Views & Opinion


Equipment buying: four ways to higher quality equipment supplies


Comment by Rowena Thomas, head of category for education, ESPO


Planning for lessons is an essential part of any week, and with tightening of available funds, it’s become a regular budgeting exercise.


From arts and crafts materials to number lines to javelins, teachers need a host of equipment and supplies to deliver exciting lessons for their pupils – but many teachers take on the vital role of sourcing these for their school without much practical help, and in addition to lesson planning, teaching and all their other front line tasks.


Sourcing products, checking prices, getting approvals and ensuring items arrive on time make for a laborious process – and represent time that could be better spent teaching. BESA’s market research in 2013 suggested in two-thirds of cases, classroom teachers, subject leaders or heads of department decide on the materials and equipment supplier.


Even well-funded Government initiatives, such as the PE and sports premium, can be difficult to organise too, partly because they lie outside the usual funding mechanisms and will demand new staff or new skills and approaches.


Here are four ideas – from smarter ways to shop around to tapping into external organisations’ expertise ‒ to lighten the load and ensure the best quality equipment for lessons.


Lines in the sand Shopping around is the bane of many a teacher or school business manager’s life, but a closer focus on your needs and suppliers’ pricing tactics could unlock big savings. Work out your ‘must have’ factors – price, quality and expected lifecycle for classroom equipment. Do you need an expensive ten- year warranty for furniture if you only need it to last for five? Is that really a bargain price – or is it an inferior item that won’t stand up to wear and tear?


Take all essential factors into account, not just the price, before you enter supplier negotiations and you are more likely to get value for money and better classroom experiences as a result.


Lighten the load


Regular benchmarking of suppliers for your overall expenditure isn’t practical for smaller schools given staff workloads, so why not ask a trusted supplier or a procurement specialist to help instead? Some professional buying organisations will carry out free ‘procurement health checks’ across your purchases. These experts can identify tell-tale signs of suppliers’ pricing tactics (such as loss-leader prices on copier paper with higher prices on school stationery as a whole, or prices gradually creeping up). They will pass on informal buying tips you can use too.


These exercises aren’t easy but they can save a secondary school £2500 per year on average. Some professional buying organisations may take a small cut of the savings but others are publicly-owned and focused on building long-term relationships with schools – they don’t charge a fee for this service. For complex items like ICT, energy supplies and office equipment, it could be worth buying through frameworks offered by local councils and professional buying organisations. Frameworks provide a competitively-priced and proven way to purchase: the buying organisations use collective buying power to obtain discounts, have done the leg work and checked suppliers. Importantly too, frameworks are compliant with EU procurement requirements, reducing your workload and ensuring quality.


Outside help with Government-funded campaigns


Many schools struggle to take advantage of Government initiatives like funding for school sports because these campaigns lie outside normal local funding structures. Schools lack the resources to identify the funding sources and secure grants while head teachers might worry that they don’t have suitably-qualified staff to realise the plan.


In these cases, some time spent identifying and contacting organisations like the Youth Sports Trust, and county-level Sports Partnerships or Sport England and charities promoting wider sports participation will pay dividends. Though these initiatives demand some of your time to set up, these organisations are specialists in their chosen areas and have the resources - or the networks of specialists - to help schools apply for funding, plan expanded sports and PE lessons, and help identify qualified local staff or coaches that will make it all work.


Plan ahead


And last but not least, though it’s a well-worn saying, planning ahead on equipment purchasing can boost quality and drive savings. Since most schools purchase new supplies in summer, or salt in January, you could be picking up the phone at the same time as everyone else, leading to potential delays or higher prices as suppliers struggle to meet peak demand. Carve out some time in your diary to plan for your requirements and the best suppliers, buying organisations and charities would be only too happy to help you work out some new approaches.


A ruthless focus on quality from your suppliers, canny use of experts’ time to understand your spending, getting outside help on Government initiatives and planning ahead, can all help save time and money on equipment purchasing…. and deliver better quality experiences for your staff and pupils.


16 www.education-today.co.uk January 2015 Lego Education


Comment by Dr René Lydiksen, Managing Director, LEGO Education Europe


I’m delighted to start 2015 with the introduction of LEGO Education’s regular column in Education Today magazine. Thanks for having us and Happy New Year! January is a very busy and exciting time for us all with BETT just around the corner. Our main focus at BETT this year is computing. We’re already a term into the new school year and we have been investigating the impact the new computing curriculum has had on schools so far. We asked a number of questions and found out if schools were actually ready to tackle one of the most ambitions changes to the UK national curriculum to date. We’ll be sharing our findings with you at BETT and we hope to inspire and engage you and highlight how these changes - often perceived as daunting and intimidating - can actually provide you with an exciting opportunity to ignite learning and teaching. You will also be able to see our first ever maths resource at BETT. The introduction of MoreToMaths builds on our commitment to deliver engaging learning solutions across all subject areas at primary level. It’s been really well received in our test schools so we’re thrilled to finally let you get hands-on with it! There will be a big news announcement for our LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 users that will make programming in the classroom even easier. I’ve been sworn to secrecy on this until BETT but I promise it’ll be worth the wait. We are very proud that StoryStarter has been shortlisted in the ‘ICT Tools for Learning and Teaching’ category at the BETT Awards, so we are looking forward to the ceremony and will be keeping our fingers crossed.


As always, BETT is looking jam packed for us with lots of demonstrations, presentations, special show offers and of course plenty of fun that shouldn’t be missed, so come and visit us on Stand E128.


We really believe a hands-on, minds-on approach helps students actively take ownership of the learning process and develops 21st century skills through real-life, engaging experience and we look forward to sharing more of our values over the coming months. If you have any particular topics you’d like us to focus on in our column, please Tweet your ideas to @LEGOEducationUK We’d love to hear from you.


I look forward to seeing you at BETT.


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