Reflect, plan and organise

As I approach my third year anniversary of becoming a Business Manager I find that my focus is moving more towards my practice.

Much of the first two years was about learning the ropes. My experience of becoming an SBM is that it is like jumping into the deep end of the swimming pool. You really do just need to get on with it. Like everyone before me, I’m sure, I’ve made mistakes along the way but these have been greatly reduced by having a network of people to seek advice from. There is a direct correlation between the growth of my network and the development of my confidence as a School Business Professional.

This academic year feels very much like the start of a new chapter. As well as doing the nuts and bolts of the job I’m setting aside more time to reflect and plan. For me this marks a shift in my outlook from operational to strategic and I feel as though I’ve finally arrived as a real SBM. I’m looking at long term plans and mapping out the strategy to get there.

I started the year by taking a little time at the end of the summer holidays to map out the development of the admin function and tie it in to the school development plan. Despite the best laid plans, things have been thrown into turmoil by extreme short-staffedness and that has resulted in me having to take a more hands on role in the admin function than I’m used to.

Never one to run away from a challenge I’ve taken to using a few hours each Sunday morning to reflect, plan and organise instead. It’s absolutely not what I want to adopt as my permanent working pattern but I see it as a short term solution to keep on top of things. Rather than starting the week feeling worried about how much time is being diverted away from my SBM role, I feel at ease knowing that I’ve taken some time to map out the key things for the week ahead and re-evaluated my workload for the next month.

So as we roll towards the end the first half term of the year I’m feeling optimistic that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I’m continuing to set aside time for planning and as long as I keep doing that I’m ensuring that I keep a positive mental attitude.

No longer will I allow myself to get weighed down and worried about how much there is to do. This is my new chapter in my journey to becoming an awesome School Business Professional.

By the end of this half term I aim to have planned out what I will achieve by Christmas. Hopefully I will stay on track!