On my first day as a school business manager, I sat in a meeting with the other senior leaders and they listed the areas of the school that I would be accountable for. It was a long list: finance, human resources, recruitment, marketing, the premises, extended services, lunchtime arrangements, service level agreements and health and safety. Basically, everything other than teaching the children.
I walked out of that meeting and thought: how the hell am I going to manage and cope with all this?
Whilst most people will agree that there needs to be targets and monitoring in order to raise standards, this often results in our teams being put under massive amounts of pressure in order to demonstrate that they are delivering on the key objectives.
Often when the school has financial issues, the back office staff will see reductions in staffing and an increase in workload. Many will quietly continue to work on, not talking about the rising pressures and increased tiredness. But it is only when small mistakes are made that the truth emerges. The simple signs of this that I have seen include: incorrectly processing finance journals (before mistakes were rare), incorrect dates on letters or simply forgetting to do something.
So how do we deal with the pressures?
Manage expectations
As a school business manager, a key focus should be understanding what your governors or multi-academy trust leaders expect from you. If you know their expectations then you can work on delivering what they want. Don’t be afraid to negotiate if you think they’re asking too much. You need to be able to achieve their expectations within a realistic timeline. My key tip is to put up an A3 wall chart in your office and have the dates on a planner for all to see.
Forward planning
It’s easier said than done, but forward planning and focusing on one area at a time can help you to manage the pressure. For example, Facilities Friday, Marketing Monday or Where’s the Money Gone Wednesday. By focusing on a single area, you’ll be less distracted and, overall, more productive.
Share the responsibility
Develop and invest time in your team so that they can share the workload. By delegating the lower level tasks, you can then focus on the key bits that will make a difference. Sit and discuss with the team what they would like to do, how everyone wants to develop their role and make a change within the setting. If you work alone, remember that you are still part of a group of people; you will have a premises officer or an admin assistant who can help. If not, there is also the rest of the leadership team, like the headteacher and deputies, who also carry the responsibility for things such as health and safety. If you’re struggling, make the time to talk about how you can share your workload with them.
Communicate
A problem shared is often a problem solved, so talk to your network of friends and the fellow leaders in your school. Sadly, society often sees this as a sign of weakness, especially for men, but communication is one of the best ways of de-stressing. Arrange a meeting or go for an informal coffee and just discuss how you are feeling.
Make room for downtime
When there is a lot of pressure, it is easy to forget your mental health, but your own welfare is important. Take up a hobby: it really doesn’t matter what it is as long as you can forget about the job for a while. As an admin team, we took up running and often go out together to do a stress-busting 5km. To date, our team has covered over 1,000 miles in six months. Now that’s quite some stress-busting.
Philip Burton is the school business manager at Hallbrook Primary School in Leicestershire. He tweets at @runningSBM
