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• Leading schools
  • Managing schools
    • Helping schools use resources well
      • Securing the best for less
      • The principles of school finance
      • Financial planning and budgeting
      • Strategic financial management and budgeting
      • Financial monitoring, reporting and evaluation
      • Cash management
      • Evaluating financial resource management
      • Creating capacity for strategic and operational leadership
      • Procurement
      • Personnel and benefits management
      • Leading learning and teaching
      • Managing the organisation
      • Effective use of resources: case studies

Managing the organisation

The role of the headteacher in leading and managing change, including building teams and external collaborations to secure positive outcomes for pupils.

Human resource management

Workforce modernisation has led to more complex school structures and a greater number and range of roles for support staff. Headteachers today are ultimately responsible for a greater variety of staff than ever before. The national agreement recognises that all members of the school workforce need to act as one, working as a team to improve outcomes for children and young people. The headteacher must harness the skills and talents of the whole workforce to achieve this.

Traditionally, the headteacher or a member of the senior leadership team has tended to deal with human resources issues directly. This can be time-consuming and takes the focus away from the strategic leadership of the school. The school business manager is now recognised as an integral part of the school workforce, helping schools to make better use of their resources and facilities and enabling headteachers to focus on the strategic leadership of teaching and learning.

Change management

Managing a changing workforce involves understanding the skills, competencies and dynamics within the workforce and ensuring that culture, staffing, structures and processes are all contributing to achieving the school’s goals and vision. Most change processes involve the following stages:

• assessing where you are now
• assessing where you want to be
• creating an action plan for getting there
• evaluating progress.

Effective change requires the commitment of all stakeholders. There are a number of recognised approaches and models for structuring change management for school improvement. These include:

• TDA remodelling process: a generic change process that can be applied and adapted to any change scenario. It is used by many schools and other children’s workforce agencies, in contexts ranging from school capital projects to major curricular change. The process involves setting up a change team, with leadership of the change project shared across the team.
• Kotter model: a change management model developed by leadership and change expert John Kotter. The model includeseight critical stages an organisation or service needs to go through to ensure that change happens and is sustained, from establishing a sense of urgency to institutionalising new approaches.
• Bridge Change Leadership Framework: the Bridge model is customised to the local school context and is co-designed with leaders to create leadership capacity. The tool is designed to be used collaboratively and has been applied to create effective change in multi-agency, cross-service leadership development strategies.

Further information

• TDA remodelling process
• Mindtools - Kotter’s 8-step change model
• Innovation Unit - Bridge Change Leadership Framework

Working with complex structures

Developments such as the Every Child Matters agenda, the Children’s Plan, the extended services agenda and the 14-19 strategy mean that schools are now required to have a strong external focus, working in a multi-agency context with a clear focus on the wellbeing of children and young people. Schools are coming together as part of clusters, federations, collaborations, multi-agency teams and integrated services.

There are a number of ways in which schools can manage the provision of extended services in their school or in partnership with other schools:

• Direct delivery: extended services are provided and managed by the school, with the governing body deciding which services and facilities to provide in consultation with the local authority, staff, parents and, if appropriate, pupils and members of the community. The governing body is directly responsible for the services and facilities provided. A variation on this approach is for the governing body to set up a management company to run the services. This variation can also be used across a cluster of schools.
• Third party providers: some or all of the extended services are provided and managed by another organisation, through a contract with the governing body. The third party could be a private company, a voluntary or public sector organisation or a local authority provider.
• Clusters: cluster arrangements are a common model and are often facilitated by the local authority working in partnership with the schools involved. They are normally managed by a cluster manager, perhaps with a small administration team.
• Co-location with a children’s centre: co-location with a children’s centre can facilitate the provision of public services that would not normally be available through a school.

Further information

National Professional Qualification for Headship