Responding to the limitations that real-term funding cuts and inflationary pressure has wrought on learning requires a comprehensive approach to strategic financial management, budgeting and accounting.
There is no doubting the seriousness of the situation facing school finances, but we cannot allow balancing the books to take precedence over student success.
Brilliant learning is complex and multi-faceted. Our response to its funding needs to be equally so.
This means accessing services efficiently and ensuring their effective deployment; grasping the potential of data and using that insight to do things differently; while tackling resources and questioning whether we are using them properly.
Mindful Money Management
When dealing with educational, social or mental health issues, the sooner a child’s difficulties are isolated, identified and dealt with, the more successfully they will learn and the less their self-esteem, self-confidence and education will suffer.
However, schools have often been affected by long assessment wait times, unconnected expertise and expensive fees.
In response, the Schools and Community Psychology Service (SCPS) offers a full time, expansive team with multiple areas of extended expertise. Working with SCPS will save your school both time and money – cutting wait times for assessments; giving access to multi-disciplinary expertise; all while reducing costs.
- Schools purchasing the entire service will benefit from a bespoke approach, with a dedicated team responding to emerging needs in their specific school context
- Schools will roughly realise a 50% per hour saving, compared to paying privately for educational psychologist (EP) assessments
- Private EP assessments are usually costed around £150-200 per hour and Smart School Services cost is £590 per day (6 hrs)
- Further discounts available for larger packages (15 days and above)
Pupil Insight: Food for Thought
England’s school population is set to shrink by almost a million children over the next 10 years, according to the government’s latest data, raising the prospect of surplus places and school closures in the years ahead.
As the need to attract students intensifies, so does the need to ensure the school receives the optimal provision available for every pupil to maximise budget contributions. To help, Smart School’s Research and Evaluation Unit (REU) provides a high-quality data analysis service to underpin your performance planning.
An example of which can be found within the REU’s School Census support, guidance and checking service. Among other insight, the service helps schools to identify children on free school meals, which in turn, increases their budget.
- A secondary school hadn’t identified 10 children on free school meals transferring from primary school. Identifying the error and understanding the free school meals protection rule, the service was able to inform the school in time for the October Census, when DfE funding is calculated.
Space Savings
Learning resources are the catalyst for brilliant learning – empowering teachers to perform at their best. While the benefits are numerous, there are an equally lengthy set of challenges.
Issues such as finding the space needed to house a wide variety of material. Or condition – tatty books rarely inspire pupils to read for pleasure. And obviously, the cost of updating resources to meet new educational developments.
Smart School’s Learning Resources Service provides the answer through its cost-effective annual subscription delivering termly resource packs. Gain access to over 120,000 items and a dedicated librarian consultant to help you champion the curriculum, free up space and cut costs. All delivered in a ready-to-go resource box.
Building Value
Maintaining your school’s infrastructure is both complex and costly. Whether you need to ensure IT investment is fit for purpose and future-proofed; your library area is the optimal use of space; or the development of the school’s computing curriculum is actioned correctly; bringing in professional insight is imperative.
- Planning and consultancy from Smart School experts with years of experience eradicates expensive investment mistakes while saving valuable time
- Implementation by industry leading specialists, including staff training
- Ongoing support and insight to keep you ahead of the curve
- Significant savings realised when schools combine services into a coherent whole
Wandsworth IT and CLC have proven that working together benefits the school, saving time and money. We have been impressed with their recent work improving our computing curriculum and ensuring our network is running efficiently.
Harriet Eweles
Headteacher, St Anselms
