Business Manager at The Chalk Hills Academy

JOB PURPOSE 

Responsible for planning, monitoring and managing the day-to-day operations and prioritising needs of the school.  Additionally, responsible for managing relationships and contracts with Advantage School’s suppliers. This includes designing and implementing supplier processes and policies, leading quality assurance, and leading outsourced suppliers in ensuring excellent customer service and value for money is achieved.  Understanding that the Business Manager role is responsible to creating excellent conditions for students to learn and for staff members to thrive.  Learning takes priority over all other matters – the role of the Business Manager is ensuring the building is optimised to enable this.  Helping create the right conditions for learning throughout the school for both staff and students

MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: 

Operational

·         Monitoring and managing the day-to-day operational performance of the school, ensuring that systems and processes are working effectively, addressing any issues or escalating them to the relevant person as required. 

·         Responsible for the creation, monitoring and testing of the school’s business continuity planning arrangements.

·         Advise Principal on the operational position, process, legislation and concerns in a timely manner

·         Lead by example, build trust, provide clear direction and hold staff to account as and when required.

·         Monitor, assess and review contractual obligations for outsourced services at a school level. To report all unresolved contractual concerns to the Trust Estates and H&S Manager.

·         Build strategic works plans for each of the holiday periods to minimise disruption of school life with majority of works being completed.

·         Be available in the school holidays to oversee the works

·         Strategically plan essential works to ensure works are completed in time with minimal disruption to the normal running of the school.

·         Work with all external contractors

·         Ensure ancillary services such as catering, cleaning and site-maintenance are monitored effectively on a day-to-day School basis.

·         Work with external stakeholders to ensure the school continues to develop excellent relationships.  Liaise with external stakeholder (parents) where appropriate (e.g. meal price increases).

·         To meet regularly (fortnightly) with the Trust Estates and H&S Manager regarding operational matters including any emergency protocols in the event of structural or mechanical failures.

·         Ensure the Principal has all the required information to make informed decisions on the day-to-day running of the school

·         To attend senior leadership team (SLT) meetings to ensure leaders are aware of the operational position and to ensure that the any financial implications are discussed with the finance manager thereafter.

·         Lead on whole school operations – be available to oversee the big events of the school throughout the year

·         Have a shared vision with the leadership team – to be the no.1 school in Luton by 2028

·         Support with the effective administration of the school as requested 

·         Supporting and encouraging the school’s ethos and its objectives, policies and procedures

Site Team

·         Lead and manage the Site Team, providing coaching and oversight to team members as required. 

·         To line-manage the site manager and support him/her in ensuring rigorous day-to-day procedures are put in place. To schedule and accompany the site manager on the daily site walk.

·         Focused on quality and efficiency – remove obstacles for staff and students

·         Provide daily to-do list to site staff – then follow up and quality assure the work to ensure it has been completed to a high standard.

·         Have very high standards for the orderly presentation of the building with keen eye for details and quality.

·         Ensuring the Site Team is responsible for the assurance of legal compliance testing on campus.

Lettings

·         Responsible for the day-to-day contact and management of dates for Schools Plus, informing them of any school events, cancellations that may need to be made, corrections of faulty equipment and maintenance.  Although not managing people, responsible for overseeing the smooth operations of lettings within the school.

·         A point of contact for out of hours emergency.

Health & Safety

·         To act as Health & Safety Lead for the School

·         Critical Incident planning 

·         To manage all fire drill/lockdown drills in a timely manner and reporting’s liaised with

Trust Facilities Manager

·         To investigate health & safety incidents in conjunction with the school nurse

·         To manage all in house staff compliancy training for health & safety

·         Act as the lead for school health & safety Committee reporting

·         To manage new Starter health & safety inductions for all staff

GDPR – Data Protection 

·         Ensure that the school complies with all aspects of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK's Data Protection Act 2018.

·         Support the DPO in managing GDPR compliance activities.

·         Ensure that all personal data is processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently, and that it is only collected for specific, legitimate purposes.

·         Regularly review and update the school’s data protection policies and procedures, including retention schedules.

·         Maintain up-to-date records of all data processing activities carried out by the school.

Finance

·         Responsible for admin of all trips:

o        Set up trips on (parent payment solution)

o        Work with teaching staff to ensure trips are costed and all monies are received

o        Reconcile individual trips to ensure correctly funded

o        Provide all communications/correspondence to parents

·         Ensure weekly card payment reconciliations are carried out in conjunction with Trust procedures 

·         To be responsible for ensuring all overtime forms are approved and are collated in the appropriate format and to ensure they are sent to the Trust Payroll Manager within the relevant timescales

·         To be responsible for ensuring all staff expenses forms are approved and are collated in the appropriate format and to ensure they are sent to the Finance Manager within the relevant timescales.

·         Support the school in bid funding to external agencies

·         To manage in house Petty Cash accurately and in a timely manner. To share this with Finance Manager.

·         To check orders on IRIS ordering system to ensure they are scrutinised before approved by finance manager.

·         To attend triangulation meeting with Principal and Finance Manager to discuss non pay budgets (only) on weekly basis.

·         To manage all cash collections at school and ensure money is safely put away in the safe, ensuring all procedures are adhered to.

·         To manage trips and fundraisers at the school and ensure any cash/card payments are identified and collated in appropriate format

·         To ensure catering accounts are managed and any debt is chased in a timely manner

·         To ensure school shop for Arbor is set up for individual items and monitored

Other

·         Line-Manage and lead the Administration, Reception and Reprographics Teams

·         To support with parental complaints on site or any complaints that are sent into reception

·         To manage student rewards alongside the senior heads of years

·         To manage all staff internal events

·         To act as SLT Link for holidays intervention

·         Meet monthly with every Faculty Leader to ensure teaching spaces are well presented and staff have everything they need to do their jobs at the highest standards.

The Trust reserves the right to interview and appoint a suitable candidate before the deadline date.

Safeguarding

The safeguarding and welfare of children is paramount and all our staff share this view. Applicants must be willing to undergo safeguarding and child protection checks including with past employers and the Disclosure and Barring Service.