When funding feels impossible, focus here

There’s a lot you can’t control right now. The funding formula. Energy costs. National pay scales. All set elsewhere — and often without any sense of your reality on the ground. But here’s the hopeful bit: You can’t control the funding. You can control the impact.

A simple way to uncover £10k you might be missing

If every penny is stretched at the moment, here’s a hopeful thought: You might have £10k in your budget. You just haven’t found it yet. I see this all the time in schools — money that’s there, quietly hiding in plain sight. Here are a few places it loves to hide

Sickness hits budgets hard — but it’s more fixable than you think

Sickness doesn’t just hit the timetable. It hits the budget — and often harder than we realise. Here’s a quick way to see the real picture. Think back to last term (or better still, last year): How many sick days were there? Now multiply that by £150.

A simple calculation that reveals a surprising drain on resources

Here’s a number worth knowing — and once you see it, you can’t unsee it: Everyday conflict in your school might be costing you the equivalent of one full-time teacher. Here’s the simple maths. If low-level issues take up just 30 minutes a week of your team’s time — things like: lateness poor marking mood hoovers resistant TAs caretakers not getting jobs done admin not following through — then across a whole staff, that half-hour becomes a huge drain.

Why excellent schools look like they have extra budget

Here’s something I see in outstanding schools almost everywhere I go: They look like they have money. But they don’t. They have more Superstars on their payroll. What do I mean by superstars? People who are brilliant at their job and great cultural fit for your school. Put simply, you’d clone them if you could! And that alone gives them the equivalent of £200k extra for every £1m of payroll.

The four numbers that make your school budget go further

School budgets can feel so out of your hands — formulas, pay rises, energy costs… all set elsewhere. And when we talk about budgets, we usually dive straight into codes and spreadsheets. The best heads I work with look past the spreadsheet. They keep focusing on four human numbers that tell them whether their school is getting real value from their biggest spend — payroll.

Do you know how much staff sickness is costing you?

Budgets are tight. And when they are, one of the ways to help combat this is to look at the costs we’re spending and not getting the most out of. Pay is your biggest cost. And it gets eroded from many angles. Perhaps sickness is eroding yours.

Money isn’t your problem, time is

I hope SATs went well last week, and the GCSEs & A-Levels continue to. Time. Money. Two resources we never seem to have enough of. But which is more important? Time. Why? Because: money buys time. And what do we do with time? I know school finances are incredibly hard right now. […]

Unlocking school magic: Strategies for success with limited resources

It’s hard in school right now. Falling rolls. Recruitment challenges. Complex needs like we’ve not seen before. I get it. What can you do about it? There’s only so much in your control. And sadly a lot of aspects that aren’t. I’m always looking for those schools who are achieving above average success, in […]

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