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School business managers (SBMs) are helping school leaders concentrate on teaching and learning, but they can play a greater leadership role in the future, writes Crispin Andrews.
A clear message emerged from last month’s second International School Business Management Conference. Although SBMs are already having a significant impact on school capacity there’s potential for a great role within individual and groups of schools.
NCSL is working with the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) on a five year development programme for School Business Managers.
Speaking at the Conference, Sir Michael Barber, former Prime Ministerial Adviser and expert partner in McKinsey’s Global Public Sector Practice, explained that SBMs have an increasingly important part to play in the leadership of support staff. “A wide variety of support staff must be developed and deployed effectively to remove the barriers and constraints to learning and to make teaching and the role of the headteacher more attractive,” he said.
Since 1997 the number of bursars and SBMs has more than doubled to around 8,000. In the last seven years, over 5,000 have graduated from the NCSL Certificate and Higher Diploma courses in School Business Management and a further 2,000 are currently undertaking their training.
The case for highly skilled SBMs is becoming clearer. NCSL Operational Director Paul Bennett reiterated at the conference the College’s conviction that a highly skilled SBM workforce is “essential to the development of the world class education system we are striving to build.”
An SBM at a senior level can take a lead role in the long-term financial planning needed to support long-term school improvement initiatives. According to research, headteachers can also focus more of their time – up to 30 per cent more when SBMs are skilled and properly deployed – on leading teaching and learning.
These changes are already happening for many heads. “I now have more time to analyse student performance data and have been able to initiate a wide ranging review of our curriculum towards a more skills based model,” says Nicola Shipman, Headteacher of Monteney Primary School.
Headteacher Danny Eason, who hopes to have an SBM in place across a group of Durham primaries in September, adds: “Rather than five headteachers contacting the same buildings maintenance contractor, our SBM will be able to do it on behalf of all of us. This will save so much time.”
NCSL and TDA are also looking to SBMs to facilitate the professional development of support staff. Barry Joy, TDA’s Policy Manager for the Bursar Development Programme says: “With change so rapid in the employment of support staff to cover new and developing roles in schools, induction development and appraisal can often get left behind.”
To overcome this, during 2008-9 local authorities will receive a single flexible TDA grant allocation to support the training and development needs of support staff. The website includes a web based career development tool to help support staff identify career pathways and progression opportunities.
Sharon Golze from the Don Valley School and Performing Arts College in Doncaster, an assistant head with a background in school business management, says: “Support staff are not always keen to go on courses, so opportunities for in-school professional development through mentoring, coaching, shadowing and job swapping have to be found.” It’s a point echoed by Helen Batchelor, School Business Manager at St Mary’s Primary School in London, who adds: “You need to fit training to the personality of the individual as well as their professional needs, whilst also making individuals aware of different opportunities and helping them come out of their comfort zone.”
Although 90 per cent of secondary schools have access to a school business manager, only a third of primaries currently do. Professional development for SBMs is in place and their career pathways are being extended, so an opportunity exists for more schools to freely utilise the skills of talented business professionals at a senior level. But as Sir Michael Barber told the conference there are many schools where headteachers believe they either don’t need or can’t afford an SBM. He said: “To raise awareness of the potential of SBMs we need to demonstrate that the role can work, develop effective models for deployment in different circumstances, find advocates from among the cynics to promote the idea and draw parallels with other professions – such as university administration – where similar roles have proven successful.” ldr
Next steps:
www.tda.gov.uk/developsupport
www.ncsl.org.uk/sbmfuture |
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