The school minibus poses something of a problem: for your Finance Manager in respect of cashflow forecasting and bureaucracy and for the person in charge of keeping it operational in respect of organising its MOTs, services and repairs.

Fortunately, we have a solution to cut the problems associated with the school’s minibus by half. The answer is to share the minibus with another school in the same cluster, trust or council as you are – resulting in half the costs, half the work, and half the problems.

Better still, if you lease a minibus with Benchmark Leasing, there is the added benefit of improved cashflow (as you pay a set fee each month – no more, no less) and it often works out to be much cheaper than buying a minibus outright (especially if one considers the re-sale value), or indeed hiring a coach each time.

Furthermore, a full maintenance programme is included, so no matter the outcome of the vehicle’s services and MOTs, the cost of repairs won’t affect the lease price.

If you haven’t leased a minibus or thought about sharing one, please do give me a call on 01753 859944 and I can talk you through how it all works.

And if you want to take a look at who we are and what we do before you call, you’ll find more information about leasing at  www.minibusleasing.co.uk

Customer quote, “What an inspiration, to make a playhouse with a roof like a hard back book! And all the stools made as a pile of books! Now that should inspire them to read more.”

If the project is 400k or 4k, Enchanted will always come up with a fantastic design for any size of project.

Themed School Classrooms

With the next school classroom project nearing completion this week and the  significant requirement for more space in schools Enchanted is launching it’s bespoke classroom solution package during November.

‘Enchanted Learning’  is already gaining it’s great reputation in themed classrooms   with Harry Potter/ Hagrid’s Lodge and Tom Sawyer styles, adding that extra dimension to education. Typically, Enchanteds design team will design any possibility and style, manufacture &  install under one umbrella.

Brad Smith at the Kimble office (brad@enchantedcreations.co.uk) is heading up the classroom design and manufacturing team.

http://www.enchantedcreations.co.uk/school-buildings

The London Science Museum opens Wonderlab

The Statoil Gallery on the third floor of the iconic museum has just opened which adds a fantastic new dimension to the collection. Enchanteds involvement in the friction slide area, particularly the bowling alley slide designed and made by Enchanted was a complete triumph; we’re told over one million users will experience it every year! A curved solid Maple wood side with the Walnut markers was a technically challenging design, beautiful Goddard Nov16

No school improves by itself.  Schools get better because someone – or better still a group of people – put energy into improving the school.

Linked to this there is a second, equally simple and equally valid observation.  Even the most excellent school will slip back over time, unless something is done, to keep it improving.

So what is it that some school managers are doing which helps improve a school in terms of its Ofsted rating, parental satisfaction and its exam results not just this year but also next year and the year after?

The answer it turns out is rather simple.  They have set up a continuing development and improvement programme.

Not, I hasten to add, a programme that turns the school upside down every term, but a programme that gently tweaks and improves different aspects of school life step by step, and does it in such a gentle way that most of the time, most colleagues don’t notice it happening.

Such an approach works in the background of everyday school life without putting any strain on the school or its members of staff.  Yet the results can be extraordinary.

The entire process is described in The Ever Improving School, a report commissioned and produced by the School of Educational Administration and Management – a body set up with government funding and the support of the government’s Department of Trade and Industry and the University of Northampton Department of Education.

The Ever Improving School is available as a Kindle book for £9.99 and as a download which can be printed out, copied and given to colleagues within the school for £14.95, including VAT.

ISBN: 978 1 86083 852 1   Order code: T1843 – please quote with order.

You can purchase the download copy of the volume

• On the phone with a school order number at 01604 880 927
• By email to sales@schools.co.uk with a school order number
• On line with a credit card via PayPal at https://www.dyscalculia.me.uk/online-shop/category/4-educational-books.html

You can purchase the kindle book from Amazon