Leadership for Business Managers - Impact Case Study

Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership Impact Case Study

Leadership for Business Managers

Developing leaders in educational support Participants:

Sending members of its educational support team to Bastow’s Leadership for Business Managers course is delivering wide-ranging benefits for Melbourne Girls’ College.

The outcomes for young administration team members Mella Pescos and Emma Frankenberg clearly demonstrate the value of instilling a leadership mindset across all levels and disciplines within a school.

Emma Frankenberg

Accounts Payable Officer, Melbourne Girls’ College

Mella Pescos

HR Payroll Officer, Melbourne Girls’ College

Nancy Sandilands Business Manager, Melbourne Girls’ College

Bastow | Leadership for Business Managers

Mella and Emma were quite nervous as they walked into Bastow’s state-of-the-art training facility in North Melbourne on the first day of their course.

As ‘aspiring business managers’ still in the early stages of their careers, they weren’t sure what to expect.

However, their nerves disappeared when they were warmly welcomed and soon realised that they shared a common language with even the most experienced business managers in the room.

‘It quickly became apparent that we were already leaders in our own roles, so it immediately changed from being daunting to being beneficial and affirming,’ says Mella, the college’s Human Resources Payroll Officer. ‘And in the end, we were able to contribute to the course and help our school well beyond our expectations.’

The two women returned from Bastow feeling more confident in their ability to create efficiencies and support teaching, learning and wellbeing outcomes within the school.

While undertaking the course, the pair implemented a capacity-building project to embed a practical approach to multi-skilling within their office. Team members learned how to perform each other’s roles and developed detailed process guides documenting each position.

The college’s Business Manager, Nancy Sandilands, says the project has significantly increased efficiency, continuity and teamwork within the administration office. It also piqued the interest of many other course participants, who wanted to produce similar process guides for their own schools.

Mella and Emma’s experience is one of many positive outcomes being repeated across the college as successive members of their team attend Bastow. Other impacts include providing a greater level of support to the principal, and having educational support staff participate in classroom observations, and assist on school camps and excursions.

Eight of the Richmond college’s 20 educational support staff have completed the course and Nancy intends to send each new team member to Bastow, regardless of their level of experience.

Shaping future leaders The course is designed for current and aspiring business managers and, according to Mella, ‘covers all bases’.

‘This course is leadership development and it’s mentoring,’ she explains. ‘Because it’s an educational institute, Bastow understands exactly what a school environment is like and what we need.

‘It quickly became apparent that we were already leaders in our own roles, so it immediately changed from being daunting to being beneficial and affirming.’ Mella Pescos

Pictured: Karen Money (Principal), Kathy Schipper, Cheryl Shea

‘Our purpose is exactly the same as the teachers’ purpose—to keep the students at the centre of everything we do.’

Pictured: Students, Melbourne Girls’ College Bastow | Leadership for Business Managers

Nancy Sandilands

‘Before Bastow, Emma and I knew we were reasonably good at our roles, but now it’s a completely different ball game. Bastow has lifted us up to affirm that we are already leaders in our own roles and that we can eventually become business managers further on in our careers.’

‘Our purpose is exactly the same as the teachers’ purpose —to keep the students at the centre of everything we do,’ she says. ‘How do we share the same language across everyone who works in this school? That’s really the crux of the issue.’

The course has given Emma, the college’s Accounts Receivable Officer, much more confidence in how she communicates with the wide variety of staff and students at the school.

‘With Bastow’s help, I’m changing the way everyone in this team thinks and works together. We’re aligning our support roles with our school’s strategic plan and supporting the teachers and our principal to achieve the best outcomes for students.’

‘It was such a wonderful opportunity for Mella and me to attend such a prestigious educational leadership course so early in our careers,’ Emma says.

Mella and Emma, who are both in their mid-twenties, also found that attending Bastow has opened up a wide professional network and career development opportunities. ‘We can network, we can ask for advice; we have so many more options now,’ says Mella.

Nancy mentored both Emma and Mella during the course and says her team is fortunate to have a school principal who supports quality professional development for the non-teaching staff.

Keeping students at the centre The central focus in a school, Nancy says, must be on improving teaching and learning and achieving the best outcomes for students. The challenge is helping educational support staff, who are largely involved in administrative duties, to understand how their roles also contribute to student outcomes.

As the leadership culture in the educational support team has developed, its members have looked beyond their own roles and office-based duties to find new ways of supporting student outcomes.

‘It’s not just words any more,’ Nancy adds. ‘We’re actually living it.’

Creating a multi-skilled office Mella and Emma’s school-based project aimed to address concerns about the level of disruption in the administration office when a team member is away sick or on leave.

‘Staff absences can disrupt the productivity and efficiency of the office and reduce the level of support we can provide to our students and school community,’ Mella explains.

She and Emma focused on overcoming this problem by engaging their colleagues in a major multi-skilling exercise to learn how to perform each other’s roles and develop process guides for each position.

The guides were produced by pairing up team members —usually people working in complementary roles—for ‘couple training’. The person whose role was being studied was the ‘trainer’ and their colleague was the ‘trainee’. The trainee was allocated time each week to sit with their colleague to learn the person’s role and document its associated processes. Together, they created detailed process guides about how to perform that specific role.

‘These guides have been incredibly beneficial and have really improved the day-to-day efficiency of our office,’ says Emma. ‘Everyone got involved and our team culture has also become more positive and motivating as a result; it’s been a great wellbeing exercise.’

Having multi-skilled employees who can step in to complete a task, with all the necessary procedures at their fingertips, allows staff to take a day off or be absent without adversely affecting the operations of the office, says Nancy.

‘Everyone in our office is now not only a leader in their own role, but is also equipped to perform someone else’s role if required. Everybody feels valued, everyone feels like they’re equal and we’re working collaboratively, rather than just meeting the objectives of our individual roles.’

Mella and Emma were surprised by how much interest their project generated among the other course participants.

‘Everyone was so excited and impressed with our process guides and asked for examples so they could adapt them to suit their own office or use them to get support for a similar project at their school,’ says Mella.

The three women were invited back to Bastow in mid2016 to present to the next intake of course participants about the capacity building project and its outcomes, which sparked another wave of requests for examples of their guides.

Supporting the principal Nancy has been working in education for over 35 years and in business manager roles for the past 20 years. She attended Bastow’s first Leadership for Business Managers course and says the experience was pivotal in taking her strategic leadership to a whole new level.

‘When I did this course a few years ago, it had such a big impact and was really valuable to leadership in this school,’ Nancy says. She’s been sending members of her team to Bastow ever since.

The school-based project Nancy completed during the course focussed on how a strategic business manager could better support instructional leadership.

She identified the core and non-core responsibilities for instructional leadership in the school and took over responsibility for the non-core responsibilities. This freed up the principal to focus on the areas that directly impacted teaching and learning outcomes.

‘Many principals are spending a lot of time on non-core activities, getting bogged down in reporting processes, paperwork and compliance issues, when they should be focussing on achieving quality outcomes in teaching and student learning,’ explains Nancy. ‘That’s where someone in my role can step in and help.

Bastow | Leadership for Business Managers

‘Before I went to Bastow, I just made sure everything was running smoothly in the office and that everybody in my team was doing their job and meeting deadlines,’ she adds. ‘Now, as a leader who thinks strategically, I am looking ahead, planning and being proactive. I’m reading policy documents, auditor-general’s reports and transcripts from education inquiries, and I’m improving our internal processes because of them.’

Bringing fresh eyes into classrooms Another innovation stemming from this holistic leadership mindset has been to include non-teaching staff in the weekly ‘learning walks’, when teachers visit each other’s classrooms to observe and provide feedback.

‘We bring a different perspective to observing in the classroom and we can suggest things that a teacher may not think of,’ Nancy explains. ‘We’re thinking about what we can do in our capacity to better support this class, this teacher and these students. What resources do they need? What could free up more time so the teacher can focus on their core business?’

Administrative staff members also attend camps and excursions to provide support, and help teachers implement a peer support program among older and younger students.

‘Professional learning around leadership helps you think and look at things in a totally different way, and this course personalises it for you so you know how you can improve what you do in your school,’ says Nancy. ‘This more holistic thinking around the role of non-teaching members of staff is being embedded into the culture of our school

and incorporated into our strategic planning. If it wasn’t for Bastow, we wouldn’t be thinking in this way.’

Nowadays, new members of the college’s educational support team are sent to do the Bastow course almost as a ‘rite of passage’. As Mella and Emma discovered, the results can be greater than expected.

‘Not only did Mella and I benefit from going to Bastow, we were able to bring Bastow back to our office and share it with everyone we work with,’ says Emma. ‘Our experience has not only had a positive effect on our team, it’s also benefited our school and other school communities as well.’

‘Professional learning around leadership helps you think and look at things in a totally different way, and this course personalises it for you so you know how you can improve what you do in your school.’ Nancy Sandilands Pictured: Emma Frankenberg, Mella Pescos, Nancy Sandilands

Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership 603-615 Queensberry Street North Melbourne Victoria 3051 t (03) 8199 2900 f (03) 8199 2910 e bastow@bastow.vic.edu.au

bastow.vic.edu.au /BastowInstitute

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