the school of
educational administration

More ways to reduce your workload in the school office.

Back in September I wrote a piece about ways of reducing the number of telephone calls you receive in the school office.  Since then I’ve received a number of emails commenting on the whole issue of unwanted communications. 

At the heart of the matter is the fact that teachers and managers spend around £8 billion a year on products and services ranging from pencils to electricity.  It is important that those making these buying decisions make good choices, and spend the allocated money in a wise manner.  While it is possible for teachers to go hunting across hundreds of web sites to compare products, this is so time consuming as to be unviable, and so it is important that the information is brought to teachers in the most efficient manner – and that’s what we are trying to do.  We’re not trying to stop communication – rather we’re trying to edge the process in a certain direction.

The receipt of unwanted faxes is easy to control, simply by registering with the Fax Preference Service – that will cut out most of the fax adverts you get.   It won’t cut them all, but if you are really keen on this you can forward faxes that you get after you are registered to the FPS and they’ll take the matter up with the company concerned.   You can register free at www.fpsonline.org.uk

There is no regulation that allows you to stop emails being sent to the school’s general address, although emails sent to an individual’s email address from within the EU are controlled by law.   However there is one way around the email problem – and that is to invite all teachers to sign up to receive emails from an opt-in news service at www.schools.co.uk/aboutEMN.html   I must admit that this won’t have an instant effect, but over time the move across to opt-in lists is reducing the number of emails to teachers sent via the school’s address.

This move across to email is also helping reduce the amount of post going to teachers via the school office.  This year the amount of postal information sent to teachers by post is running at around 50% of the amount of 4 years ago – a huge drop in a short space of time.  The more we can persuade teachers to accept incoming information from opt-in email services the more it will help everyone.

I’ve gathered all the information on reducing the number of phone calls, emails, faxes and letters you get, while helping teachers make the right buying decisions in one article on Efficient Communications at www.admin.org.uk/efficiency.html 

Helping your school reduce its carbon footprint & meet sustainability targets

Schools across the UK are now required by their education departments to reduce the amount of energy they use.  Some of this can be achieved in very simple ways – for example by installing the right type of light bulb – but to make a real difference we have to go much further.

Schools are now being asked to become involved in the whole energy use that results from the school existing: including for example the ways in which staff get to work, the amount of energy used in heating the school in winter and cooling it in summer, the use of energy in powering the computers throughout the school, and so on. 

This type of work takes us into completely new areas for schools because it affects the entire way in which we think about education.  For example, never before have all of us in education had to consider such things as how to convince parents that where possible they should not drive their children to school.
 
I’m very much of the opinion that we should all be involved in both reducing energy consumption, and ensuring that pupils and students in our schools appreciate the need for change and what they can do.

With this in mind we’ve set up a news service on environmental issues that affect education.  It includes regular updates on what different schools are doing to reduce their energy usage, as well as information about free lesson plans etc for teachers, notes on which computers use the least amount of energy etc etc.

Most schools now have someone who takes an overview of this issue – it could be the Chair of the Eco Committee, or a teacher or manager who is overseeing the drive towards sustainability.   I do hope you’ll support our efforts in this field by letting the person (or people) in your school who are involved in this sort of work know about our news service.   They can subscribe completely free of charge by sending an email to Env@schools.co.uk and writing the word SUBSCRIBE in capitals in the subject line of the email. 

People can also subscribe by going to www.schools.co.uk/aboutEMN.html where there is a full list of all the free news services run via this same scheme.

Schools use new banking system to negotiate lower prices and get interest on their account

This is a story that I ran this past week on the Administrator’s email news service.  Normally I keep stories on the email news service separate from those that appear here, but we have had such a large correspondence on this topic I thought it was worth running again.   So here it is…

As I guess we all know, schools that have not had their own bank account suffer many disadvantages – such as not being able to negotiate discounts for early payment, not being able to get an immediate view of how much money is left in the kitty, and not being able to get interest on the money not yet spent. 

But such benefits sometimes come at a cost – not the least of which is that some of the cheque systems offered don’t fully integrate with SIMS and CMIS.

In investigating this I went to the SEA’s own bank, and from there found the Royal Bank of Scotland Schools’ Banking division which has set up a system with SG World, the benefit of which is that all the setting up and management of the account is undertaken by the SG World/RBS partnership.

The SG World laser cheques service is apparently compatible with all major school management software systems such as CMIS and SIMS.  The other selling points that I was told about included the fact that it produces a 3 part form which contains a record of payment, a remittance advice and a cheque.  Schools benefit from a current account which offers a faster payment/ordering process and control of their own budget.  With the cheques printed with the school name and in the school’s colours, they tend to add to the professional image of the school.

You can find out more about running their own current account through the SG World/RBS partnership by calling 01270 588211 or emailing enquiries@theeducationcatalogue.co.uk. 

Legal issues surrounding your day to day work in the school office.  

The School Administrators’ web site contains a whole range of articles on issues that affect the day to day working of the school office.

These are divided into three different groups, one of which is legal issues.   Each of these articles has been written following a request from an administrator.  There’s always the caveat that we are not giving exact legal advice, but rather general guidance which may help resolve an immediate problem. 

Where there is a deeper issue however we always suggest that you seek legal advice, perhaps through your trade union.

The latest report to be added to the series deals with fire risk assessments, and follows on a report that a significant minority of schools are not carrying out the legally required assessments when they should.   The article can be accessed free of charge within the legal part of the web site – details below.

We also have a report on schools and VAT, following our discussion on the topic on the school administrators’ news service earlier this year.  It too can be found on a link from the legal reports page, as can our report on conditions of employment for administrators.   This last report asks the rather challenging question, “Is your contract legal?” – again following issues raised by colleagues who were concerned about what their contracts said.   (We also had one or two comments from people who said they had no contract at all, and the articles deal with this as well.)

All of these articles are available free of charge at www.admin.org.uk/legal.htm    What’s more, if there is an area of concern that you have and which you would like us to look into, we’ll be happy to do that.  But please remember, all we can do is give a general summary of the regulations and directives – we can’t give definitive legal information on specific cases.  For that you will need a lawyer.

Additional starting date for Certificate in Educational Administration course.

Earlier this term I wrote to say that the final intake of the year for the Certificate in Educational Administration course was in September.

And, at the time, so it was.   However we had an all-time record number of applicants to join the course on that date, and we were not able to give places to everyone who wanted to start at that time.

So we have now arranged an extra intake of students for this one-year distance-learning course.   The closing date for applications will be 24 October and the course will start on 10 November.

The course consists of a series of modules which focus on various topics within educational administration, including school efficiency, time management, stress management, leadership, health and safety, ICT, budgeting, human resource management, educational marketing etc etc.

Students on the course get printed copies of the course, along with having access to on-line editions, and then take part in on-line discussions with fellow students on key topics, as well as having to write a number of essays and undertake one project.

Each student has a tutor to oversee the work, and there is a lot of support available to guide students through the course – particularly for students who have not undertaken any formal study for some time.

The course is recognised by QCA and is validated by the Institute of Administrative Management (who also validate courses at the NCSL).  It is also now recognised by the Council for Administration.

There’s more information at http://www.admin.org.uk/Prospectus.pdf  

It’s not just the teachers who are getting the new technology

The drive towards efficiency and the removal of paperwork from the school office has encouraged several firms to develop computer systems that cover both the school’s administration and teaching and learning within the school.

Such systems can work wonders for the school’s administration, because of their integrated nature, incorporating as they do such facilities as the school calendar, student details, attendance, timetables, reporting, student e-portfolios, messaging and much more – along with all the features that teachers require.

The system that I have been looking at comes from Scholaris, and one feature I particularly liked was the fact that when parents want to know how their child is getting on it is always possible to inspect the child’s results along with the teachers’ comments, on-line.  Which means fewer phone calls to the school office, fewer meetings to set up, fewer visitors to the school.  All of which makes life that little bit easier.

These systems allow you to send emails, notes and reports to teachers, parents, students and managers without leaving the program. 

As a result of all this, all the documents required within the school are then stored in one secure location, and it is also possible to set up an alert every time something is updated or uploaded by another user.

The system also includes communication with parents, homework, grades, timetable, research, record-keeping, reminders to students, or any one of a hundred other administrative tasks.

This new approach to the administration of schooling by Scholaris is already in use in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Canada and you can find out more at www.scholarisintl.com

Meeting the calls for sustainability, and helping to save the environment

Throughout the UK there is now a drive to reduce the impact on the environment of schools and schooling, through cutting carbon emissions and ensuring that everyone in the school understands the issue of sustainability, and realises what they can do to help.

In order to help with this campaign the School of Educational Administration is promoting a news and information service about sustainability and the reduction of carbon footprints in schools.   The service is completely free, and it is aimed at anyone who is actively involved in meeting government sustainability targets for schools.

Subscribers to the service get an email once a week, plus of course a chance to put their questions to all the other subscribers on the group.   In the opening weeks of the service this term we have dealt with how to get government grants so that alternative energy sources can be used in schools, and we’ve covered a report on ten ways in which schools can “go green” and so meet government requirements.

In coming weeks we will also be looking at the availability of free teaching materials on all matters to do with the environment and going green.

In order to subscribe all anyone has to do is send an email to Env@schools.co.uk with the word SUBSCRIBE in capitals in the subject line.   If you have an Eco Committee in your school, or a member of staff who is heading up the drive towards sustainability, perhaps you could let them know about the service by passing this page on, or emailing the details across to them.
This news service is just one a series that we are sponsoring.   Indeed I’ve written before how the SEA is supporting a drive to direct relevant reviews of educational products to teachers via emails that reach the teachers directly. 

Getting every piece of information you want – just when you need it.

Ever since we first set up the School of Educational Administration my colleagues and I spent a lot of time asking fellow administrators how we could help to make life in the school office better.

One of the key points raised was that there was a need for systems that would allow administrators to ask colleagues in other schools questions about all sorts of topics.   Has anyone been asked to work in a publicity or marketing role who could help me get going?  Or, are there any set protocols for allowing "workmen" on to the school site?  Or what is the best software for handling bulk message to parents via text and email?  Or even, where I can get A4 plastic coloured wallets?   

If you want to be able to ask questions and see the answers that come up (and at the same time help your colleagues if you know an answer, you can do this by joining the School Admin & Bursar’s Newsgroup.  All you do is send an email to ed.admin@schools.co.uk and write the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line (please use capitals).  You’ll not only get the chance to read questions and pose your own, but also once a week an update on other important issues relating to educational administration.  There’s no charge for the service.

Second, if you are looking for a particular product or service for the school – or indeed if a member of the teaching staff is looking for something, there is an ever growing databank on the Schools Procurement Site at www.top5.org.uk   We received a huge amount of feedback on this site last year, and as a result we’ve totally revamped it, making it much easier to use.  If you saw it before, and maybe found it difficult to locate a precise product, please do take another look as I suspect you’ll notice quite a difference.   Also, you might wish to tell your teaching colleagues about this site, since it can make life a lot easier for everyone who is searching for a particular product or service.

I do hope you find these developments helpful.  Like most of our services they are completely free.  If you have any ideas on other facilities or services we ought to offer, please do let me know.  I can’t guarantee to meet each request but we do look at each and every idea, and we do try and answer every suggestion, even if we can’t act on the idea.

Two ways to reduce the number of phone calls you get in the school office.

First method: check your details on the Schools Directory.

Every week thousands of parents look up the details of schools on the Schools Directory.  The Directory, which is housed within the www.schools.co.uk site, allows parents to type in the school name, or the name of a town or a postcode, and find the match.

Parents find the site because on some search engines (for example Google) if you type the word “schools” in as a search, the Schools Directory comes up near the top (on some machines it comes out at the very top) of the 29 million listings that match that word.

What also makes the site important is that not only does it list every school, well over half of the schools in the UK now have their own web site linked to the schools.co.uk site.  To find out if your link is there and working, simply go to www.schools.co.uk and click on The Schools Directory (second item down on the list on the left).   Then type in some details of your school in one field and click the button.  Details will appear below.

Now click on the link of your school and then check the details – including the web site link.  If anything is wrong, or if there is no web site link, or if it doesn’t work, go to the top left box, click on “Update school details” and then complete the pop up form and click the “submit” button when done.

There is evidence that schools that have all the correct information listed, do get fewer irrelevant enquiries because the parents can learn more about the school before making the phone call.

Second method: join Corporate TPS.  Like the Schools Directory, registration with CTPS is free.  It is an offence for a company to make a sales phone call to a school that is registered with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service.  Just go to www.tpsonline.org.uk and then click on “What is Corporate TPS?” and you can register on line.  That will cut the number of sales call you get. 

This is the topic that administrators raised more than any other last school year: how to reduce the number of emails and letters that reach the school office with the request that they be forwarded to teachers.

The SEA spent much of last school year trying to solve this problem – and with the help of administrators in around 4000 schools a test project was run earlier this year.   It was such a success we now want to expand it – and your help is needed.  The benefit to you will be a reduction in the number of leaflets and emails you receive.

Most administrators agree with the need to pass information on to teachers: heads of department obviously have public money to spend and it is important that they can have information to allow them to spend the money wisely.  So we’ve devised a system that allows this information to get through to teachers who want it, without adding to your workload.

We’ve set up a series of email news services each of which carries information about free and paid for resources, government initiatives and other relevant news items.  Teachers sign up for the service they want (its all free of charge) and get one or two emails a week direct to their personal email address (not to the school address).  They can leave the service at any time, and no one else ever has access to their email address.

For the service to get off the ground teachers need to be told about it.  Information about our service is enclosed (see the leaflet “Reducing Your Workload”).  If you can spare a moment to circulate this now you should see the results in the months to come.   It is also possible to tell teachers about the service via email by directing them to  www.schools.co.uk/aboutEMN.html which again describes the service and allows teachers to sign up.

Cert Ed Admin course and Work Management & Admin course update.
                                                                                                           
A major part of the work of the School of Educational Administration has been the development of courses that focus on school effectiveness and school efficiency.   These courses are taught through distance learning methods, and are available throughout the UK, Channel Isles and Isle of Man.

The Certificate in Educational Administration is a one year course at level 3 (the same as A level) and is fully accredited by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA).

This accreditation comes in addition to the recognition given to the course by The Institute of Administrative Management which is responsible for ensuring that the course is of a high quality and is at an appropriate level.  As a result of this recognition all students on the one-year distance-learning course now automatically become student members of the IAM for the year of the course, and for a further one year thereafter.

The Council for Administration (CfA) has also confirmed that the Certificate in Educational Administration has been accepted as an Administration Technical Certificate for the Business and Administration Apprenticeship and Advanced Apprenticeships.

I would also add that the National College of School Leadership recognises that the Certificate in Educational Administration as a suitable preparation for its own Bursar Development Programme, subject to the normal entry requirements.

We also offer the Work Management and Administration course which lasts 2 months and consists of one of the modules from the full one-year course. 

There is more information on both courses at www.admin.org.uk, or you can read more in our prospectus which is available from Prospectus@admin.org.uk or by calling 01536 399 007.

The next intake for the one year course closes on June 23, while the final day for registering for the next intake of the two month Work Management course is on June 2.  I do hope you will be interested in our courses and will be joining the hundreds of administrators who have already taken our courses.   Tony@schools.co.uk

CELEBRATING SCHOOLS DAY: Showing the country what really goes on in school   

I was recently talking with colleagues about the way that every summer the media run a series of negative educational stories – often centred around the fact that standards in exams are falling, children are less able to read and so forth.

Such stories are, of course, all made up, and although ministers and others come out and defend schools the newspapers generally treat such ministerial comments as excuses.

So we came up with the idea of “Celebrating Schools Day” which will be held on 15 July 2008.   It is a day that allows schools that wish to join in to get some free positive publicity.

In the coming weeks the Celebrating Schools Day committee will be sending press releases to every local paper and radio station in the UK to tell them about the Day and inviting them to contact their local schools for stories of the year.

The idea is that if your school wants to join in, then a week or so ahead of the day you send a press release to your local paper and radio station commenting on some of the great things that have happened during the year in the school.

This can include anything that the school and the pupils or students value – such as special achievements by pupils, money raised for charity, expeditions, work in the community, and indeed the fun and celebration of the leavers’ ball and other such events.

If you have a person in the school who handles the school's PR and marketing you might like to invite him/her to subscribe to our news service that covers this sort of matter so they can stay in touch with information on the day.   This can be done through sending an email to PR@schools.co.uk with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  It is completely free.

There are more ideas and details about Celebrating Schools Day on the www.schoolspr.co.uk site. 

Celebrating Schools Day is being sponsored by Book-Builder, the company that publishes School Yearbooks.  They will be building a web site that allows pupils, under the guidance of teachers, to post their own positive memories and recollections of the year.   There is more about Book-Builder on www.yimple.com or by phoning 0845 388 9901.

School Administrators’ Day 

In the USA every year they have Administrative Professionals Week to celebrate the importance of administrators in business, in government and in schools.

I have known about this for several years, but it was only this year that I suddenly realised just how huge an event this is in the US.  Indeed it was in the 50 most searched for phrases on Google for several weeks in the USA.  In fact if you type in the phrase “Administrative Professionals Week” into Google you get over 750,000 findings of that exact phrase.

It has been running since 1952 (it was originally called Professional Secretaries Week) and clearly the week has had a huge impact on the positive way Americans think about administration.  So for the past few weeks I have been consulting with professional associations and others, and we have decided to bring the idea to the UK.

We have decided to learn from the American experience but in the UK we are going to focus exclusively on the school administrator.  We are aiming, through the School of Educational Administration, to run School Administrators’ Day – a day when we invite all parents, teachers, governors, managers, and pupils to celebrate the work school administrators do all year round.   It will of course take quite a bit of planning and organising, but I certainly believe this will be possible.  (My colleagues and I were recently involved in running another such day, and we got two slots on Breakfast TV, a Radio 4 programme, the World Service slot and lots of local coverage.)

We will need volunteers who are willing to talk to the media – and if you are interested in this do send me an email so I can keep you posted on all the latest developments.   There will be more news here, and on www.admin.org.uk – where you will also find a new section where administrators pose and answer questions about products and equipment used in schools.

Finally if you would like to receive a weekly email which allows you to pose questions and keep up to date with other issues in administration, just send an email to ed.admin@schools.co.uk and write the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Every week administrators ask questions.  Would you like to see the answers? 

Each week we get a lot of emails asking us questions.  Below are some recent examples.   If you would like to be part of the service that allows you to ask questions, and see all the answers, the details are at the end.  And it’s free.
We are an independent school and need to create a new admissions register.  Do you have any information on where we might be able to buy one or if any other schools would be able to provide a prompt response.
Rats - any ideas from rural schools on safe ways to reduce the population??
Anybody looked into whether electric hand driers are more economical than paper towels?? We seem to use up LOADS of paper towels, and the Governors need to be convinced that this is not the way to go.....
Do other schools use cleaning schedules for their cleaners to ensure that all areas in school are given a deep clean periodically?
What email system do the majority of schools use?  We are experiencing major problems at present with our email provider and wonder whether any schools use Google Mail.  If your school does use Google Mail what is your opinion of it?  What are the safety levels?
Can I ask how schools without a dedicated HR/Personnel function manage the ever increasing workload connected with Staff Recruitment & Retention, Staff Policies and Procedures and Employment Law etc especially from a Support Staff perspective.   
I would like to update our software to monitor school fund account and would like to ask other administrators which software they currently use and which they would recommend.
I would like to hear from anybody who has or is using the Tucasi School Cash Office and the Dinner Money Management software.  I have seen a demo and it looks fantastic, but before I go ahead I would like to have some feedback on this and other software.

The SEA “keep fit in just two minutes a day” programme for school administrators. 

Most administrators drive to school and don’t realise that this gives many chances for staying fit.  First, buy a fold-up bicycle, fold it up, and put it in your car (excellent stretching and reaching exercises). 

As you drive to work, watch out for people who have already unfolded their bikes and are passing you on the wrong side of the road, driving across red traffic lights and mounting the pavements and then using your car to kick off their next weave in and out of traffic.   At regular intervals hit the breaks firmly (reducing ankle fat), grip the wheel hard (loosening wrist tissue) shout vigorously at the cyclists (exercising vocal chords and getting the diaphragm going) and hit the horn (strengthening every muscle in the hand and arm).

As you approach the school, park about half a mile away.   Remove your fold-up bike from the car and attempt to put it together.   If you manage to do this, cycle to school, phone the manufacturer and tell them you are the first person ever to put a fold-up bike together.  If you fail, pick up the bits of the bike and throw them into the road with as much force as possible (thus exercising back and arm muscles, and raising your heart rate, which it is important to do each day).

Slam the car door with vigour and walk to school; carrying your case, laptop, lunch and anything else you can think of (for muscle toning).

On entering your office undertake a full review of all staff who are off work on maternity, paternity or study leave, or who are absent with nervous stress or are consulting their lawyers over health and safety in school issues.   This will re-stimulate your blood supply as you realise that once again you are the only person who turns up to work more than 3 days a week.

Now relax into your chair in the knowledge that you have improved your health and fitness, while those around you have not.   Then finally make a note to sign up for a course with the SEA that includes “dealing with stress”.  The final date for applying for the QCA validated one-year distance learning Certificate in Educational Administration course is May 6.  The two-month Work Management and Administration Course closes its next intake on 31 March.   Have a really jolly Easter, and thank you for reading.                                                                                                                                              Tony@schools.co.uk

Ensuring that we all do our bit for the environment. 

Every year the schools in the UK receive around £35 billion from public funds.  Around £26 billion is spent on salaries, but the rest is available to be spent on books, software, fuel, grass cutting, and everything else that schools want to buy.

Obviously it is important that different suppliers are considered for purchases to ensure that this public money is spent properly.  But that is where the problem starts.  Suppliers want to send people in your school leaflets and brochures describing their products.   Creating the leaflets uses resources, distributing the leaflets takes up your time – but without this process it is hard for school managers to keep up to date with new offers.   They can of course look supplies up on the internet, but such activity takes up much much more time – time which most teachers certainly say they cannot spare.

To overcome this problem we have set up two services.  One is a web site that gives links to hundreds of suppliers’ websites, each being classified by subject area.    The other is a series of email newsgroups which supply news and product information to teachers, managers and administrators.  

Of course these projects are new – and so they have not replaced the mail as yet – and indeed it is possible that they never will.  But these two initiatives have helped reduce the amount of mail reaching schools – our volume of paper mailing is down by around 30% this year.  

The School Procurement Site, which has links to hundreds of suppliers’ sites is at www.top5.org.uk   As a bonus it also now lists a growing number of companies that supply free products and services to schools.

The email news services are described in full on www.schools.co.uk - just look at the heading “Sign up for our free news services” in the middle section.  You might particularly like to note that one of the news services is for school administrators.  If you would like to join, just click on the link.

In the meanwhile I do hope you know how much I appreciate your work in distributing the leaflets that we regularly send you, on behalf of our clients, who by using our distribution services support the work of the School of Educational Administration.                      Tony@schools.co.uk

The girl who invented spam

Occasionally I interrupt the normal flow of information about the courses and services we run for administrators to bring you unexpected tales from the wilder side of schooling and later life.  Here is one such – if you find it too silly please turn it into a paper plane.  The main message is at the very end. 

Jilly McGraw was educated at Woffle Edge School in the Cotswolds where she met the future Viscountess Southcliffe (heir to the Daily Prod).  This unlikely couple regularly debated novel ways of annoying people, their favourite being the selling of products that either didn’t exist or which neither of them actually owned.   Although the idea progressed little during their school days neither girl forgot it, and in later years it served them well.

While Southcliffe moved into newspapers Jilly was faced with a somewhat restricted life after 3 years at the University of Certain Things.  Initially she set about defining herself as an economic misfit while working for ITV.   Later she toured the dance halls of the UK proclaiming that she was a jellyfish that had been washed ashore at Henley during the Regatta.  She was recruited into MI5, and for her cover story became Social Conservative Progress candidate for Slightly Cheaper, which she won with a landside majority in 1986.

Most of her work during this period involved writing obituaries about famous people who had not died, which were regularly published in the Telegraph. 
When her father’s estate was taken over by her half brother Sir Hubert Herby-Percy she invented email as a way of persecuting the family, selling much of their estate at knock down prices.

In 2002 she was granted the Lenin Humanitarian Prize for her work on helping oil widows in Nigeria export their late husbands’ funds, and was awarded the Inverted English Award for grammatically incorrect fake pharmaceutical advertisements.  The size and scope of her work can be seen by the fact that over 98% of all emails last year followed her style and approach, although all those from the SEA were incredibly serious and very helpful and I hope you read them.

The next Certificate in Educational Administration course contains no jokes: the final registration date is March 10.   Registration for the Educational Work Management & Administration course closes on March 31.   You can obtain a printed copy of the 2008 prospectus by calling 01536 399 007 or by emailing prospectus@admin.org.uk   I do hope you’ll take a look at the course – but meanwhile I hope the story slightly lightened the day.   Tony@schools.co.uk

An opportunity for an alert administrator to sort out a business that is in real trouble. 

Last month I decided to close my Nationwide Building Society account.  As it was a postal account I sent my pass book through the post.  They sent it back saying that although the account was originally a postal account, they had changed it without telling me and I now had to visit my local branch.

Frustrated but determined, and duly armed with various forms of identity I presented myself at my local branch and made my request.   They told me that they couldn’t close the account there – it had to go by post to head office – but they could give me some of my money and then they’d send the book off.

I said that was fine, and the staff started to process my request.   An hour later I was still waiting as none of the people in the branch were able to work out how to give me my money.   When I could wait no longer I made my excuses and went to leave.  At the door I noticed a sign saying that as a customer of Nationwide I was entitled to the highest standards of administration.  If they fell short of such standards they would appreciate it if I filled in a complaints form.

I returned and asked for the form.  Ten minutes later the manager had to admit she didn’t know where the complaints forms were and couldn’t give me one.

Back in the office I tried the Nationwide web site.  That told me that if I had a complaint, my first port of call was to phone head office.  This I did and after a wait of under half an hour I was able to put my complaint, only to be told that if I had a complaint I had to go to the branch.  A conversation followed.    

Three days later I went back to the branch, where I was given the bulk of my money, before sending the book away for the closure.   A week later I got the pass book back, without the final cheque, but with a note saying that they could not close the account because I needed to go to my branch so they could complete the security checks.  A further phone conversation ensued.   

A week later my money arrived, quickly followed by a letter from Nationwide.  It warned me that unscrupulous people might try to get me to reveal the details of my Nationwide account by asking me to undergo security checks which involved revealing my password etc.   The letter said, “telltale signs include spelling mistakes and poor grammar.”  It suggested I should always follow certain procedures, “to ensure neither you or us are compromised”.   

The two national courses for school administrators

The National Certificate in Educational Administration is a one-year, distance learning course for school administrators combining printed materials and an on-line virtual learning environment. It was developed by the School of Educational Administration, is recognised by QCA as a level 3 course, and is validated by the Institute of Administrative Management who are also the validating body for the National College for School Leadership's qualifications. 

All students on the course automatically become student members of the IAM and will be sent information about this with the course materials.

Although the course is partly vocational and will encourage students to evaluate their own working environment, it is not an NVQ. It includes learning materials to read through with links to interesting web pages or journals. It also includes mini tests so that students can test themselves, as well as projects where students take what they have learned and apply it to their workplace. It is very interactive and students both build on their reading and exchange ideas and information with colleagues in other schools.  You can read about the course at www.admin.org.uk  

Students generally find they spend three to four hours a week on the course through the year.  At the end of the course students receive a certificate from the Institute of Administrative Management. 

We are now recruiting students for the first intake of 2008. Closing date for applications is 28 January and the course begins on 4 February.

We are also now accepting students onto “The Certificate in Management Practice: Educational Work Management and Administration”.  This course consists of one module from the National Certificate in Educational Administration.   The next intake closes on 13 February 2008 and runs for two months.   Having completed this course you can then move on to take the rest of the full National Certificate course.

Over 60% of local authorities in the UK have now paid for administrators to take our courses.  Details of the costs can be found with further information on the course content on www.admin.org.uk

We’re doing our bit for the environment, but we need your help
                                                                                                           
The School of Educational Administrators is committed to taking steps to make schools more efficient, and to make reduce the impact that activities around schools have on the environment.  But we need your help.

Everyone clearly needs information on products and services when buying everything for the school from repairs to windows to new software – especially this term when so many schools have been given additional money to spend. 

When you or your colleagues are searching for products or services from companies please do take a look at The School Procurement Site at www.top5.org.uk    It has web links to hundreds of firms organised by subject and topic, and allows you to find suppliers very easily.

Also encourage everyone to sign up for our free news and information services which come via email.  Thousands of school administrators, teachers and managers now receive these regular bulletins – just go to The School Directory Site: www.schools.co.uk - and see the listing “sign up to our free news services”.

Also while you are on that site, please do check that the information we hold on your school on the Schools Directory is correct.  Tens of thousands of parents use the site every month – and this reduces the demand on prospectuses – another positive environmental saving. 

Of course there is still a need for printed information to be distributed – as with this pack.  But we are acting to minimise the environmental impact both by putting the materials together in one pack, and by making a donation to the Woodland Trust which is more than enough to plant and maintain a greater number of trees than are used in the production of the paper used within this package.  What’s more, all the energy we consume in our offices and warehouses comes from renewable sources such as wind power.  

One final thing this week – there is still time to sign up this term for one of the QCA recognised distance learning courses run by the School of Educational Administration.  Full details are on www.admin.org.uk.  Or for a printed copy of the prospectus please email prospectus@admin.org.uk or call 01536 399 007.

The great thing about the SEA is that we aren’t limited in what we can do 
           
The School of Education Administrators was set up with a very simple aim: to help everyone working in school administration.   This means that we have no restrictions on what we do and which projects we take on.   But it does mean that over the years we have tended to wander off into all sorts of areas of work – and as a result it is possible that we do things that could be helpful to you and your colleagues, but which your school does not know about.

To make it easier for you to keep an eye on each project we take on, we’ve changed the layout of the web site www.admin.org.uk so that you can see on the home page the key things that we are working on at the moment.  The site is updated regularly – but here’s a quick summary of a few current issues…

The next intake for the QCA validated one-year distance learning course “The National Certificate in Educational Administration” closes on 28 January.   The next intake for the two-month “Work Management and Administration Course”
closes on 13 February.  To request a printed prospectus for either course please phone 01536 399 007 or email prospectus@admin.org.uk

We now run several regular email newsletters – and obviously over time we want to expand this, and thus reduce the amount of paper sent to schools.  To receive our weekly email newsletter on issues concerning school administration send an email to ad.admin@schools.co.uk with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Details of our email newsletters to teachers and managers are given on the www.schools.co.uk web site.   This site also contains links to every school in the UK – and where possible the school’s web site.   You can check your entry by clicking on “Schools Directory” on the site.   There is a link in the top left box through which you can correct any errors.  Thousands of parents a day use this site, so it really is worth making sure your details are up to date.    

Finally (for the moment!) there’s the School Procurement Website which has been designed to save time when searching for suppliers of products and services.  We are about to expand this with a series of listings of materials provided free for schools.   The site grows every week – as well as using this yourself to find suppliers please do continue to encourage all your colleagues to use it: www.top5.org.uk.   And meanwhile, if you’ve got any ideas for other things we can do to help, just email me at the usual address:
Tony@schools.co.uk

The recycling issue – how different schools are solving the problem. 

Since last October schools have a legal obligation to recycle paper and card – and recently the SEA email news service organised the first ever school recycling survey to find out how this has affected schools.

In practical terms most schools have introduced separate containers for recyclable waste although a few schools still collect the waste into one container for it to be segregated at a recycling facility.

Not surprisingly many schools use their local authorities as recycling agents.  Some local authorities will take virtually everything, some are very choosy, some charge, some don't. In some places you can't get rid of cardboard, elsewhere the problem is shredded paper.   Several correspondents wrote along the lines that "we use the council, and I am sure this service is available everywhere".  But that is not the case - we found huge regional variations, and you can't assume that what you have found in your area applies anywhere else.

As the results of the survey came in I started to call a few councils to check on where they sent their waste and I found it surprisingly hard to get firm information as to what the councils did once the waste is collected.  The council recycling centres are mostly just collection points – I wanted to know where it went for the actual recycling took place.   The people I talked to were generally so vague I began to wonder if it wasn’t still ending up in landfill!

Most schools using private firms use companies that just cover just their local area.  It’s beyond my resources to draw up a directory of such firms, so I went searching for a national company – and here by far the most helpful company I contacted was BIFFA.   They have a service that is available in most parts of the country.  Obviously I can’t speak for what they do, but their ability to answer the phone and answer my questions was way ahead of most of the councils and the local area companies I spoke to.

How the school office is changing and what the SEA is doing about it

Last term the School of Educational Administration asked administrators and bursars throughout the UK to report on the way in which their workload was changing.

The results of this survey revealed the huge level of changes that are happening in school administration – so much so that a full report of our survey will now appear in the leading administration and management magazine, “The Manager” in October.

Among the areas of work that are moving from teaching and management staff to the school office are Timetabling, the Induction of new teaching staff, Cover of absent staff, Mentoring, Personnel management, Budgeting, Examination management, Work experience management, Organisation of school trips, Health and Safety control and Site management.  It is indeed quite a list.

Over half the schools that gave us information said that at least two of these areas of work had moved into the school office, and clearly those that have not yet contemplated such changes will be facing the issue within the next year or so.

To help everyone cope with these and other changes, the SEA has worked with  administrators in hundreds of schools across the UK and set up its two distance learning courses which are recognized by the QCA and validated by the Institute of Administrative Management.  

The National Certificate in Educational Administration is a one year course, and the next intake closes on 26 September. There’s more information at http://www.admin.org.uk/Prospectus.pdf   The course begins on 3 October.  

The two month Work Management and Administration Course starts on 27 October - closing date for applications 13 October.  There’s details at www.admin.org.uk/shortcourse.html