01/05/2008 by Tony Attwood.

Every week schools send my office questions - and mostly they are pleas for help.

Below there is a list of questions - this list is just one day’s worth of question.

What we do is forward these questions on to subscribers to our news and information service - and lo and behold they send in the answers.

Here’s the questions - you might find one of them relates directly to a product or service you supply.  And even if you don’t you’ll appreciate that next week or the week after we could be dealing with something that is right up your street.

And if we are, I’ll tell you something very interesting and unexpected, right after this list.

1. I wonder if you can help me with a query.  We are an independent school and need to create a new admissions register.  We wonder if you have any information on where we might be able to buy one or if any of the other schools on your mailing circulation would be able to provide a prompt response.
2. Rats - any ideas from rural schools on safe ways to reduce the population??
3. Hand driers VS paper towels: Anybody looked into whether elec hand driers are more economical than paper towels?? We seem to use up LOADS of paper towels, and the Governors need to be convinced that this is not the way to go…..
4. Cleaning schedules: Do other schools use cleaning schedules for their cleaners to ensure that all areas in school are given a deep clean periodically?
5. What email system do the majority of schools use.  We are experiencing major problems at present with our email provider and wonder whether any schools use Google Mail.  If your school does use Google Mail what is your opinion of it?  What are the safety levels?
6. Can I ask how schools without a dedicated HR/Personnel function manage the ever increasing workload connected with Staff Recruitment/Retention, Staff Policies and Procedures and Employment Law etc especially from, though not exclusively so, a Support Staff perspective.  I seek guidance from an independent school viewpoint – do state schools generally have an HR Dept?
7. I would like to update our software to monitor school fund account and would like to ask other administrators which software they currently use and which they would recommend.
8. I would like to hear from anybody who has or is using the Tucasi School Cash Office and the Dinner Money Management software they are part of RM. I have seen a demo and it looks fantastic, but before I go ahead I would like to have some feedback on it. It would also be very helpful if anybody could recommend any other similar Dinner Money Management software they are aware of. I also would like to hear from any administrators who are or have used RM Integris web based MIS system. This is also something that I am looking into and recommendations would be much appreciated; especially if anyone can recommend a MIS that has a really good HR section. Obviously with the new workforce census coming into place the MIS would need to be compatible.

Now here is my “interesting point”.  All these questions came from school adminstrators who have subscribed to the School Admin News Service that we run.

School administrators, as you can see, are making all sorts of decisions day by day - but amazingly no one is mailing them with information or thoughts on this or any other topic.

If you feel your product or service ought to be considered by the administrators of the school, do give me a call.  We can mention it on this news service, or on an email to all schools, or on the weekly printed newsletter we send out, or as a leaflet in a shared mailing, or….

Interesting, don’t you think?  (Well I do).

Tony Attwood 01536 399 000

Posted in Recent posts | No Comments »

17/04/2008 by Tony Attwood.

If there is one government programme that worries me it is Building Schools for the Future. The government has just announced proposals to accelerate entry into the programme - but I wonder about the schools, their designs, their development, and everything else.

According to the government over 1000 school building projects in 72 local authorities are already under way in the first six waves of BSF, to give all secondary school pupils world-class teaching and learning facilities. And they now want the remaining 76 local authorities to join the programme as fast as possible.

The new public consultation is on managing waves the programme and deciding the order in which those authorities not yet in the programme will join BSF. Details are below, but if I may put my concern in first…. I have been continuously annoyed by the way that plans for building new schools have focussed on nice designs rather than any concept of what will be the approach to teaching and learning in ten years time - not least taking into account the issues of where information technology is teaching us.

There is just one report that does bring together the two issues - the school’s structure and traditions on the one hand, and the new approach to education through ICT on the other. It is published by the British Council and I found it one of the most interesting things I’ve read this year. It is “Learning Technologies and Schools of the Future” and is available as a download at

http://www.bcse.uk.net/downloads/IC8647_BCSE_Brochure_V7.pdf 12

BSF-funding schools have opened so far – plus 1100 primary, secondary and special schools, built or almost completely refurbished since 1997 outside the programme. By 2011, the government says at least 200 new or refurbished schools will be opening a year.

Overall the government promises that schools’ annual capital spending will rise seven-fold in real terms from under £700million in 1997-98 to £6.669 billion this year, with funding rising again to £8.235 billion in 2010-11. The three year settlement includes another £9.3billion earmarked for BSF over the next three years. Meanwhile this is what the government says for English schools…

• all local authorities will have a chance to join BSF as soon as they have plans to deliver at least an initial, streamlined project of four or five schools – including tackling the most under-performing or failing schools and those in pockets of deprivation;

• BSF will have a wider range of criteria to decide how projects should be prioritised – including areas with major social regeneration and development projects; schools with the poorest infrastructure to avoid costly short-term patch and mend; and areas which are planning wider community facilities, including Children’s Centres, extended school facilities and broader provision for young people;

• local authorities will join BSF in a rolling programme when they are ready – rather than waiting for formal, set year-on-year launches;

• some projects will no longer be required to include schools in the same geographical part of a local authority area. This would give local authorities greater flexibility to invest in schools and target funding exactly where it is needed; and

• neighbouring local authorities should work closer in setting up Local Education Partnerships (LEPs), to get the most efficient procurement, planning and building programmes in place.

All 76 local authorities, that have not yet joined the programme, will be invited to revise their existing expressions of interests between August and October – which will decide how projects will be grouped in the future.

The next authorities to enter programme will be announced next spring and the exact roll-out will continue to be dependent on future public spending decisions. The consultation runs from 9 April until 4 July. It is available at:

 http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/

Background

Building Schools for the Future’s first six waves have been launched, and 90 projects in 72 authorities have now been started in the programme, prioritised on social and educational need. Additional “One School Pathfinder” funding has been allocated to a further 39 authorities which are later in the programme, to enable them to renew their neediest schools, and 81 authorities have academies open or in development.

In all, about 1000 schools are now being renewed through these strategic programmes, including around 180 which are becoming Academies.

To date, 12 schools with BSF funding have been completed, a further 35 are expected to open in 2008-09, and 18 schemes have reached financial close. There are also around 90 Academy projects currently being delivered via BSF or the National Framework. The £21.9billion funding settlement for 2008-09; 2009-10 and 2010-11 was announced last October.

Partnerships for Schools is the delivery agency for Building Schools for the Future. PfS was established in April 2004 as a non-department public body and is operated and funded under a joint venture between the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Partnerships UK.

If you would like to receive regular updates on news relating to education send an email to education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Tony Attwood

Posted in Recent posts | No Comments »

14/04/2008 by Tony Attwood.

Ofcom has expressed a concern about social networking sites and children’s use of them.  The report comes just a week after reports in most newspapers that universities and employers are using social network sites to vet applicants before offering a course or a job.

Ofcom likewise is worried about personal details on the site, although they focus on “abusers” rather than university admissions staff and employers.

Ofcom say that half of all internet users aged 8 to 11 had set up social network  pages.  27% the same group ignore age restrictions by lying about their ages.  (What a surprise!)

Ofcom also says many parents don’t concern themselves with internet issues, and 16% are unaware who can view their children’s profiles online.

The report also says some children are becoming so addicted to social networking that their time spent online is having an adverse affect on their education.

Tony Attwood

Posted in Recent posts | No Comments »

11/04/2008 by Tony Attwood.

The Secretary of State for Education has accepted recommendations that all secondary schools should join behaviour partnerships.  He also announced new plans for a White Paper to change the alternative provision for pupils who have been excluded from school. 

He also announced plans to tackle cyber bullying of teachers.ccording to speakers at the NASUWT Union conference this Easter disruptive pupils are  ruining thousands of students’ life chances and are the biggest cause of stress among teachers.  

One speaker said that diagnosing students as having ADHD was used as a reason not to exclude that student from school.  Others said that behaviour was becoming increasingly “audacious” including abuse on the street, harassment by email and pupils standing outside teachers’ homes shouting abuse.  

As a result of legislation passed since the 2005 Report of the Practitioners’ Group on School Behaviour and Discipline, schools now have:

• statutory power to discipline children and impose sanctions for breaches of school rules;
• statutory power to confiscate;
• statutory power to impose discipline beyond the school site, for example for bad behaviour on the journey to and from school;
• a completely new power to search pupils for weapons including knives;
• statutory power to use physical force to restrain unruly pupils; and
• new rules on exclusion appeals panels.

the Secretary of State now intends to go further, in these areas… 

• accepting that all schools, including all new academies, should be required to be part of behaviour partnerships - all existing academies have also now agreed to be part of behaviour partnerships, and the overwhelming majority of LEA schools are in partnerships.
• plans to write to all Directors of Children’s Services to make sure that the additional £109.5 million for Parent Support Advisers is targeted at schools with the highest need; and
• plans for a White Paper to see a transformation in the quality of alternative provision, including plans for more voluntary and private sector provision such as high quality vocational training and studio schools.

Also a Task Force, which will be chaired by Kevin Brennan and will have representatives from social networking sites and teachers, will develop ideas for preventing and dealing with such abuse.  The Secretary of State is asking the Task Force to report its conclusions by July. In particular he has asked them to consider:

a - What more we can do to ensure all school staff and heads are aware of the powers available to them and use them effectively;
b - What more we can do to ensure that all schools have discipline policies that minimise abuse of teachers and anti-bullying policies that protect all their staff from cyberbullying;
c - Whether we should establish a national point of call where school staff can direct complaints about abusive material;
d - Whether we should have specific guidance for staff who have experienced internet abuse;
e - How we can best work with industry to address cyberbullying of teachers;
f - How best to explain the impact of cyberbullying to parents and their responsibilities to ensure that it is treated as seriously as other forms of bullying. Where cyberbullies are found guilty, their parents should be shown what the offence was.

Background notes

1. In the Children’s Plan there was a commitment to ask Sir Alan Steer to review progress since his 2005 report and to look at making behaviour partnerships compulsory.

2. Alan Steer’s initial response can be found at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/behaviourandattendance

3. The 2005 Report of the Practitioners’ Group on School Behaviour and Discipline, chaired by Sir Alan Steer, can be found at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/behaviourandattendance/about/learning_behaviour.cfm

4. The additional £109.5 million for Parent Support Advisers was announced in November.

5. Later this spring DCSF will be making a curriculum resource pack called Let’s Fight It Together available to schools. The pack is being produced by Childnet. Vodafone and O2 are helping to fund it, which is clear evidence of support from the industry. The pack, which include a short film, will help teachers work with pupils in lessons and assemblies to develop their understanding of the impact of cyberbullying and how to prevent it. Lets Fight It Together emphasises that pupils are not the only victims. The internet can also be used to harass, bully and abuse teachers and other school staff, and we are determined to take decisive action to stop this.

If you would like to receive information updates on education direct to your inbox, please visit http://www.schools.co.uk/subscribe.html where you will be able to sign up for the service

Tony Attwood

Posted in Recent posts | No Comments »

02/04/2008 by Tony Attwood.

According to government figures one in six schools in England is breaking the law on admissions policy - despite the severe warnings given by the government’s Dept for children, schools and families, a year ago.

Not only is this highly embarrassing for schools - and for the school organisations that denied that there was anything wrong with their processes - it also reflects very badly on the internal organisation of those schools that are breaking the rules.

It is one thing for a single person in the school to bend the rules - but the fact is that once the illegal action starts, all the senior staff, the administrators and the parents must know about it.

For example, if you are a parent and you are asked to give a donation to a state or Local Authority school, you know there is something very wrong going on. If you are the deputy head you can’t fail to notice even if no one told you about the policy. If you are the bursar and you are banking the money you must be totally aware of what is happening and where the money is coming from. After all you can hardly keep something like this quiet.

What is totally worrying is that no one seems to have been blowing the whistle. Everyone in senior positions who must have known what was what colluded.

It suggests that there is something deeply rotten within a minority of our schools - something that is so rotten that a whole group of senior staff and parents will work together to keep the conspiracy going.

Whether the government will do anything about this remains to be seen - and the suspicion is that the scenario is so awful, and so embarrassing for the government (given the huge scale of the illegal activity within schools) that no one will want to touch this. But what should happen is that those schools found guilty of breaking the law should be tackled and those members of staff who are shown to have been involved either directly, or through turning a blind eye, should be removed and now allowed to work in schools for a number of years.

Posted in Recent posts | No Comments »