy.
💼 Governance
Our Board of Trustees ensures Smart School Councils continues to grow sustainably while staying true to its mission and values. Trustees oversee the charity’s long-term strategy, governance, and financial stability.
Our current board includes:
* Sam Hockman – Group Chief Executive Officer, BUUK Infrastructure Group
* Chair of the Board
* Katherine Knight – Director of Intelligent Health
* Graça Fonseca – Co-Founder & Board Member, Futura Foundation, ex- Minister for Culture in Portugal.
* Jon Alexander – Co-Founder, New Citizenship Project, Author and Visiting Fellow, Harvard University
* Neil Graham – Fractional CTO/CIO and Board Advisor
🎖 Achievements
Scale 👉🏽 With a tiny amount of seed investment from The Young Foundation, we have built an exciting and scaleable platform used by 700+ paying member schools across the world. It’s regularly used by 250,000 young people.
Impact 👉🏽 Our programme increases the percentage of pupils involved in democracy from 6% to 80% in a single term. It increases the average percentage of pupils who feel listened to from 36% before the programme to 83% after. 93% of teachers say it’s having a positive impact on speaking and listening skills.
Financial model 👉🏽 In a difficult economic climate with deep school cuts, we have developed a healthy, trading subscription model. This is currently growing at 25% per year and brings in 50% of our turnover.
Awards 👉🏽 We’re multi-award winning and have been championed by figures like Brian Eno and Alastair Campbell.
📈 Priorities
Growth 👉🏽 We want to accelerate our growth in schools in the UK and internationally in order to create a bigger impact.
Vision 👉🏽 With growth challenges, different projects and funding sources, we need to do further work to develop the organisation around a clear unified vision.
Roadmap 👉🏽 Our goal is to be a ‘tech charity’ - 100% funded by trading rather than grants. We borrow our approach from the tech sector, but without tech sector budgets. This can be a challenge.
Product suite 👉🏽 Building an exciting product suite to increase the amount of income per school per year. This is one of our key goals in becoming default alive.
🧐 Who are we looking for?
We’re looking for a Finance Trustee who can help us strengthen our financial oversight and strategy as we continue to grow. Our previous Finance Trustee came to the end of their term, and we are looking to replace them.
Our financial systems are strong, and we employ a part time Financial Director to help us. Your role will be ensuring our financial resilience and sustainability as we expand our programmes and reach.
You’re likely to have:
* Have significant experience in finance, accountancy, or strategic financial planning.
* Bring insight into charity finances, reserves policy, and governance requirements.
* Be able to advise on financial risk, sustainability, and investment opportunities.
* Communicate financial information clearly to a non-finance audience.
* Be committed to inclusivity, participation, and creating positive change for young people.
💼 What does being a charity trustee involve?
In a sentence 📐
You’ll support and challenge our team and board to ensure Smart School Councils’ work is financially sustainable, transparent, and impactful.
In legal terms 👩🏽⚖️
It involves six main aims associated with ensuring that we act in a responsible, lawful way. You can read them here: Charity trustee: what’s involved (CC3a)
In practical terms 🤝
* You’d be expected to attend four online trustee meetings a year.
* Offer occasional advice between meetings, particularly on budgets, forecasts, or funding decisions.
* And a short monthly 1:1 check-in with Greg, our Co-Founder, to support and advise our work. We’re aiming to have an annual trustee offsite too.
You don’t need to be a finance specialist in the charity sector, but you do need to be passionate about what we do and bring your expertise to help us thrive.
👋 How to apply
If this sounds like you, we’d love to hear from you!
You can apply directly through this LinkedIn ad or send your CV and a short covering letter explaining why you’d like to join us as a Trustee to recruitment@smartschoolcouncils.org.uk by 15 Dec 2025.
Our intention is to meet with a shortlist of candidates in the new year (January 2026).
If you have any questions about the role, please feel free to contact Greg, Co-Founder at greg@smartschoolcouncils.org.uk.
Want to read more about us?
Smart School Councils
Nesta Democracy Pioneers
Report finds social enterprises funded by The Young Academy benefit 1.8m learners | The Young Foundation
Teachers and Schools celebrated at the ACT Citizenship Teaching Awards 2023