Are we running too many schools? - Strand 1 (Topic now closed)
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K MacDonald
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Monday 17 May 2010 10:38:21 pm
Management
I believe that where you have clusters already sharing management that this should be reviewed. Headteachers should be freed up to carry out the Educational stategy for the schools, may not have to share schools but would be freed up to do more teaching in the schools saving posts which is one of the highest costs in the budget. However, you need skilled managers who have experienec of managing budgets to manage the actual school budgets, the amount of administration in schools now would be better managed by personnel skilled and trained in this area. This could be done accross the schools and would enable far more ownership for managing the budgets and making better utilisation of schools costs in an overall region. If you had these based in each of the areas and they held the budget for the schools then you would see less waste, more accurate forecasting of budgets and Headteachers with the time to focus on what they are highly skilled to do in teaching. The Financial Managers would also have full visibility of where teachers are not being fully utilised and could offer assistance to the local primary schools, as you tend to find the schools run in isolation instead of part of a team. It would be interesting to see out of the total resource in Secondary Schools the actual time against FTE that is not taken up teaching. Most businesses now have to maximise their resource to be financially viable, again not sure if budgets are still allocated on the expected school roll, but if it is then again time to review this as just one extra admission can raise a budget significantly. The Primary Schools have more face to face teaching than the Secondary schools so resource needs to be targeted at the correct areas of Education.
K
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M Gowans
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Monday 17 May 2010 11:22:46 pm
No straightforward formula...
I would argue there is probably no straightforward formula for an issue like this as rural schools would be more likely to be hit and they are the ones that can be least expected to close. Generally speaking though, provided that transportation is put on for pupils in rural areas, I would favour longer commutes for pupils over cutting budgets for schools that have already been hit with 'efficiency savings' over a number of years. There just isn't any so called waste left and a properly funded service in fewer locations over poorly funded services in more areas would have to be more sensible.
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