Category: Intelligent Operations

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, many organisations will have looked to their emergency and business continuity plans to deliver critical services and enable alternative ways of working. In fact, many of the things we learned during the pandemic will help us be more resilient in the future. 

Following a disruptive incident, emergency and business continuity plans should be reviewed and updated with any lessons learned so the plans remain relevant. It’s important to embed the plans in your school’s culture by training your staff in their roles and exercising the plans to test if they work or need to be improved.   

If you haven’t reviewed, updated and exercised your emergency and business continuity plans since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, now is the time. It’s important to consider other emerging issues in your review process such as cyber-attacks, power outage, extreme weather so you can plan how to respond to and maintain your critical services should any of these disrupt your school. 

There is a template emergency plan on the Emergency Planning Team traded services portal that schools can download free of charge.

For any emergency planning or business continuity queries, set up a Head to Head meeting and we’ll connect you to our Emergency Planning Team.

“A big proportion (75%) of our budget was going on staffing, but the spreadsheets didn’t show what level people were being paid, (eg, .5 or full time),” says Fiona who employs 56 staff. 

Business manager, Dionne Campbell (who joined the school in 2018), adds that with figures out of sync, forecasting and pay felt, “like stabbing in the dark, with nothing that pulled the information together and no clarity.”

Things really changed when Smart Schools Financial Adviser, Charles Roberts, collaborated with a handful of pilot schools (and the payroll service) to devise a more accurate financial planning system for Wandsworth. The aim was to reduce the time and effort it takes heads and business managers to estimate the cost of the workforce and reconcile actual pay with the school’s budget.

“It’s a different approach to a problem,” says Charles, “and that’s important because 80 per cent of a school’s budget is spent on staffing, and if our existing Excel tool was a few per cent out, that’s material. If your forecast is out by even one or two percent of income that’s quite a chunkof cash when school budgets are managed so tightly.”

So how does the magic happen? Charles explains: “The app replicates the reality of all things that happen in the payroll service and payroll departments and is more accurate on national insurance, pensions, spreading a salary across the months in the year, managing pay rises and changes in incremental grades and also manages to model ad hoc payments for extra hours or overtime.”

This enables a school to be able to recast their budget swiftly, if asked to do so.

“Smallwood school had an annual spend of £1.3m on staffing, and the tool was £14 different, which is why it’s called RAPTOR –ridiculously accurate planning tool for organisational resourcing. Ultimately, it’s all about giving the school business manager and head teacher confidence in the numbers,” says Charles.

For business manager Dionne this new way of financial planning speeded up the accuracy of the monthly payroll as well as the six monthly forward planning. “What Charles created pulls up errors in red so we can easily identify and investigate what should be paid and answer, for example, questions about why’s that person got an extra £100 – of yes they’ve done two extra hours.”

Reconciling payroll data is no longer super time- consuming. Charles explains that’s not unusual for schools as, “Some have 40-50 employees – but the tool just highlights those employees that need to be looked at, so is driving action by exception, rather than having to work through everybody. The tool does most of the work for you and will flag those it thinks you need to look at. That creates the feedback loop, so next month it gets more accurate.”

Less discrepancies also meant Smallwood spent less time trying tocontact the payroll team – a particular plus through lockdown when many people were working from home and seemed harder to reach.

Operating as a pilot, Smallwood has now been using it for a year. “Charlescomes in once a month. He has a report-ready database on his laptop which has got all of our staff data,” says Dionne explaining how the pair go through,“ line by line, so any discrepancies [eg, from sickness, pay increases, reduced hours, jury service, pensions, unpaid leave, unauthorised absence, extra hours and pension opt in and out] are highlighted quickly. It’s easier to use and really helped, as we feel more confident that this is the accurate figure on staffing and can put in any questions that governors have.

“We have confidence in the staffing structure of the school, andbeing able to keep it at the level we need, because very quickly we can see if the percentage

of pay for staff is going up, it gives us confidence about managing our budget and staff. It is now monitored so carefully, we are not going to get any big surprises,” says Fiona delightedthat the budgets are fit for purpose and reconciliation far quicker.

Dionne agrees: “Charles has been instrumental in supporting theschool and getting the budget into the really good position that it is in now. That app works really well.”

Visit finance.smartschool.services

In pursuing leaner operations and more efficient processes, time is an often overlooked factor to consider when looking at cost savings. 

As time invariably equates to money spent, you may look at reducing the school’s administrative burden through outsourcing, or engage with specialist educational expertise that adds value to your offer; or ensures your have the right plan in place to protect your position.

Operational drains on a school’s finances are not always obvious, which is why it is imperative to partner with a resource that can help you objectively view the complete picture.

In line with Richmond and Wandsworth’s net zero targets, Smart School Services have launched the net zero decarbonisation framework to support schools in achieving their decarbonisation goals.

Please click here to find out more information on the school’s decarbonisation framework. The framework sets out information and guidelines on how schools can reduce their consumption and stay on track with their decarbonisation targets.

Within the decarbonisation framework you can find a list of funding streams that may be available to you, along with contact details for the relevant organisations.

If you require more support or have any queries, please get in touch with the Energy and Sustainability team on: energyandsustainability@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk

This article is written by James West, a marketing consultant with a track record of working with education provides across the U.K. 

“Educational Waffle”

Let’s unpack the problem – “Educational Waffle”. It often feels like schools are duty bound to use the same limited pallet of stock phrases and statements with flimsy sentiment. This “waffle” – technical term – might feel like it conveys your values. However, just look at half dozen school prospectuses and you’ll soon understand how dizzying the effect of reading repeated promises of quality, aspiration and attainment makes you feel.

The issue here is at the heart of what causes parents’ problems and reduces the effectiveness of all marketing and communications (for enrolment, retention, and the overall perception of a school). The reason it happens is that it’s easier to write in educational waffle, it’s a familiar shorthand and common place – but none of these reasons should be excused. 

The problem that causes these symptoms is that not enough work has been done to understand the uniqueness of your school’s learning experience – the few specific aspects that separate your school from the others. When we work with education providers, they are often able to rattle off a list of 10+ features that make them ‘unique’ – that is, until we show them that nearly every other provider uses the same set or similar. This revelation of seeing themselves from the perspective of a parent, pupil or partner quite quickly reveals how samey their offer is perceived to be.

Why not have a look at a dozen websites of schools in your area – how many tangible distinctions can you spot in the ‘About’ sections? Try to avoid ‘reading between the lines’ and just go with what is said on the page.

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What can be done?

Understanding differentiator/s is the core of what is needed to unlock your communications and make your unique school learning experience stand proud. 

STEP #1

To start, we recommend two things:

1. Listen to your parents, pupils, partners, and staff 
   (Ask them what they think about the school, what specifics they really value, why they decided to enrol, work or partner with your school).
   
2. Write a long list of features and ask yourselves ‘Which are unique to us?’
   (If at first you don’t get any, keep going – push yourself to look for specific aspects that could be unique or closer to unique)
   

Remember we’re looking for things that make you unique. From our studies of educational websites, the following should cause alarm bells if they are featuring on your features list:

STEP #2

Once you’ve found your differentiator or a set of possible differentiators, we encourage schools to use something like Geoff Moore’s Value Proposition to start articulating the benefits.

Example:

FOR parents living in Roehampton

WHO are worried about their child’s transition to school

OUR induction series IS the ideal first step

THAT gives parents and pupils time to make the adjustment.

STEP #3

The final step is still very much the start of the process. As soon as you think you’ve found a differentiator, start using it. At this stage you want to test to see how it is received – By using it in a newsletter is a different action received? Did we get more enquiries from putting it on the front of a marketing flyer? When I say it out loud to parents, is their reaction affirmative?

So much of marketing and communications is like writing a recipe for a cake. You need to tweak the ingredients until you find the right balance – the aim of this work is to get going and start to see if you can find the perfect recipe for marketing the benefits of your learning experience. 

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James and his company West Creative are working in partnership with Smart School Services to help support schools with their marketing and communication activity. If you would like to discuss your school and this service, please complete the Head to Head form below and we’ll be in touch.

Employers are legally required to provide information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of their employees and safeguard the pupils. Agnieszka Wojcik 

When is H&S training required? 

H&S training is required upon:

• Induction – Provided for new employees to help them to settle into the new workplace environment and activities. 
• Exposure to new or increased risks
• Existing skills may have become rusty or outdated
• When current training requires refreshing 

How will your employees and school benefit from H&S Training?

Providing health & safety information and training will help you to:

• Meet your legal duty to protect the health & safety of your employees.
• Contribute towards making your employees competent in health & safety;
• Ensure you or your employees are not injured or made ill by the work they do;
• Develop a positive health & safety culture, where safe & healthy working becomes second nature to everyone;
• Find out how you could manage health and safety better;
• Can help your school avoid the implications that accidents and ill health cause;
• Can help you avoid the financial costs of accidents & occupational ill health.

H&S training methods available 

• There are many school health and safety training options available, including:
• Classroom Offsite
• On-site at the school (school)
• Online 
• Blended Learning 

In school, the following training are examples of H&S training needed (the list is not exhaustive) 

Staff whose work involves a greater element of risk will need extra or specific training.

A record of H&S training should be kept up to date, with details of who in your school has completed which training course, which staff are trained sufficiently and whether their certificates are still current.

Steps to achieving compliance in H&S training 

• Review staff H&S training needs upon induction
• Organize necessary training 
• Keep an up-to-date record of who has completed H&S training and when
• Carry out regular reviews and monitoring of dates to book training refreshers
• Ascertain that training expectations are met by carrying out staff supervision and assessing training after delivery with staff

When to renew H&S training 

As a general guide, unless otherwise stated in the training certificate, refresher training should be undertaken every 3 years.

Our Health & Safety Team provides training that can be tailored to the school needs and delivered on site.

The UK Health and Safety Legislation outlines basic requirements for creating a safe work environment and actions to be taken to reduce to risks to staff, pupils, contractors and visitors.

What should be in place?

Every workplace should provide welfare facilities and a working environment that’s healthy and safe for everyone in the workplace, including those with disabilities.

The workplace must have:

• welfare facilities – the right number of toilets and washbasins, drinking water and having somewhere to rest and eat meals
• a healthy working environment – a clean workplace with a reasonable working temperature, good ventilation, suitable lighting and the right amount of space and seating
• a safe workplace – well-maintained equipment, with no obstructions in floors and traffic routes, and windows that can be easily opened and cleaned
• fire safety measures – each building should have suitable fire safety precautions and a clear emergency evacuation procedure for all occupants including those with disabilities

What to do if there is a problem? 

If the right facilities are not provided in your workplace, staff should raise this with their manager or staff representative. If appropriate action is not taken you should contact Smart School Services by booking a Head to Head meeting.

What is PPM? 

Planned Preventive Maintenance (PPM) is regular and routinely performed maintenance on physical assets, to reduce the chances of potentially serious and expensive equipment failure and unplanned equipment downtime. 

It is to manage and extend the lifecycle of equipment, but is also a compliance requirement to satisfy statutory and legal obligations. The work should be scheduled in advance and can range from weekly to annually, depending on equipment and risk.

Failure to deliver compliance can result in service delivery failures, which whilst not as severe as legal failures, it can impact on the operation of your facilities, your core business and cause reputational damage.

Why is preventive maintenance important?

It is important because it keeps equipment and assets running efficiently, and it maintains a high safety level, which helps to avoid large and costly repairs, as well as service downtime. 

A properly functioning preventive maintenance program ensures operational disruptions are kept to a minimum.

Specific examples of preventive maintenance include regular inspections of your heating, ventilation or air conditioning systems (HVAC) ensuring they are properly cleaned and repaired and that your water hygiene and electrical systems are also functioning within safety and compliance levels.

How can Facilities Management help?

We can provide the relevant PPM services through our experienced contractors that will deliver a professional planned maintenance function across your school portfolio.

Here are just a few examples of PPM services available to you through Facilities Management:

• Boiler servicing
• Lift servicing & repairs 
• Electrical Fixed Wire Testing
• Mansafe systems
• Legionella Risk Assessments
• Water Hygiene inspections
• Flushing of infrequent used Water
• Water Temp. monitoring
• Fire Detection & alarm servicing 
• Fire Extinguisher servicing 
• PAT Testing services
• Commercial Kitchen equipment servicing
• Air Con Servicing

Facilities Management (FM) are now offering our services for your Planned Maintenance 2022/2023 Compliance requirements.  To order and buy into this service, you can order or request a quote, before the end of March 2022, via the Smart School services portal.

If your school chooses not to use the Council FM service, you are still required to upload your certification documents to the councils Concerto CAFM system.

There has never been a time in recent memory where so many critical decisions around school operations have had to be made with such short notice. 

Now is the time to take stock and breathe. But it is also the time to evaluate and embrace new, smarter ways of doing things.

That begins with designing intelligent operations that seamlessly handle systems, management and contracts – creating genuine partnerships between schools and outstanding suppliers, while freeing school leaders to spend more time focusing on school life.

Smarter Buying

In procuring a wide range of goods and services in often complex marketplaces, schools can face higher costs than they need to, spending money which could be better spent on providing high quality teaching and achieving better educational outcomes for their pupils. We need to help schools overcome these procurement challenges. 

The rising costs of materials, resource shortages and driver shortfalls hindering the supply chain are just some of the macro issues presently affecting non-staff expenditure. Schools do not typically have specialist procurement skills available in-house. This can make efficiency savings to help manage these ongoing financial pressures, while continuing to improve standards for their pupils, difficult for schools. 

In the future, we need to think differently about the way we approach procurement. Supporting schools to look locally, developing a sharing economy across school network or creating strong relationships directly with suppliers can realise tangible cost savings. From catering services to site cleaning, schools need to re-evalute the way in which they contract suppliers to ensure they are getting the smartest value for money. 

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