So, I’m at the school gates, first thing in the morning, in the hammering rain. As I extend my welcoming smile to the soaked, the splashing and the sulky, I notice not one but two local residents making their way, pincer-like, towards me. Doubtless they want to report an outrage regarding parents parking in their driveway. Or overhanging trees that border their properties? Or the bin collection issue is still not quite dealt with? Or it could be that the meeting I promised on traffic management is overdue?
They meet me with a grumpy “good morning” and unleash a tidal wave of complaints. I acquiesce to a conversation with them but sense movement in my peripheral vision.
Suddenly, my school business manager swoops in, disarms the residents with a smile and says: “I am the person that can help you on all these matters and would love to have a proper chat with you.”
Charmed, they weave their way into the building and I get back to the morning welcome, tapping my watch and offering the odd “tut-tut” to latecomers.
It’s a lighthearted anecdote but one that clearly illustrates that the core function of the school business manager role is to provide a buffer for the headteacher on all of the non-teaching and learning aspects of school life.
Being a school business manager is a tough job. In the current climate of austerity, the job involves saying “no”, a lot. When having to manage challenging HR issues, the answer is often “no longer”: “no longer can the organisation carry the burden of situation X or Y”. When managing staffing cuts, the sad message is often “no choice”: “I am sorry, we have no choice but to cut posts”. And when managing a budget that is barely in the black, the answer to teachers’ requests is usually “no money”.
Headteachers have to make difficult decisions, so having someone on board that you trust entirely, not just to handle the finances of the school but to support you in making critical, and often painful, decisions is vital. It also makes the job a lot less lonely. Hence, getting the relationship right is essential to a successful school.
It can, of course, go wrong between a business manager and a headteacher. When one has an agenda that isn’t fully shared with the other, neither role will work well. It is impossible for the school business manager to maximise the potential of the “engine room” if they are not clear about the vision for the school and are not focused on the key objectives. But, likewise, if the business manager acts as though she is the chief executive of a massive corporation, with ambitions beyond that of providing outstanding education, then things are likely to go wrong.
A clash of styles can also be problematic. If two people are completely at odds in what they want to do and how, nothing will get done and bickering will dominate. That said, in one school where I worked, the principal and the school business manager had completely different styles of leadership. The business manager was cautious but creative while the principal wanted to take all of the risks. And yet they managed this well. The principal would present his ideas on the back of an envelope with some clues about how things might work. The business manager would come back with solutions or, on occasion, reasons why he did not think it was sensible or sustainable to go ahead. On the few occasions that the business manager said that something wouldn’t work, the principal always listened.
Too similar
Being too similar can also cause issues. Although I have never experienced conflict in my current relationship with my school business manager, I wonder sometimes whether we might be too similar. We are both creative and we share an attitude that anything is possible. There is a risk that, if you and your business manager agree too much, you could career off on a tangent with no proper scrutiny about whether it might be a good idea and no alternative perspective.
The best way to mitigate problems of any sort is to ensure that the school business manager’s role is inextricably linked with outcomes for children.
When I sit with the business manager and we look at admissions, it is framed as a discussion about the impact of class sizes on pedagogy. When we discuss the value for money provided by the catering team, we balance this with a discussion about the impact of healthy eating on attainment. When we discuss the ground maintenance programme, we pay strict attention to the outdoor learning curriculum. And cleaning contract costs are contextualised (when possible) within an acknowledgement of the role that the learning environment has in raising aspirations.
If I were to summarise how to get the relationship between school business manager and principal right, I would boil it down to four elements:
- Shared vision: like most things in school, this will come through the intensity of your vision and how you articulate it
- Autonomy: give your business manager the time and space to develop the role and to lead strategically
- Integration: ensure your business manager is involved in all senior leadership team meetings and has actions relating to each area of the self-evaluation form
- Support: give your business manager as much time as you do your vice-principal for teaching and learning or your vice-principal for pastoral. Let them know you value excellence in this area of the school as much as others and that you will support them to achieve it.
My school business manager is often the good cop to my bad cop - it isn’t always about the headteacher saying yes and the business manager saying no.
I have frequently urged caution and restraint, so it is not unusual for my entrepreneurial staff team to appeal to my school business manager before they approach me. The key thing is that we trust each other and have implicitly entered into an agreement to “parent” our school together. Yes, the odd row over the remote control happens, but we share one voice when it matters.
Angela Browne is headteacher of the Steiner Academy, Bristol
