21/03/2008 by April First.

The School of Educational Administrators is investigating the idea of holding a national School Administrators’ Day.

Several members of the SEA’s executive committee were recently involved in Dyscalculia Day, which highlighted the need to help the many people who find maths impossibly hard.  The campaign led to two spots of BBC Breakfast TV, an interview on the BBC World Service, and a half hour programme on Radio 4 - as well as numerous local radio interviews.

The aim of School Administrators’ Day would be to raise the profile of  school administrators, whose work is often ignored.  The idea would be to present  examples of the selfless work of tens of thousands of school administrators day after day.

The hope is that publicity will focus on some of the major achievements of school administrators in the past year, but point out that in some schools the administrators are just treated as people who answer the phone and do the photocopying, rather than a source of new ideas.

The SEA is looking both for case studies of administrators who have made a difference, and for volunteers who would be willing to talk on radio or TV about their work as administrators.  If you feel you would like to help - just drop an email to Tony@schools.co.uk    More deatails about School Administrators’ Day will be released via the school admin newsgroup.   If you are not a member just send an email to ad.admin@schools.co.uk with the word Subscribe in the subject line of the email.

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19/03/2008 by April First.

Five years ago work/life balance was the big thing in education.   Teachers were working too much, and were doing things they shouldn’t be doing. 

So the government had a great idea - under the branding of “remodelling” they created a new deal under which a whole load of tasks would move away from teachers and go to teaching assistants and administrators.   It was known as the Workload Agreement.

Unfortunately “Agreement” was a misnomer, since no one on the admin side actually agreed anything.   As a result of all this all three unions representing administrators in schools (Unison, PaTT - now known as Voice, and GMB) saw a huge growth in membership.  And the SEA was formed.   Schools began to realise that they had to consider the well-being of administrators as well as teachers.

Now the specter of teacher stress is on the rise once more.   Teacher unions such as the ATL are claiming that all the new education policies over the last five years has undermined attempts to agree a proper work/life balance and led to increasingly stressed teachers.

The latest idea is that schools should record absences caused by stress and pass this on to government.   They also want more staff wellbeing programmes in schools and colleges.

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17/03/2008 by April First.

Since its foundation four years ago the School of Educational Administration (SEA) has taken the view that the most under-used resource in most schools  is the school administration.  

The idea is that if the school managers involved the administrators more in their planning - consulting admin on new developments rather than just saying “we’ve decided to do this - implement it please”.

Such a change of view obviously makes a lot of sense - but some administrators do object that the managers in their school simply will not listen.  There seems to be no way to get them to change their approach, and treat administration as a “do this” resource rather than a centre for innovation and efficiency.

Changing people’s long engrained attitudes is indeed hard.  It involves developing negotiating skills and putting forward ideas for change in a variety of ways.  The SEA (which sponsors this news group) is doing its part by emphasising to managers the huge benefits that can accrue to a school if school administration is seen as a proactive force for change, rather than a reactive centre.

The SEA is launching a significant campaign after Easter aimed at school managers, pointing out that a school administration that is not included in its planning and development meetings is a wasted resource.  This campaign is linked to information about the SEA’s courses, and asks managers to encourage administrators to take one of the courses.

The two courses that the SEA runs - the Certificate in Educational Administration and the Work Management and Administration course both hold the idea of the school’s administration as central to change, and indeed the Efficiency Project which is part of the Certificate in Ed Administration course is based on the idea that the school administration can come up with an idea for change, and negotiate the change with the school managers.

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13/03/2008 by April First.

Most administrators drive to school and don’t realise that this gives many chances for staying fit.  First, buy a fold-up bicycle, fold it up, and put it in your car (excellent stretching and reaching exercises).   

As you drive to work, watch out for people who have already unfolded their bikes and are passing you on the wrong side of the road, driving across red traffic lights and mounting the pavements and then using your car to kick off their next weave in and out of traffic.   At regular intervals hit the breaks firmly (reducing ankle fat), grip the wheel hard (loosening wrist tissue) shout vigorously at the cyclists (exercising vocal chords and getting the diaphragm going) and hit the horn (strengthening every muscle in the hand and arm). As you approach the school, park about half a mile away.  

Remove your fold-up bike from the car and attempt to put it together.   If you manage to do this, cycle to school, phone the manufacturer and tell them you are the first person ever to put a fold-up bike together.  If you fail, pick up the bits of the bike and throw them into the road with as much force as possible (thus exercising back and arm muscles, and raising your heart rate, which it is important to do each day). 

Slam the car door with vigour and walk to school; carrying your case, laptop, lunch and anything else you can think of (for muscle toning). On entering your office undertake a full review of all staff who are off work on maternity, paternity or study leave, or who are absent with nervous stress or are consulting their lawyers over health and safety in school issues.   This will re-stimulate your blood supply as you realise that once again you are the only person who turns up to work more than 3 days a week. Now relax into your chair in the knowledge that you have improved your health and fitness, while those around you have not.  

Then finally make a note to sign up for a course with the SEA that includes “dealing with stress”.  The final date for applying for the QCA validated one-year distance learning Certificate in Educational Administration course is May 6.  The two-month Work Management and Administration Course closes its next intake on 31 March.   Have a really jolly Easter, and thank you for reading.     

You can stay in touch with all matters relating to administration by joining our regular news group. Go to http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html  and click on the Administrator option.

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10/03/2008 by April First.

 The Secretary of State for Education has announced a new Masters qualification: the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL), and further steps to strengthen Diplomas and raise school standards.

Now I’ve no problem with that - except that the group of people who really deserve the option to take further courses and qualifications are school administrators.   At the moment, while teachers have a whole raft of qualifications available to them, there is but one major programme for admin staff - the National Certificate in Educational Administration.  

Plans are afoot to launch a diploma course which follows on from the Cert Ed Admin, but it is some way from completion.

While administrators have just their one course, the secretary of state has recently launched.

• new Extended Diplomas to enrich options for young people and make the new qualifications even stronger;

• an extension of the National Leaders of Education scheme, where strong Heads help other schools, from 120 today to 500 in the next five years;

• a new Transition to Teaching programme backed by top businesses which could recruit hundreds of extra teachers a year with valuable science, technology and engineering experience gained from industry.

• A new Masters qualification specially designed for teachers – the Masters in Teaching and Learning which will roll out the programme mainly to teachers in the first five years of their careers to build on their initial teacher training and induction.

• More experienced teachers will be trained and act as in-school coaches to teachers on the programme.

What is even more of a slap in the face is the fact that the administrators QCA recognised programme is not automatically funded by the TDA, whereas the new courses will be.

The Cert Ed Admin course, which is validated by the Institute of Administrative Management and recognised by the Council for Administration, focusses to a large degree on efficiency in schools, and is indeed the only course that brings the notion of efficiency into education.   There’s details on www.admin.org.uk

The SEA which runs the course for administrators is planning to protest to the government about the way administrators are ignored each time such announcements are made.

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