The last day of term finally arrived and then whizzed past in a flash. Everyone counting down to home time in a state of end-of-term-delirium. True to form whilst everyone was winding down I beavered away to the last minute. Having started working at the crack of dawn I was determined to make it through …
It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas…
A few weeks ago I tweeted about how long this half term felt and how Christmas was so far away. This past week the music leader in my school sent an email round to let everyone know that Christmas Concert song practice would start in December. It's an unwritten rule at my school that we …
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Pulling a rabbit out of a hat!
So far I have been a Business Manager in two different schools. When I think about things like Ofsted ratings, demographics, borough, roll numbers I can see glaring differences between the two. But what they have in common (as with all schools I hope) is the drive and desire to make it a wonderful experience …
Each one teach one
I quite often qualify my SBM Twitter posts with a variant of "I'm still new to this". It seems to type itself without me even thinking about it but something unexpected happened recently that made me re-evaluate this assessment of myself. I got a call from one of the Senior HR officers at my LA …
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 …
You’re a governor? How do you find the time to do that?
Back in 2006, in my late 20s, I filled out an application form with my Local Authority to volunteer to be a school governor. I had been working the Education department of a neighbouring LA for the last 3 years at that point. Added to that I was raised by parents (especially my Mother) who …
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Balancing act
Every morning I meet with my Head Teacher and Deputy Head for a briefing meeting. Some days the meetings last for 15 mins, other days they last for 45 mins. Inevitably I find myself jotting things down throughout the meeting - making notes about things cropping up I need to do and things that I …
What’s your credit file like?
I’m a great believer in keeping on top of my finances and monitoring my credit score. I’m not so bad now but there was a period in time when I was checking my credit score weekly with online (paid) subscriptions to Experian and Equifax. Nowadays you get you can access to your credit score everywhere …
Business managers – how do you plan?
First week of school over and boy it felt like a long week! This year I will be making sure I take some time to reflect at the end of each week. This is all part of quest to become an awesome SBM (which I can’t be if I have no idea what I doing …
I can do this!
As we moved into September most people around me were lamenting how fast this year has flown by. I’m looking at it from a different point of view - there’s still a quarter of the year left to go, what can I achieve in that time? What goals can I meet in the space of …