the school of
educational administration

Purchasing

1. How do you buy a fridge for the staffroom and get a warranty?

Most of your replies suggested that this was not an issue for you and you quoted companies such as Comet, John Lewis, Argos and Sainsburys as being particularly helpful.  Other suggestions were to go via your local authority who probably have a list of suggested suppliers, or via a school purchasing agency eg YPO, ESPO, or specialist educational suppliers such as The Consortium.

2. Where can I get dinner money envelopes?

• MSS at Tiptree, Essex.
  Tel: 01621 815373 email: mssstat@aol.com
• T.H. Jordan Ltd - tel 028 9045 0866 - money pouches
• Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation – www.espo.org
• GLS Educational Supplies, 1 Mollison Avenue, Enfield, EN3 7XQ, Tel 08451 203213 , www.glsed.co.uk.
• S G World
• Lockie Ltd, Unit 6 Haydock Ind Est, Haydock Lane, Haydock, St Helens, WA11 9UE Fax: 01942 402519, Website: www.lockiechurch.com, Tel 01942 402510
• County Supplies, Swansea www.countysupplies.org
• Yorkshire Purchasing, Tel. 01924 824477
• avc@instockdirect.co.uk or call 0845 310 6928
• Money Pouch, Telephone 028 9045 0866 or email sales@moneypouch.co.uk
• http://www.instockdirect.com/products/503796-Dinner-Money-Envelopes.aspx
• Safeguard Systems, 01270 588211
• Wallace Printers, Wingates Industrial Park, Westhoughton, Bolton tel: 01942 850050.
• The Print Factory, Old Durham Paper Mill, Moreland Street, Hartlepool, TS24 7NL, Tel: 01429 264777

3. Does anyone know where I can get A4 plastic coloured wallets?

• A to Z Supplies http://www.atozsupplies.co.uk/
• www.rainbowofficesupplies.co.uk - 07956 876 721
• Kent County Supplies
• The Consortium http://www.theconsortium.co.uk/
• GLS Educational Supplies http://www.glsed.co.uk fax 0800 917 2246
• Viking Direct http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/
• Kent Commercial Services, Telephone 0845 767 6999, Fax  0845 076 2698
• Yorkshire Purchasing www.ypo.co.uk Telephone: 01924 834834, Fax: 01924 834926
• email: customerservices@ypo.co.uk
• http://www.johnstonreid.co.uk/

4. Admissions register can be obtained from:

• ESPO
• Kent County Supplies
• RSAdmissions - www.rsadmissions.co.uk
  Tel: 01420 563547/ 07808 928978 - Recommended by a number of you.
• SIMS.NET
• One administrator wrote:

"An Admissions Register is a document that a school has to keep by law and must be current. Admissions registers covering the last 3 Academic Years must be available for inspection – a quick trawl of recent Inspection Reports will show that several schools have not kept acceptable records and that this is something that Inspectors will ask to see.

It does not have to have a particular format but must contain details of all pupils on roll, their gender, date of admission, leaving date, boarder status, previous school (including address) together with contact details for parents/guardians of each pupil – details can be obtained from the ISI.

Personally, I use three ring binders and each year create a replacement folder for the current year using the one from 3 years ago. I have two SIMS Reports set up – one for the pupil details and one for the contacts (only because one report of everything together took so long to run it usually timed out) which are run at the start of each Academic Year. It is essential that changes are recorded in the Admissions Register – eg changes to contact details – but a replacement report could be run and put in the file rather than making a lot of changes.

Software

1. Email system

There were only a couple of comments on Googlemail - one suggesting there were security issues with this - the other suggesting it was good for emailing photos and large files. No-one claimed to use it for the school email system.

Systems used and recommended:

2. Tucasi

We got lots of positive feedback on Tucasi - the general consensus being that it is easy to use and provides excellent reporting. Only one dissenter found that it was a bit inflexible in the kinds of reports it produced.

Sorry - no-one came back with any alternative suggetions or any feedback on RM Integris

We wrote to RM asking for some information on both these products. The reply is quite informative and can be read here.

3. Software to monitor school fund account

You recommended:

• School Fund Manager is by far the best - bank reconcilations, reports, period end, year end are all easy to do.  Tel No: 0870 220 1550.
• I have recently moved school fund onto Sage Instant Accounts - easy to use and about £170.
• We use a package called 'Money Manager'. We have just updated our version for a cost of £75. It is from a company called Moneysoft Ltd., 12 Glasshouse Studios, Fryern Court Road, Fordingbridge SP6 1QX. Tel: 08456 444 555 e-mail: info@moneysoft.co.uk
• Microsoft Money.
• Quick bit of feedback on software – we use Quickbooks for School Fund – very user friendly, excellent reporting.  Also use Tucasi School Cash Office, and looking to expand into their cashless catering and on-line systems – also very user friendly and cost-effective.
• SIMS

4. Has anyone used software that they can recommend for measuring distances from school to home?

5. Does anyone have any experience of fingerprint systems for registration and for dinner payments? If you use such a system could you drop me a line - tell me what system you use and any problems/benefits. 

• We have fingerprint registration for the library but it is very hit and miss as you have to have permission from parents to take students fingerprints and not everyone will do this.
• My children's school (Hounslow Borough) use a fingerprint system for school library - I know that a large amount of parents were very concerned about their children's prints being held on a system for school use and they had to send out about 5-6 letters explaining the security of this system to parents, still, not all parents are happy about this and they ended up having to run two systems due to parents concerns.
Your query about fingerprint systems caught my eye as my husband also works in education (IT Director.  I know he has been involved in these systems at some of their schools so I asked if he could give me some names of companies: 

"There are a couple of companies out there to whom I’ve talked, although there are lots that are beginning to appear.  ULT/UCST has focused just on one product “LiveRegister” which is sold through a reseller called “A2Z Solutions” based in Loughborough.  We’ve installed their registration and cashless catering solution in Barnsley Academy and the cashless catering module in the North Oxfordshire, Walthamstow and both of our academies in Sheffield.  And one of our UCST schools, Lincoln Minster School, is considering using LiveRegister to allow their sixth form students to self- register themselves.  The other company I’ve spoken to is called “Vericool” based in Peterborough.  Both integrate into Capita’s SIMS application so that children don’t have to entered into the system twice and LiveRegister also links into Serco’s CMIS. 

6. Does anyone use the ParentPay system to pay for school trips etc electronically? I have had a brief demo, it looks great as it works with SIMS. What are your experiences with it? Is it cost effective? I understand that schools are charged per transaction by the bank (after the initial set up fee).

• PAYPAL:At TBGS we investigated the use of PayPal and found it prohibitively expensive with the scale of their charges. We spoke to our own bankers (HSBC) and found they were able to offer a similar service at much less cost. We also spoke to Barclays & Nat West & Lloyds all of whom were prepared to do something for us. Of them all I suggest the Lloyds solution looked best as they tie in a spreadsheet solution for easy control at school end. The answer is shop around.
• I've looked at ParentPay and as you say, there is a set-up charge and then a transaction charge.  In itself, the transaction charge is not a problem as you can add that to the cost of whatever you are selling (school trip costs £23.50, charge £25.00 to cover admin and transaction).  However, I have heard from other schools that parents seem reluctant to use it and still send in cheques/cash.  Where you can't hide the transaction charges are for top-ups to such areas as cashless catering.  Telling a parent it will cost them £21 to put £20 on an account does not go down well!  Unfortunately, someone has to pay for the service and with 1000 students, assuming 5 transactions a year @50p, it is quite easy to see a running cost of £2500 plus annual fee.  Not for us at present.

7. Professional ID badge system

Most of you who replied to this particular question (for which thank you very much) said that you made your own plastic badges for staff using a Tempo ID Card Printer which you say is simple and versatile to use. I had a quick look and there seem to be lots of places on the internet which sell them starting around £800.

I then remembered that we had talked previously about a company called SG World who do this kind of thing so I contacted them, put the question to them and asked them if they would like to respond. Their answer is given in full here. I hope you find it helpful

Courses/Training

1. Is anyone on Support Staff employed under a publicity and marketing role? If so, have they been on any useful courses and which?

1. Hamilton House Mailings (which provides this news service along with the SEA) has recently set up a similar news and information service for people in school involved with PR / Marketing / Fundraising. The service is also developing a web site which will contain a lot of support information. You can join the PR / Marketing / Fundraising service by sending an email to PR@schools.co.uk and writing the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  If you have a colleague at school who works in one of these three areas, please do invite him/her to join the group.  As always there is no charge, and no email addresses are ever provided to anyone else.
   
   
2. The best courses for marketing are run by the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
   
   
3. I’m employed as the Communications Officer at CoLA in a publicity and marketing role. We have a fairly high profile as one of the first academy schools, so I’m kept busy. I haven’t found any courses which are specifically designed for school administrators (our marketing needs are, like everyone else’s, quite specific). The Chartered Institute of Marketing does have a series of (rather expensive) qualification courses. If you are interested, they are at http://www.cimacademy.com/index.html (although their website is not exactly a good advert). LearnDirect offer some much more reasonably-priced e-learning courses, but they do not give a recognised qualification Reed Learning also have a series of courses, and their training is usually to a high standard.
   
4. In response to the request for details of courses for publicity and marketing, any one interested could take a look at courses offered by the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  Their courses tend to be on the expensive side, but in my experience the content is worth the cost. There is nothing listed currently geared specifically to the education sector, but there is a course listed titled ‘Fundamentals of Marketing for the Public Sector’. Their web site is: www.cim.co.uk And the course index page can be found here
   
   
5. The best courses for PR and Marketing are with AMDIS (The Association of Marketing and Development in Schools)

Office issues

1.Audit have hinted that we should operate cash registers. We’ve got an old and cumbersome one which has never really been used partially for that reason, and partially because we can’t understand the manual! Have other schools investigated this?  Would a printer calculator be a viable alternative? How would that work for copies of receipts?

• We’ve just bought into Tucasi Schools’ Cash Office- cost about £3,000 for a school fund module and on-line support for the year – you can also buy dinner money and lettings/room modules – allows you to attach income to individual pupils or group headings and produces receipts (make as many copies as you need).  Also, good audit trail for ‘bounced’ cheques or parents checking how much they’ve paid towards trips.  Does letters/reminders to send out as well as payment cards.  Highly recommended.
• We are just about to buy one for our primary school. I have used one at my previous school and found it to be really useful. Make sure you get one that allows you to use different keys for different departments i.e one button for uniform, one for school meals etc etc. Not only does it solve the problem of issuing receipts for each payment, but you have totals and sub-totals to agree your banking as well.

Most of the replies from state schools stated that they bought into HR support from the local authority - though this does not seem to be terribly helpful in respect of day to day issues such as recruitment, policies and procedures.

In some schools the administrator is doing HR work with the support of or in support of the Headteacher and/or governing body.

One administrator tells me that her school "has just bought-in HR support from an independent provider Strictly Education who are reasonably priced and provide a wide range of options.  For example, helpdesk only costs £19 per year per employee. CRB check are priced at £45 each, ad-hoc HR consultancy on-site is £250 per half day and £450 per day. Strictly Education can be contacted on info@strictlyeducation.co.uk tel: 01908 20820."

I very much get the impression that this is an increasingly demanding area which in many schools is a bit of a joint effort between various parts of the school.

3. I was just wondering if there are any set protocols for allowing "workmen" on to the school site i.e. CRB checks, vetting forms, ID Cards.

The majority of  administrators who replied to this said that the school itself did not CRB workmen.  Systems varied with some schools only using contractors who were on the LEA list and had been checked there, others leaving it to the contractor to do the CRB check and others restricting access to certain parts of the school while pupils were there. Other issues raised were the need to have systems in place to ensure that contractors were aware of emergency procedures, had done risk assessments and method statements, and completed any permit forms necessary eg hot work,asbestos, etc

4. We are looking for procedures on the letting of our school premises to the wider community and what written agreements other schools have in place regarding CRB checks. Please can you help?

We did not receive many replies to this question - but the main issue seemed to be ensuring that any letting of premises only commences after the pupils have left the school.

5. We are looking to move to a Vertical Tutoring System in September and part of this process has enabled us to look at more effective methods of registering students.  We aim to have our tutor group period mid morning so are looking at how we can register students if the school day starts with their first period (as opposed to tutor time as we have now).  Does anyone else start the school day this way and if so how do you effectively register your students?

Only one reply to this question: "We have a vertical tutor system and are moving to a mid morning tutor period from September.  We use Lesson Monitor, a SIMS module, to register our students in every lesson and it is extremely successful, with all our staff using it (bar occasional hardware problems).  The idea is that we won’t take a register during the 20 minute tutor period as the house tutors will be spending the time on other “business” with the students.  So they will be registered Period 1 and then in the period following tutor time (ie Period 2).  This raises the following question in my mind: How do staff keep tabs on who is coming to tutor time and who isn’t???  My preferred method is for them still to take an electronic register but SLT are yet to be won over ... Apart from that, Electronic Registration is great!"

6. I am currently looking at ways to approach the new cover rules from September and am interested in how other schools are tackling it - do you have any information about solutions?

One administrator suggested that the new rules come into effect in 2009 - I googled it and that seems correct.  I could not find much further information as yet.

7. What arrangements do other schools have for first aid cover and where is it delivered and by whom. 

Again a lot of replies to this question all suggesting that schools are very well organised re first aid and have a lot of staff trained in first aid. A number of schools seem to run first aid courses for all staff (teaching and non-teaching) as part of INSET - and this gives them a 3 year certificate.  In some schools most of the office staff have first aid training and in many cases the medical room is close to the school office.  Some schools ( boarding?) have a full time medical officer while in other schools the main first aider is a nominated member of staff.

Training with only a few exceptions is provided by outside organisations - St John ambulance, Carlton Training 020 7837 5677 were the 2 mentioned.

8. Post in the school holidays

Here is the overall picture of what is currently happening in schools. For a full report on the Royal Mail's charging policy and the wider implications please click here.

15% of schools either have or will fit a large post box.  This was the most common recommendation from administrators who replied to us.  The notion of the box being damaged by vandals is there, but lockable delivery boxes are common in Europe and the US, and I am sure they can be implemented in the UK without a problem.

11% pay for Keep Safe so don’t see mail for the holiday periods - although very few schools are paying for each of the six holidays a year of over 3 working days.

18% collect the mail about once a week from post office - which is another way of doing it - although I suspect RM is going to insist in due course the mail is not left for more than 3 working days.

16% have made individual arrangements with the postman or local post office to have the mail delivered to a different address.

The remainder of schools have on-site people who will take in the mail - although there are problems if for security reasons the main door is locked because only one or two people are on site.

Areas of Responsibility

1. Who is responsible for co-ordinating the whole school calendar?   Is it someone in the management, or is it the bursar, or someone in the school office.

The answer to this question is that it varies enormously but it seems to me that admin have a large role to play in many schools.  Most of the replies that we got fell into one of the 2 categories below:

• The head's PA on her/his own
• The Head/Deputy Head with admin support

Other

2. My Headteacher believes that schools no longer require TV licences as they now use whiteboards and no longer plug into the TV aerial socket. Could this be a fallacy or is it true?

Think you will find the answer here.

3. Reducing rat population

Suggestions included:

4. Hand driers VS paper towels?

This question got an enormous response. The majority of you have moved away from paper towels to hand driers - which seem to be leased. The benefits were cited as more hygienic, cut work of refilling dispensers, and cut down on litter and blocking of toilets. Suppliers mentioned: The PHS Group and UK Hygiene.

One dissenter commented" Apparently health guidelines are that children should not use dryers as they increase the risk of infection because they do not dry hands sufficiently ie between fingers.  I spoke to my school nurse who advised for hygiene reasons – we should not be pursuing this avenue."

5. Cleaning schedules

Those of you who replied all stated that there were set cleaning schedules - clearly stating things that were to be done daily, twice a week, three times a week, weekly, monthly, bi-annually and annually. Thus all areas in school covered. All itemised in cleaners contract.

6. What do schools do about individual music tuition? Do the parents pay the tutors direct, do they pay the school, does the school subsidise the service and make up the difference, does the local authority get involved.... And in fact is there any way of running such a scheme that is notably simpler than anything else?

We had a lot of replies to this question and arrangements seem to vary a lot.  Some The most common arrangement seems to be for peripatetic music teachers to be freelance - to operate their own billing and payment systems. The only times schools would be involved would be where pupils were subsidised in which case the peris would invoice the school. Where pupils are let out of regular lessons for individual music tuition some schools have a music dept secretary, a large part of whose job is to schedule these lessons and avoid them hitting the same period each week.

However in some schools the local authority supplies peripatetic music teachers and pays their salary. In this situation the school is invoiced by the LA and in turn has to collect payment from the parents - in some schools or in some cases this may be subsidised. 

A few schools seem to operate a combination of these 2 systems.