School business managers
Me and my school business manager
Top of the class: Morag Somerville
graduating from the Advanced Diploma of School Business Management
More and more headteachers have access to a school business manager. Headteacher Update talks to one such school to fi nd out how the relationship works, and how much help they can offer
L
ast year research by the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services (National College) revealed that, for the fi rst time, the majority of schools in England (58 per cent)
now have access to a school business manager (SBM), with some 8,100 now working in the nation’s schools. This has increased from 3,800 in 2002 when the National College’s SBM programme was launched. Up to a third of headteachers’ time can saved by a properly deployed
SBM, which can then be reinvested in the classroom and in leading teaching and learning. There are also substantial fi nancial benefi ts, in the form of securing additional funding and making the most effective use of existing resources. A fi nancial analysis of National College demonstration projects, trialling higher level SBMs working across groups of schools, suggested that SBMs could save in the order of £150-£200 million across England. Nicola Shipman, executive headteacher of Monteney Primary School
and Fox Hill Primary School in Sheffi eld, hired SBM Morag Somerville as a senior administration offi cer at Monteney in 2005 and has never looked back. Five years later, after Monteney and Fox Hill federated, Ms Somerville is now federation school business manager and one of the first in the country to gain the Advanced Diploma of School Business Management. She is also one of a dozen SBM advocates from across the country, tasked with raising awareness of the profession and demonstrating how the role can improve school effectiveness. Ms Somerville and Ms Shipman’s roles have evolved and grown
alongside one another over the past fi ve years. Headteacher Update talked to them about how the SBM role has changed and what having this extra resource means to a busy headteacher.
“With an effective SBM like Morag I now feel I don’t have to know
absolutely everything about everything,” Ms Shipman says of her right- hand woman. Ms Somerville’s role was initially focussed on administration and
budgeting, the appointment made because the existing leadership team at the school were keen to make a new addition to the team in an SBM. “At fi rst, we were not even sure what a true SBM was, and certainly had no idea of the vast array of benefi ts to having one,” Ms Shipman admits, “but I knew it would be a good move.” “In the beginning, I thought the SBM role was about looking after the dinner money and handling suppliers but now I realise it is so much
“Her suggestions really make me think about the school and its future – and she
always has the success of the school at the forefront of her thinking”
more than that,” she says. “It’s all about Morag taking on the parts of my job that used to consume so much of my time, like budgets and staffi ng structure, so I can spend my time on other things. I did not used to mind doing the admin, but it now means I can concentrate on leading teaching and learning and taking the new federation forwards, which is the part of my job that I love.
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