It’s time to start thinking about the year ahead, and Sharon Marsh has some words of wisdom to share when it comes to managing estates so that the buildings, land and facilities are ready and compliant in all aspects of Estate and Health & Safety
As school business professionals, heading back into the first term of the new academic year, it’s time to reflect on all the great work that has taken place over Term 7. Especially as everyone else comes back to school and asks if we had a restful summer break!
GEMS
In 2017 the DfE published the first edition of Good Estate Management for Schools (GEMS). GEMS looks at Estate Management under the following categories: Strategic Estate Management, Planning & Organising Estate Resources, Understanding Land & Buildings, Performance Management & Sustainability, Maintaining your Estate, Health & Safety and Managing estate projects.
This has been revised and updated a few times and has become a very useful tool. It can also be used alongside the Estate Management Competency Framework. This framework can be used to set a basis for our estate team’s job descriptions, personal development, skills and training. So, using these two frameworks together gives us the best tools available to have strong, effective and efficient estates teams and well thought through and managed buildings.
Aiming for excellence
When we are thinking about our estates, I believe that we should be aiming for excellence. The state of our buildings and the facilities we have available for our staff and pupils are just as important as the excellence we strive for in the teaching and learning experiences we create. Both can have a direct impact on how our students feel, what they believe they can achieve and the actual outcomes that we see. A robust approach to estates management and the condition of our buildings is essential.
The amount of funding that is available to schools to look after and even improve our facilities is limited and is often a challenge in school. CIF bids or SCA funding can help with larger, targeted capital improvements and we often need to be creative in the way we use our buildings to achieve the multi-purpose uses we require. Even though funding will always be tight, it is the responsibility of all estate professionals to manage the school estate and ensure that it is safe. GEMS can be useful in managing this in the most effective way possible whilst striving for excellence. Using the self-assessment tool can help you assess your current approach to estates management, and you can then use this to see if there are practices that you can improve to raise effectiveness.
It will also help you have conversations with different teams in school to ensure:
Your vision for estates development links to your School/Trust goals
Excellence is a common theme across all development
A strong development plan with realistic objectives is put in place
A detailed action plan to achieve your goals is put in place. This needs to have clear roles, responsibilities and timescales included so that everyone is aware of what you are all aiming to achieve and by when.
Consistent communication
Communication with colleagues is important when setting this out and I believe that this should be a living document, not something that is put in place but never referred to. What is the point of putting it together if you aren’t going to use it to achieve your common and agreed goals? Involving the whole team in this work can make the difference between a fantastic achievement and just ticking the boxes, or worse, not achieving your goals or being compliant.
It is also useful to have an up-to-date Condition Survey of your estate. This will help inform your decisions about planned maintenance, allowing you time to establish that the right contractors are invited to tender for works so that you can ensure you get the right job for the right price and a timescale to suit the school. And it’s far less stressful that way too!
The estates team in a school can often appear invisible, but the contribution that they make to everyday school life is crucial and it is important that this is recognised.
When I am asked to support a new School/Trust I enjoy spending time with my estate’s teams, getting to know them, asking them for their experience and knowledge to ensure that everything goes smoothly, as I know that at times when reactive maintenance is needed, I wouldn’t be without my team. They always go that extra mile, often out of hours when other staff are oblivious to the crisis that has been averted by the time they arrive at school.
Good estate management is an exciting challenge, and being compliant is a necessity, but working with SLT, estate and finance teams to bring your plans to fruition is a great and, I find, satisfying achievement.
Be the first to comment