Emma Gray, chief finance and operations officer, shares her strategy for tackling minor yet impactful events in schools with a well-structured ‘not-such-a-crisis’ plan, ensuring smooth operations during unexpected situations
Although I sometimes yearn to pack my bags to go and live the life of a remote hermit, I’ve so far resisted the urge. Something about a small stone hut on the side of a lake with civilisation way over a mountain is very appealing, but the desire to remain accessible to my family, embrace the challenges of work, and take a daily hot shower keep me grounded.
This is the sort of thought process I go through at the beginning of a new year. What’s in store? Where am I heading? What are the priorities on my to-do list? Could I escape it all?
I do like January – it’s an incredibly positive month. It feels fresh, like a clean start. It’s a time to wait patiently for the spring bulbs, plan for the year ahead, use a small space window to review policies and procedures and, of course, there is always that thrilling chance of a few snow days.
We can often see snow days in late November and December which would be lovely, for a few minutes; then it became a day of messaging what-ifs, can-we’s, and how shall we’s?
Inevitably (and necessarily) the decision is left to the last possible moment, but then glitches in the systems needed to be dealt with. It was not a fun day. I don’t like texting staff at nine p.m. asking if they could just sort something out.
One of the problems I find with emergency, business continuity and crisis management plans is that we only think to use them in a major crisis or emergency. Of course, the plans and preparation are vital, should the worst happen, but more often it is the lesser events which occur where we could really use a formal procedure.
So, I’m thinking of introducing a ‘not-such-a-crisis’ plan in my trust. This plan will lay out a procedure for a minor, but unusual, event which requires the input of key members of staff.
It will list who is needed and how we will communicate; it can draw on experience of previous events and we can review and update it after the event. It will mean we have a record of the event and ensure responsibility doesn’t fall on one person. We can also put in some clear succession should, for example, senior staff be out of the country.
I’m thinking my ‘not-such-a-crisis’ plan could be used for:
Unexpected snowfall or other inclement, weather-affecting, operations
Power, heating, or water failure
Moderate-to-high levels of absence among staff and/or students.
An incident on a school trip.Damage, however caused, to buildings or equipment
An incident on site during school holidays.I’m sure you can think of lots of other occasions in your school when a checklist would have been helpful, meaning staff involved had prior warning of when they would be needed and dare I say, when they wouldn’t! The key headings in my plan are going to be:
Who will be involved? (My advice is keep it to a minimum).
How are those involved going to communicate with each other?
Who is required to advise on the decision?
Who is required to make the decision?
Who leads on communications to staff/parents/students?
Who supports the communications? (From a technical point of view.)
Who reviews the event and updates the plan?
This sounds so simplistic and obvious but, it should save a lot of time, minimise avoidable delays and result in targeted support and clear communications.
Thankfully, major incidents are rare, but those small ones which seem to test us on a regular basis could, I think, be supported by some small formality and overall awareness.
This article was written by Emma Gray.
You can read the originally published version of this article in the Education Executive magazine.
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