Tackling the Persistent Problem of Administration
Updated: Feb 3, 2022
“… strategic resourcing is a key responsibility of school leadership, yet there are few resources to help school leaders learn how to use the resources they have to more effectively support the improvement of teaching and learning.”
Robinson, Hohepa and Lloyd (2009, p.116)
Following my first Time Travelling Headteacher blog: ‘9 top tips for my former self’, I have thought in more detail about each of the persistent problems of school leadership as defined by Jen Barker and Tom Rees in The Research Ed Guide to School Leadership (2020, p.48). Whilst there are lots of great articles, journals and blogs out there to support new headteachers with many of the persistent problems, there seems to be less relevant research and reading for school leaders about the persistent problem of ‘administration’.
This area was one where my learning curve as a headteacher was steepest; as headteachers we are trained teachers with expertise in curriculum and pedagogy, but we do not necessarily have the same levels of expertise in finance, human resources and law, for example. For me, the most challenging aspects of this persistent problem included (but were not limited to!):
> Recruiting and retaining administrative staff.
> Understanding human resource law.
> Finding time to support the wider administration team when most of my attention was needed to support with behaviour and teaching and learning.
> Providing appropriate, high quality professional development for staff beyond classroom teachers and school leaders.
As a headteacher you may experience some of the same issues or, because context matters so much in school leadership, your issues may be different ones like:
> Understanding the health and safety compliance checks needed.
> Recruiting the best people to the wider team roles.
> Ensuring governance is effective.
> Allocating finances.
I have considered the knowledge I have gained about how we can best approach the persistent problem of administration so that those of you who are new to headship may benefit from me knowing now what I wish I knew then!
My tips for tackling the persistent problem of administration:
Develop your knowledge
When we are not experts in a role, we need to ensure that we are using the Department for Education publications and tools, our networks and trusted websites to help us build reliable knowledge about those roles. As each school has its own context there cannot be a one size fits all approach to what roles you need in place to effectively support administration in your school, but talking to colleagues in similar schools or using the School Workforce Planning document and comparison tools from the DfE can help you to understand how these wider team roles can support you with this persistent problem. For roles outside of teaching and learning, knowing the industry standards will also help you to get the most from your wider team (the Institute of School Business Leadership and the Institute for Apprenticeships and technical education are two good places to start).
Build your team
Rightly, much has been written about retaining the teaching workforce, (if you are interested in this I suggest Dr. Rebecca Allen’s ‘Make Teaching a Job Worth Doing (Again)’ as a good place to start) but when it comes to the persistent problem of administration, we need to consider our wider teams of people who support the administration and compliance aspects of a school, such as the receptionists, business managers, caretakers and governors, to name a few. In order to do this, we should:
- Recruit well
Conduct an audit beforehand, seeking to understand exactly what you need The Behavioural Insights Team (2015) recommends that you clearly define what employee characteristics your organisation needs. To do this you will want to consider your values and desired culture and list the qualities most aligned to these; then list the qualities the school currently needs to support achieving this culture. You might want to draw on support from your local authority or multi academy trust to do this audit. Once the audit is complete, ensure your findings are reflected in the advert, job description and personal specification and design your interview process to reduce bias and collect the relevant information. This paper by the Behavioural Insights Team is worth a read if you want to refine your recruitment processes (Behavioural Insights Team, 2015).
- Invest in people
It is not enough to invest in your teaching team alone, they are one of several cogs in a large and complex machine. Behaving in such a way that you develop relational trust needs to extend to your whole team. For me the key attributes for a trusting working relationship are respect, competence, personal regard for others and integrity. To develop relational trust across the whole team headteachers need to recognise the “important role that each person plays in a child’s education and the mutual dependencies that exist among various parties involved in this activity” (Bryk and Schneider, 2002, p.26). In order to show personal regard for others we need to be able to show that we care about them and that we are seeking to reduce their sense of vulnerability. This is easier to achieve if we take the time to get to know our wider team. Taking time to consider if are they included in school social events or if they feel welcome in the staffroom, and then acting on this if necessary, can help to create the conditions for showing personal regard for your wider team and hopefully encourage staff retention.
- Communicate and include
Considering relational trust also helps us to consider how we communicate with our wider team. To foster trust, we need to ensure that there is a genuine sense of listening; this shows our wider teams that their ideas have value and everyone working together is needed to ensure we meet our strategic and pedagogical goals. To create this genuine sense of listening with our wider team, headteachers need to protect time to engage fully with these teams. Examples of this could be a weekly one-to-one meeting with the school business manager, regular team-time with your administration team or reviewing compliance records and conducting a termly health and safety audit with your caretaker.
Another essential element to effective communication with your wider team is ensuring that they have a clear overview of the school’s vision and strategic priorities. It is important that they know that being effective in their role will support the achievement of these goals. One way you can achieve this understanding is to align appraisal targets with the school’s strategic priorities, so that when their targets are set individuals can fully appreciate that their work is having a positive impact on the educational experience and outcomes of the pupils in the school.
- Appraise and develop
If our wider team is going to be effective in their roles and thus contribute towards the strategic priorities of the school, then we need to ensure that there is a robust professional development and appraisal process in place. You may need to employ the expertise of others in providing this professional development.
Use the expertise of others
When it comes to the persistent problem of administration your networks can really come into their own. A review by the Department for Education showed that the most efficient schools “Make use of school clusters, sharing expertise, experience and data, as well as accessing economies of scale when making shared purchases.” (2013, p.3) An example of this is seeking out expertise from another school to provide professional development opportunities, such as coaching or training for your staff. In addition to the benefit of clusters, be that a local network or a more formalised multi-academy trust arrangement, there will be a wealth of expertise in your governing board; conducting a yearly skills audit of this group can help you to identify who is best placed to support strategic direction in areas such as finance, marketing and human resources.
Allocate resources wisely
Viviane Robinson’s review of what works well in school leadership (2009) found that aligning resource allocation with pedagogical priorities meant an improvement in teaching was more likely. When allocating the school budget, you should seek to align spending with strategic, as well as pedagogical, outcomes. Once the budget has been set, monitoring spending is essential and your wider team including members of the governing board can assist with this. It is also useful to benchmark your spending against similar schools , you can do this on the government Schools Financial Benchmarking website
Show humility
Knowing when to say that you don’t know something is a leadership skill which can feel difficult to master, especially when you are new to the role. In his chapter in The Research Ed Guide to Leadership (2020, p.227) Headteacher Matthew Evans, argues that acting, as a leader, when we do not have enough knowledge can have unintended negative effects and that in the face of uncertainty the application of humility and wisdom can save us from these harmful consequences.
So, you don’t need to know everything, and you certainly do not need to pretend to know everything, but you do need to know how to check. Here are links to some useful and reliable sources of information which will help:
Finance
Health and Safety and Compliance
Safeguarding
NSPCC learning website: Training and resources to help you protect children from abuse and neglect
Human Resources
Acas website: Advice on employment law, HR processes and good practice at work. For employees and employers in England, Scotland and Wales.
Governance
Law
Personnel
References
Allen, R., (2017) Making Teaching a Job Worth Doing (Again). Caroline Benn Memorial Lecture. House of Commons, London, UK, 7.
Barker, J. and Rees, T. (2020)Developing School Leadership. In: Bennett, T. ed. The Research Ed Guide to School Leadership. London. John Catt. Pp.48-53.
Bryk, A. and Schneider, B., 2002. Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. Russell Sage Foundation.
Department for Education (2013) Review of Efficiency in the Schools System. London. Crown Publications.
Evans, M., (2020) Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty. In: Bennett, T. ed. The Research Ed Guide to School Leadership. London. John Catt. Pp.227
Linos, E. and Reinhard, J., 2015. A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection. CIPD [online] http://www. cipd. co. uk/binaries/a-head-for-hiring_2015-behavioural-science-of-recruitment-and-selection. pdf.
Robinson, V.M., Hohepa, M. and Lloyd, C., 2007. School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works and why (Vol. 41, pp. 1-27). Winmalee: Australian Council for Educational Leaders.
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