School Admin News

At the end of last year the government announced an efficiency programme which involved putting smart meters in schools, and I wrote asking for feedback from any reader who had been approached about this promotion.

Here are some of the responses I got:

In response to your email regarding free AMR installation through a government scheme; we have been notified by our LA about the installation but there is a cost linked to this that customers need to be made aware of, quoted below:

‘The annual cost of this service depends on the type of electrical supply and the frequency of the billing and is between £57 and £114 per annum.  This cost will be added to your monthly/quarterly invoice’.

We are actually opting out because we are a very small school and have regular meter readings so cannot see the benefit of paying this annual charge.

We were asked about free smart meters for gas (we already have it for electricity having sourced it ourselves and paid for it).

We responded saying we would be very keen for free smart metering on the gas but never heard anymore. How do we make it happen – we are about to sign a contract for AMR with our supplier Gazprom.  This will cost us so should we hang on? However, if we did pay Gazprom now we would get it now.  The sluggishness of centralised political initiatives is really frustrating.

We have just had a new smart meter fitted – Monday this week.  We have not had to pay for it.  Not aware it is a trial, all schools are having them on a permanent basis.

No I haven’t but would be very interested in receiving one for my school.

We have not been approached, but we had just identified the need for a smart meter when it was announced. If you find out anything about how we could access one I would be grateful to hear.

I have not been contacted here regarding this scheme. Sounds very interesting!

I would be very interested in taking part in this, but I have not seen any information on it.  If you could send my something, I would be very grateful and I will follow it up from there.

We are very interested and would love someone to contact us if you have any information would be grateful!

Never heard of this scheme but I would have been very interested in this scheme. The only scheme we have been involved in is the Green Energy for Schools – Cooperative.  We were given a grant of £20,000 for 20 solar panels to be installed on our roof.  These were installed last April and therefore will have a good guide at the end of the financial year to see what energy savings we have made.

Sadly, our school has not been offered this – was the trial in any specific area/through a particular supplier?

No, we haven’t been contacted about this. We have been “invited” to instal meters which monitor usage at £30+ each per annum (we are a small school but have 3 electricity meters and one gas one, so that would cost £120+ per annum).

There were many other replies replicating these comments.  I’m gathering more information on this and will return to the topic shortly.

Work Management and Administration Course

The Work Management and Administration course for school administrators is a distance learning programme – which means you can undertake the course without taking any time off work.

The programme lasts for two months and consists of three units covering three vital areas of school administration…

• Time Management;
• Stress Management;
• Dealing with School Visitors

Students participate in on-line tutorials on each of the three units of the course. These are not assessed in terms of marks, but participation is compulsory as they represent an opportunity for students to discuss the course content with colleagues from around the country.

Students have repeatedly reported that the on-line tutorials via the virtual learning environment are particularly useful as they allow them an insight into school administration in other schools and also allow them to discuss the course and the assignments with other students.

Within the course you must also write one essay from a choice of topics at the end of the course.  Once you have passed this course you will be able (if you wish) to join the full National Certificate course, obtaining an exemption from Module 2 (Work Management) and a reduction in the overall fees.

The printed prospectus of the course can be obtained by emailing Prospectus@admin.org.uk  or by phoning 01536 399 007.   The prospectus of both this and the full one year course are available on line at http://www.admin.org.uk/Prospectus.pdf

The next intake for the two month Work Management and Administration course starts on 22 February 2010 – with the closing date for applications being is 12 February.

One of the big problems with old IT equipment (computers, screens, printers, etc) is that some councils and other collection services either charge for taking the items away or insist that you deliver the equipment to their site.

I have spoken to a company – PRM Green Technologies – who will come to your school and collect your old IT equipment for recycling free of charge.The equipment is then recycled and disposed of within the UK – all without any charge. 

The drivers are CRB checked, and they even destroy all residual data on redundant media.  (Apparently there is an official standard known as DOD 5220.22-M to which they work.) 

As a result the school is completely covered under the Data Protection Act.At the end of the process PRM will issue you with free certification evidence so you can see that the correct procedures were complied with.

The only requirements they have are that you have at least 30 items to collect and that they are all gathered together in one easily accessible place for their driver. 

They can take PC base units, CRT monitors, TFT monitors, servers, laptops, server racks, switches, telecom switches and printers and as long as you have 30 of these items they will take away other IT equipment such as keyboards, cabling telecoms.

For more information you can give them a call on 0800 840 9195, email them on recycle@prmgreentech.com or fill in the form by clicking here www.prmgreentech.com/contact.htm

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Yes, but how do we actually become more efficient?

Throughout recent speeches the government has repeatedly mentioned that efficiency has to be the new watchword in education.  And while the budget for 2010/11 remains at the level that was set three years ago, there is a clear suggestion from the schools’ minister that schools must work to make themselves more efficient.

For many school managers the question asked is, how does one do this.  How does one make a school more efficient?  The government has come up with one idea (echoing the report by the Audit Commission last summer): we should all try to cut our power bills.  

Which is fine, but after that – what next? I believe there is a solution to this issue, but it involves asking another question first, and that question is…  

Who should head the efficiency team? 

Evidence thus far suggests that schools in which a group of teachers are pulled together to chip in with ideas on efficiency tend not to be very productive when it comes to an end result.   They might have ideas, but generally speaking they don’t lead to the sort of efficiencies that the secretary of state is looking for.

This is not to suggest teachers don’t have the ability to make efficiency savings, but rather to suggest that they don’t have the background and daily experience that allows them to see efficiency possibilities. Instead I believe that once should look at the school office as a source of inspiration in this matter.  The school office has to liaise with all parts of the school. 

The school office has a wide range of options as to how it organises itself.   It also deals with school finances. Now you might say, hang on, the office can’t take on any more, and that’s a fair point. 

But if efficiency planning works, you end up taking on less, not more.  To help you begin to think yourself into this approach the School of Education Administration offers the Certificate in Educational Administration which is recognised by QCA.    

The course is taught through distance-learning so no time need be taken off work.  It lasts a year – but there is also a shorter course on Work Management and Administration, which lasts two months.

The next date for applications for the next intake on to the QCA validated, one year distance learning course is 1 February, closing date for applications 22 January.  The next intake for this two-month distance learning course (which is one module of the full National Certificate course) starts on 22 February 2010 – closing date for applications is 12 February.

An online prospectus is available at http://www.admin.org.uk/Prospectus.pdf   

To request a printed prospectus please send an email to samanthabates@hamilton-house.com or phone 01536 399 007.

For more information on the one year certificate course please visit http://www.admin.org.uk/certificate%20course.html   

For more information on the two month Work Management course please visit http://www.admin.org.uk/shortcourse.html

At the end of last year the government announced an efficiency programme which involved putting smart meters in schools.

I am very interested in getting some feedback from any school that has been approached about this.

All I need to know from you is that you have been offered some free equipment, and when the trial started or when it will start.  I would be really grateful if you could let me know if you have been contacted about this scheme.  Just email me at Tony@schools.co.uk

The Schools Minister in England Vernon Coaker has said that although school surplus balances have fallen for the first time since 2002-03 there are still schools holding back money that they should be spending.

Just over 7,000 schools have surpluses over the allowed limit and if these are carried forward into 2009/10 they are in serious danger of having the surplus clawed back.

The official statement says that, “While it is clearly sound financial management for schools to retain a small surplus from year to year, we expect revenue funding to be used to support the education and well-being of pupils in school now. It is however important that schools spend their funds wisely while ensuring best value for money.”

In the first official statement about claw back in this financial year the Minister said, “Local authorities have the power to claw back excess, uncommitted surpluses and redistribute the proceeds back to local schools in consultation with Schools Forums. To help, schools now have three year budgets to enable them to plan ahead on a much more certain and predictable basis, leading to improved financial management and better outcomes for pupils.

“Last year we made it clear that we expect schools and local authorities to work to reduce the level of balances by the end of 2010-11. If we do not see a substantial reduction of total revenue balances and in particular the excessive balances held by individual schools, the Government will consider further action from 2011-12 to bring the total down to ensure the funding is being spent on improving outcomes for children and young people.

“Although the number of schools with deficit balances has risen slightly by 153 to 1,848 schools on the previous financial year, it remains below the number of schools in deficit a decade ago. In addition, around 50% of these deficit balances were under £25,000. We’ve made it clear that where a school is in deficit, it must agree a recovery plan with the local authority to eliminate the deficit, normally over three years.”

The figures released show:

• Surplus balances in 2008-09 are down by around £118 million to £1.92 billion on the previous financial year.

• Excess surplus balances above the cut off point have fallen by £97 million to £495 million, and a record low number of schools (a little over 7,000) have an excessive surplus.

• As expected given the current financial climate, the number of schools with deficit balances has risen slightly by 153 to 1,848 schools on the previous financial year. However, it remains below the number of schools in deficit a decade ago.

• Around 50% of the deficit balances in 2008-09 were under £25,000.

Each individual school is responsible for their own financial management. They can often go into deficit or have a surplus due to individual circumstances like an increase or fall in pupil numbers – or similarly in staffing numbers.

There is a range of support available which schools should use to help them make the right financial and investment decisions, including:

The published data can be found at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/. A copy of the Written Ministerial Statement can be found online at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/newslist.cgi .

Securing Our Future – Using Our Resources Well, sets out four main areas which finances in the schools sector could be run more efficiently:

Greater value for money from sharper procurement, collective buying and better use of technology;

Greater efficiency through the wider adoption of partnerships and shared services between schools;

Stronger strategic financial planning – including through greater use of School Business Managers and more effective financial management skills;

More effective use of external advice, already available, in strengthening financial management – and setting out a clear future role for central and local government and expert School Improvement Partners in supporting frontline delivery.

The discussion document is published at: http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk/default.aspx?PageFunction=productdetails&PageMode=publications&ProductId=DCSF-01097-2009&

If anyone has any thoughts on this, please do let me know.  I am trying to develop a School of Ed Admin answer - in case that helps!

Our school is improving and our Head Teacher is “challenging” his leadership team to look at each of our areas of responsibility to research what outstanding ‘looks like’. For those on the teaching side, this would appear to be a relatively straight forward. As for the areas falling under the remit of an SBM, it’s potentially not so easy (with a wide variety of completely different disciplines involved).

I like the challenge, although I am not sure that finding a school which is “outstanding in all areas of Administration” is a simple task. It would be good to visit any such organisation, to see if I can crystallise exactly how an outstandingly well run school looks/works and particularly, how the management of that operation constantly manages to strive for improvement in all areas.

It would appear to me that if we are committed professionals, this ‘should’ be what we all aspire to ultimately.

Please email any thoughts to Tony@schools.co.uk 

Tony Attwood
School of Educational Administration

The response the SEA gained was very varied, ranging from comments that it was the practice to vet everyone, including parents and visitors, to schools where the statement was “we would never vet parents.”

It became very clear from this that the interpretation of the laws has become extremely varied, and it is just possible that the new set of changes being introduced can help regularize matters in England.

The schools secretary in England, has bowed to pressure from some quarters (but obviously not from others) to announce that the full vetting and barring scheme, due to come into force this coming summer, will now be changed. 

That policy would have made the actions of schools who force parents who take children to sports events to be checked.  Now that is being scrapped and new amendments to the law will be introduced.

In the new version a person working with children will have to undergo vetting if he or she has contact with the same group of under 16s at least once a week.  So now school visitors such as those brought in to give talks, famous ex-pupils, local footballers, theatre companies, school photographers and the like who might pop in just occasionally do not have to be vetted.

Further, 16 to 18-year-olds who help out will not be required to register. Nor will  overseas visitors who bring groups of children to the UK, unless they stay for more than three months.

And in a big clarification, parents who make any form of private arrangements with each other’s children will not be required to register. 

This will disrupt the activities of Ofsted who managed to ban a policewoman from looking after her colleague’s daughter because she was not a registered childminder.

The Independent Safeguarding Authority was created in 2006 and came into being this year.  People who are employed will have to pay £64 to register; volunteers can register for free. 

When vetting people, the ISA will use records of convictions and other information held by the police, including unproven allegations.   Everyone who passes will receive a registration number which lasts until withdrawn because new evidence comes to light.  The ISA is duty bound to monitor every registered person all the time and seek new information on them.

You can read more about the work of the School of Educational Administration and the courses we run for school administrators at www.admin.org.uk 

One of the more repetitive and tiresome duties of any school’s IT staff is the resetting of student and staff passwords. And as password policies become more complex, so the volume of passwords resets increases. Industry analysts estimate that around 70% of requests to the helpdesk are password related.

Today’s educational environment has an increasing “on-line” flavour, with both pupils and staff needing network access not just during school hours, but also remotely during evenings, at weekends and during the holidays – times when it is not normally possible to reset forgotten passwords or unlock accounts.

Self Service Reset Password Management (SSRPM) from Tools4ever offers a simple solution to these issues by allowing students and staff to reset their own passwords by successfully answering a number of challenge questions.

SSRPM

Is simple to deploy
Integrates fully with the school’s existing password complexity rules
Supports multiple VLEs for remote password resetting
Can be configured differently for pupils and staff
Works with XP, Vista and Windows 7
Frees up valuable IT support resources
For more information on SSRPM, just click on the link below:

www.passwordreset.co.uk

Alwyne Sinclair
Tools4ever UK
Office: 01452 384870
Mobile: 07912 843281
www.tools4ever.com

The School of Education Administration warmly applauds the development of UK Education News, and is encouraging school IT Departments to put  permanent links to the news service on the school web sites.

It seems as if a growing number of schools have now following this idea and are putting links to the service on their sites, so that administrators, bursars, members of the PTA and governors as well as teachers and managers, can keep up to speed on developments in the world of schooling.

The SEA would like to encourage every school to follow this idea and have a permanent link on its web site and/or learning platform.

There’s more information on the School of Education Administration and its courses at www.admin.org.uk