27/02/2008 by April First.

The Guardian this week carried a story about a simple but brilliant piece of hospital research.  The researchers wanted to know if an incredibly simple modification to what people in hospitals do when working with intravenous drips could cut infection rates.

Please don’t give up on me at this point - there is a real educational issue here - and this is not about some complex medical procedure.  All the researchers instituted was a tick list.  The research set out to prove whether there were less infections when the medical team had a tick list covering all the basics - such as wash your hands, put on the gloves, and so on.

The result of the research was amazing - in a period of 18 months the level of infections dropped by 75%, 1500 people lived who (by the results being obtained before) would have died, and over £100 million was saved in terms of further medical intervention.

All from a simple tick list reminding people to do the obvious.

Now in schools we don’t deal with saving people’s lives, but we do have to deal with public (or in the case of private schools) parents’ money.  Just imagine what impacts we could all make through such tiny changes as this.  

There is just one problem.  While, in the medical sphere, there is a tradition going back hundreds of years of experiment and  research on the job, this is not the case in schools.  Of course I can’t talk about your school, and I’ll be delighted to receive your comments telling me I am wrong, but my experience in general is that very few teachers, administrators and managers actually do any research in schools at all.   The only exception I know about are those people working on M Phils and PhD degrees.

Maybe its because “research” sounds too grand.  But as the tick box story (which is quite real - page 16 Guardian, Feb 23) shows simple ideas can be tried out to see what effect they have as long as the results are measured.  My personal view is that we could all make a huge difference to school administration if we just said to ourselves - I wonder if things would work better if we did this….  Let’s try it for a week, and measure the result.

If you ever do feel moved to try this - or indeed if you have done so - I’ll be delighted to write up the details so that everyone can benefit.

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20/02/2008 by April First.

 Slowly, very slowly, the concept of efficiency is creeping into education.   Three years ago a new course for school administrators (the Certificate in Educational Administration) was launched, which focussed very much on efficiency in the school office.   Then the government set up the Financial Management in Schools programme, and the Value for Money Unit.

Back in the world of administration, the School of Educational Administration launched a service through which administrators can write in and ask questions about anything to do with educational administration.

And now they are speaking of the great success they are having with Use the Key.

The project is run by the TDA, and the aim is this - if you have a question and you don’t know how to get the answer, you search The Key’s site for answers to all the previous questions people have asked, and if the answer is not there, you email the project and one of their ten researchers will send you back the answer.

According to a report in the Guardian the sort of questions coming up are  “How can I engage hard-to-reach parents?”, “Can I use Wi-Fi in my school safely?”, and “How can I raise achievement in boys’ writing?”.   You can’t ask legal questions, but anything else educational is ok.

Apparently all questions are answered within 72 hours and the service is thought to be saving users 5 hours a week.

An independent report shows that school leaders believe the service is saving them on average five hours per question asked.

To access the Key you need to be a senior manager in a school in England.  You can log on at http://www.usethekey.org.uk/createMember

For school administrators the SEA’s service takes the form of a weekly newsletter, with subscribers able to email in questions (email ad.admin@schools.co.uk with the word Subscribe in the subject line).  This service is open to all schools in the UK.

The value for money unit is at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/valueformoney/ 

Details of the Certificate in Educational Administration can be accessed from www.admin.org.uk

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