In the final weeks of her secondment as acting CFOO, Tricia Wilkin reflects on her twelfth month at the Academy Trust and shares insights into leadership transition, school operations and professional growth
I’m now into my twelfth month at the Academy Trust and finishing my secondment as the acting chief financial and operations officer (CFOO) in seven weeks’ time. Since my last piece, the CEO announced he is leaving at the end of the end of the academic year so there have been quite a few changes taking place to ensure everything is in place for a smooth transition into the next year.
All Systems Change
We have been busy setting the staff structures for both schools in line with the budget. This process was started the old-fashioned way – with the SLT around a table and some post-its notes – and ended up being concluded by using the Integrated Curriculum Financial Planning (ICFP) tool, which was then fed back to the Heads of Schools so further strategic discussions could take place on what future years might need to look like. If you haven’t already had training on the ICFP it’s worth getting in touch with the DfE or your local networking group to see what future training opportunities are available.
Taking a Walk Around
We have just set up a children’s safeguarding committee at our smaller rural school, which is being led by our behavioural support lead. I offered for them to join the Trust Site supervisor and me on a Health and Safety Walk which I do annually with my permanent school, which they accepted. I love these walks and usually find that they can bring much more of an insight into the school and how it truly runs through the eyes of a child. It’s also a great opportunity to speak to the children about Health and Safety and educate them so that they can help build on the safe and secure environment. Thankfully it was a warm day, so we concentrated on the outdoor areas and the children particularly enjoyed telling me about their thoughts on the school boat that they enjoy playing in but recently had been the cause of a couple of accidents.
Engaging With the Students
We discussed these and came up with some ideas on how we could all approach its use in a different yet still enjoyable way, with the children eagerly going away to review the boat’s rules for play. They will be presenting to the whole school in an assembly which will become a regular event to help reduce accidents at playtimes.
We will then measure the impact of these half-termly when analysing the number of accident forms and where they took place. We finished our walk in a classroom where we had an interesting conversation about manual handling with regards to storage on shelves. It was all concluded with a list of jobs for the site supervisor to keep him busy!
Personal Development Milestones
My CIPFA Diploma in Schools Financial and Operational Leadership course is going well with me now attending three modules. The most recent module was the Certificate in Financial Reporting in Academies. We had a day session with the tutor to go over the seven units that make up the module and then we have 6 months to work through the workbooks before sitting a 90-minute open book exam. It might sound like a lot however I’m planning on doing a unit a week and hope to sit the exam over the summer holidays. Thankfully there are lots of practice papers and revision sessions available, with the bonus that everyone gets three attempts if needed. I’d highly recommend this course for anyone looking to gain a qualification aimed at school business professionals.
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