School Admin News

Cutting costs in education means creating efficiency

The DCSF is approaching the issue of education funding on two fronts.  First they are looking to claw back money that schools are not spending with a rigorous implementation of the policy that they have only toyed with over recent years.

Second they are demanding efficiencies.

The question is, who is going to spend time looking for and implementing efficiency savings?  Certainly getting a group of teachers or managers to look for efficiency savings is itself going to be highly inefficient, for the only people who can really judge what is and what is not efficient is an administrator.So it is more than likely that most schools will make the issue of efficiency an issue that is dealt with by the school administration.

The only problem is that most administrators are not trained in efficiency.

The only courses that are available for school administrators and which deal with efficiency are those run by the School of Educational Administration.   Their courses focus on developing the knowledge and insights that one needs in order to make the school run more effectively, and therefore make efficiency savings.

Since headteachers and their colleagues are now getting strict instructions on efficiency savings, and will need someone to turn to who can actually have the right sorts of insights in this area – and anyone who has been on the SEA courses is going to be in this arena.

The next date for applications for the next intake on to the QCA validated, one year distance learning course leading to the Certificate in Educational Administration is 1 February, and closing date for applications 22 January.

The next intake for this two-month Work Management and Administration 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.

Full details can be found on www.admin.org.uk

Cutting costs in education means looking for efficiency savings

The government’s approach to cutting costs in education has been made clearer with its recent announcements about recruitment services, energy meters and the like.

What it confirms is that the main emphasis is going to be on efficiency savings in education rather than straight cuts.

The question therefore is, who is going to spend time looking for efficiency savings.  Certainly getting a group of teachers or managers to look for efficiency savings is itself going to be highly inefficient.

But there is an alternative.  To make the issue of efficiency an issue that is dealt with by the school administration.

The only courses that are available for school administrators and which deal with efficiency are those run by the School of Educational Administration.   Their courses focus on developing the knowledge and insights that one needs in order to make the school run more effectively, and therefore make efficiency savings.

Since headteachers and their colleagues are now getting strict instructions on efficiency savings, and will need someone to turn to who can actually have the right sorts of insights in this area – and anyone who has been on the SEA courses is going to be in this arena.

The next date for applications for the next intake on to the QCA validated, one year distance learning course leading to the Certificate in Educational Administration is 1 February, and closing date for applications 22 January.

The next intake for this two-month Work Management and Administration 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.

Full details can be found on www.admin.org.uk

Hamilton House, in conjunction with the School of Educational Administration has just undertaken a survey of 2300 primary and secondary schools to find out if they view their incoming email advertisements as HTML (that is with layout and links) or as text-only, where all the design features are stripped out.

Around 25% of those we asked replied – probably the largest proportion of respondents we have ever had for one of our surveys - and 88% confirmed that they were reading in HTML, with 12% saying they could see the text only.   This means that there are still issues around the inclusion of images as they cannot be viewed in the text-only version – and that it is advisable to include full email and web addresses as where they are hidden (eg click here) they may not be accessible in the text only version.

The overwhelming majority confirmed that they were reading the email through Outlook or Outlook Express.

Next term’s news…

There is at the moment only one candidate for next term’s news: the Audit Commission’s desire to make schools more accountable and more able to show that they are efficient.

Of course it is easy for the Audit Commission to say that they want this to happen - they don’t have to think about it any further.   But there will be thinking to be done, because schools are going to have to show Ofsted in England and Estwyn in Wales that they are increasing efficiency.

This is going to mean the introduction of changes – and those changes can be imposed by the school management, or they can be suggested and recommended by the school’s administration (who are the people who are going to have to make this work).

Clearly the best approach is going to be for school administrators to take the lead in this and start making changes in the way things are handled in the school office, and then also make recommendations to the school managers.

Such an idea can be quite scarey – especially if it introduces a new way of thinking to the school office.   The School of Educational Administration (who run this news service) are committed to offering help in this regard, as in all others relating to school admin, and we’ll be coming up with ideas that can be put to school managers in order to take control of this agenda.

And of course if you want to get further support and experience, there are our two distance learning coursees.

You can read details about our courses on www.admin.org.uk or ask for a prospectus by calling 01536 399 007 or emailing prospectus@admin.org.uk

The next date for applications for the next intake on to the QCA validated Certificate in Educational Administration, (a one year distance learning course) is 5 October, closing date for applications 25 September.

The next intake for the two-month Work Management and Administration course (which is one module of the full National Certificate course) starts on 28 September 2009 – closing date for applications is 18 September.

Tony Attwood

I’ve just written my last newsletter of the academic year (the one which goes out via the post) and to do that I did the usual bit of looking back.  I think we’ve really had a bit of an impact this year.

Starting with our courses: both the National Certificate in Education Administration (which lasts one year) and the two month Work Management and Administration Course had record numbers attending this year.

The next date for applications for the next intake on to the QCA validated, one year distance learning course is 5 October, closing date for applications 25 September.   The next intake for the two-month distance learning course starts on 28 September 2009 – closing date for applications is 18 September.

There’s full details of both courses on www.admin.org.uk   For a printed prospectus phone 01536 399 007 or email prospectus@admin.org.uk

On the postal advertising front, our campaign has been to find the best way for firms to advertise to teachers, in terms of reducing administrator work and environmental impact.  As a result we have seen a cut in postal mailing to schools of 60% in the past 3 years – and a move to emails which go direct to the teacher, not via the school office.

Following our email campaigns over half of the secondary schools in the UK have now given us the individual email addresses of teachers so that appropriate emails can reach these teachers directly without any admin intervention.   The use of these email addresses is strictly controlled – the teachers get one email a week, and we never release the emails to any other organisation.

If you would like to reduce the number of emails for individual teachers you have to handle just email me a list of your senior staff, their job titles (eg Head of Maths) and their email address within the school.   At the moment about 5% of emails are travelling this way.  Our aim is to make this 30% by the end of next year – which will reduce your workload further.

You can reach me at Tony@hamilton-house.com 

About 55% of schools are now willing to give out the personal email address of heads of dept at school (as in gsmith@myschool.sch.gov.uk) according to a survey by the School of Educational Administration.  They say that having emails go directly to a teacher obviously reduces the level of email coming into the school office.

When asked, administrators in the schools that won’t give out the individual email addresses generally replied that ”it just means teachers will get loads of emails they don’t want”.

The SEA suggest that, judging from the answers they have received, it is possible that some schools are not using the “message rules” system to handle such emails.

Schools that use this system set up “message rules” on each of the individual email addresses and on the main school address so that any message that has a particular phrase in it, goes straight into a delete box.  So, for example (and I am going to mis-spell or split these examples just in case your system already has this), any email that arrives with the word “hang .over” goes straight into that box.  Another word that triggers this on my system is “pat ches” (you’ll see what I mean)

I know that the email address of some of my colleagues can turn up on lots of websites (where they have written articles) and so they get around 300 or so rubbish emails a day, but the system of deflection means that only about 10 or so get through a day.

It is a little time consuming to set up a message rule system at first for all the school addresses (it is generally thought to take half an hour at most), but the saving in day to day time thereafter is huge.  Then if you ever spot another group of emails arriving that has not been caught before, you set up a new message rule which takes maybe 1 minute.  And such a system allows the school office to be freed of sorting emails for individual teachers – which can knock 15 to 45 minutes off the work load a day.  Maybe more.

“Message rules” is the name that is given to the system on Outlook Express (click Tools, then Message Rules and the Mail), but all systems have this facility in there somewhere.

If you are in a school that is insisting that all email comes in through the school office, it might be worth going to whoever has made this decision and discussing it.  Someone on the staff is having to spend ages sorting through mail which could go elsewhere – without causing any problems – and the majority of schools are now following this system.   Obviously it is a matter for each school – but there is a solution.

If you would like to receive regular emails with updated news just visit www.schools.co.uk/aboutemn.html and click on the link to the Administrators Newsgroup.

A discussion has arisen on the School Admin news group about the way the role of the administrator in school is changing – and it has raised a point that I think may be relevant to a very large number of administrators in schools.

In the past we have discussed the movement of jobs from the management (such as timetabling, induction, the handling of supply teacher issues) into the school office.   Invariably with such transfers training is given, and there is proper discussion and handover of such jobs.

However it has become increasingly apparent that among such job transfers, (which can be justified on the basis of efficiency), there is an increasing number of requests that take administrators into areas that have nothing to do with administration, for which the administrators involved are not trained or qualified and which are being handed over as a way of coping with the Workload Agreement.

A typical example involves having pupils who are feeling ill sitting outside the school office, under the “supervision” of the administrator.  Another example that has cropped up many times is that of taking break and dinner duty.

Among the most obvious issues that arise in such circumstances is the fact that all staff are entitled to a lunch break which is not taken on the job.   There is also the fact that no one should take on a task for which they have not been trained – and that includes break and dinner duty – not least because of the risks involved if an altercation breaks out.

One of the problems of course is that all of us seek to work in a positive manner with others in the school – we try and be helpful and we try and get things done, even if those things are not in the contract.  But there comes a point where taking on additional tasks may not be helpful to either the school or the individual.

If you would like to join in the debate about this and other topics of daily interest to administrators you can join the admin news group by sending an email to

ad.admin@schools.co.uk and writing the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  You’ll receive an email once or twice a week.   There will never be anything to pay and you can leave the group at any time.

There is a story doing the rounds that as from next September the Workload Agreement is to be implemented more rigorously.  For example, it seems that certain teaching trades unions are saying that, under the Agreement, from next September teachers can only cover for unexpected absences. 

Put another way, this means that teachers who go on planned visits or courses or who are away ill and signed off by a GP cannot have their classes covered by colleagues.

Of course, in some schools this already happens – but there are other schools that have continued to use teachers to cover lessons in this way.  

If a change affects these schools then (if the past is anything to go by) some headteachers might look for creative solutions to the problem. We have already found some schools in which administrators have been asked (or even told) to take on playground duty, without any training or discussion concerning their insurance in the event of an accident.  (The case earlier this year of the dinner lady who was seriously injured by boys playing in a playground and was unable to get any compensation, shows what a minefield this is.)

This doesn’t mean that I am suggesting that administrators are going to asked to look after classes, but it does suggest that there might be some further shifts in the way the Workload Agreement is implemented.

If you have come across any changes in your workload or indeed in the work you are asked to do, and would like to let me know in confidence I would really like to hear from you. You can email me at Tony@schools.co.uk  

There has been quite a bit of talk of late about the Workload Agreement. It seems that in some schools some trades unions officials are informing teaching members that from September 2009 they should only ‘rarely cover’ for absent colleagues. 

Everyone in school must have full insurance

It a remarkable and frightening court case a judge has ruled that an accident caused by a pupil who is not technically breaking a school rule, but which causes injuries to an adult, cannot then result in a claim by the adult.

What this means is that a teacher, governor, administrator, dinner lady, or anyone else who is injured by a pupil who is not behaving in a way that is breaking a school rule, will mean that the injured party cannot claim any compensation from the school, local authority or parent of the child.

Thus an administrator (for example) who is perfectly properly walking out of school at lunchtime, but whose journey takes her across a playground in which children are playing tag (in a manner that is allowed by the school) has no claim even if she is knocked to the ground and seriously injured through a collision with a pupil who does not look where he/she is going.

This shows that everyone working in a school really does need insurance against this type of accident.  Those members of staff who are in a union normally have insurance as part of their union membership.  Others tend not to.

In the defining case a dinner lady was bumped into by a boy who was being chased by another boy in the playground.   The judge said, “13 year old boys will be 13 year old boys who will play tag.  If they are not breaking any rules they should not be held liable in negligence.”

In this case the dinner lady suffered a broken nose, damaged teeth, and was in hospital for six weeks, having suffered serious brain damage, leading to partial paralysis and balance problems.  She has been unable to work since.