30/06/2009 by Tony Attwood.

Every now and then the Audit Commission takes a look at school finances.  A few years ago it attacked the government for its insanely complex method of funding schools through so many different funds.   This time it has gone down a different route arguing

a) Some money is being horded rather than spent

b) Schools are wasting money by not shopping around enough.

Michael O’Higgins, chairman of the Audit Commission, said: “Schools are not wasting money deliberately, but I don’t think the focus has been enough on economy and efficiency. The focus has been the drive to raise standards – that’s not incompatible with economy and efficiency, but if you take your eye off the ball you lose that focus.”

The report concludes that despite record increases in funding since 1997, when Labour came to power, headteachers have not put all the money to good use. They could save £415m if they negotiated better contracts for the running of their schools and are also sitting on £530m in “excessive” reserves. There has been a collective failure through the system – from schools right up to government level – to emphasise efficiency, the report will say. “If no one is asking ‘could you do this more efficiently, more cheaply?’, you’re not going to be focused on it,” O’Higgins said.

“Individual schools have taken their eye off the ball. If you’ve had resources pumped in, you might not be aware of the last 1% you could be saving. Given the tight financial forecasts, they are going to have to [be aware].”

The report asks the government to consult over methods to redistribute school budgets if it isn’t being spent.   Some councils already claw back money.  

It also suggests that Ofsted should scrutinise schools’ finances more closely during inspections.  The reverse could hardly be possible since Ofsted inspectors generally do little in terms of admin and funds.  Indeed during several of the most famous cases of school fraud Ofsted inspected the school in question and found its accounts and finances to be robust.   When I challenged Ofsted on this four years ago, I got back a short email saying “we are inspectors, not auditors”.

Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said the government expected “local authorities to take action where necessary to ensure … proper value for money.”

Tony

This item first appeared on Admin News - the free weekly email news service for school administrators.  If you would like to get the news on a regular basis, just send an email to Ed.Admin@schools.co.uk and write the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  Alternatively visit www.schools.co.uk/aboutEMN.html

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30/06/2009 by Tony Attwood.

Each term we publish a guide to school money - where it is, who has got it, where it is being spent.  There’s a link to the current edition at the end - a new edition will emerge in the summer hols.

Now the Audit Commission has joined in the analysis and they focus on two facts…

a) Some money is being horded rather than spent

b) Schools are wasting money by not not shopping around enough.

Michael O’Higgins, chairman of the Audit Commission, said: “Schools are not wasting money deliberately, but I don’t think the focus has been enough on economy and efficiency. The focus has been the drive to raise standards – that’s not incompatible with economy and efficiency, but if you take your eye off the ball you lose that focus.”

The report concludes that despite record increases in funding since 1997, when Labour came to power, headteachers have not put all the money to good use. They could save £415m if they negotiated better contracts for the running of their schools and are also sitting on £530m in “excessive” reserves. There has been a collective failure through the system – from schools right up to government level – to emphasise efficiency, the report will say. “If no one is asking ‘could you do this more efficiently, more cheaply?’, you’re not going to be focused on it,” O’Higgins said.

“Individual schools have taken their eye off the ball. If you’ve had resources pumped in, you might not be aware of the last 1% you could be saving. Given the tight financial forecasts, they are going to have to [be aware].”

The report asks the government to consult over methods to redistribute school budgets if it isn’t being spent.   Some councils already claw back money.

It also suggests that Ofsted should scrutinise schools’ finances more closely during inspections.  The reverse could hardly be possible since Ofsted inspectors generally do little in terms of admin and funds.  Indeed during several of the most famous cases of school fraud Ofsted inspected the school in question and found its accounts and finances to be robust.   When I challenged Ofsted on this four years ago, I got back a short email saying “we are inspectors, not auditors”.

Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said the government expected “local authorities to take action where necessary to ensure … proper value for money.”

The current review, prepared at the start of the summer 2009 term is available free of charge at

<a href=”http://www.hamilton-house.com/free%20reports/When.pdf”>http://www.hamilton-house.com/free%20reports/When.pdf</a>

This story first appeared on Education Marketing News.  If you want to read this daily bulletin for companies that sell to schools please send an email to<a href=”education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com”> education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com</a>

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22/06/2009 by Tony Attwood.

As part of my work of the Hamilton House PR Agency, I try and keep in with the researchers at the BBC who are often charged with the need to find someone last minute to talk on anything educational.

It paid off this weekend when I was called and asked to do a piece about dyslexia today.  What question did I want to put to the Secretary of State, Ed Balls on the new money that is being put into education to help work with young people who suffer from dyslexia?   I told them, and they said fine, “you’re on”.

To be 100% accurate I didn’t quite put my point to Mr B, since the broadcast on Radio 5 Live was interrupted to cover some development in the election of a Speaker for the House of Commons (to think that a comment of mine should be interrupted by “events”!!!)

But I got on (I think just as the Sec was shuffling out of the studio), said my bit about the issue of dyslexia that really troubles me, and I suspect that one or two members of my family tuned in to listen even if the rest of the nation turned off.

The point about such contacts of course is that by always being avaialble for the BBC whenever they want it enhances the chances of new stories that come out of this office getting onto a BBC programme.  It doesn’t guarantee it, of course, but it makes life easier.  (I once did an interview for Radio 4 while in the queue for the checkout at Tesco - there is no end to my dedication).

If you are interested in Hamilton House representing your company in terms of PR you might care to take a peek at www.voom.org.uk - our PR site.   We do have a facility through which you only pay for the coverage you get - that is, if we write a press release and it doesn’t get coverage, you don’t pay us anything.   The alternative is that you can pay a monthly fee, which is the same each month, whether we get you on a dozen TV shows, or one tiny article in a specialist magazine.

Or, if you prefer, call me on 01536 399 013 and I’ll just go on and on about me and the Secretary of State and how I told him how to get his dyslexia policy right.

Oh yes, and its my birthday too.

Tony

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18/06/2009 by Tony Attwood.

I have always argued that specialist schools make good targets when one is trying to find out what sort of market there is for a certain type of product.  Most of our email lists, and all of our direct mail lists can be selected by school specialism (details at the end of this piece

79 more specialist schools have been designated in England in June 09.   This brings the specialist school sector and academies to 92% of maintained secondary schools in England.  (That is England only, not the UK).

Specialist schools have a focus on their chosen subject area but must meet National Curriculum requirements to deliver a broad and balanced education to all pupils.

There are ten categories of specialist school: Technology; Languages; Arts; Sports; Business and Enterprise; Engineering; Mathematics & Computing; Science; Humanities and Music.

Maintained and non-maintained special schools are eligible to apply for specialist status in any of these curricular specialisms. Special schools may alternatively apply for the special educational needs specialism.   

Schools can also combine any two specialisms and in future application rounds schools may also apply to combine any of the 10 options with an Applied Learning specialism.

In 2005 the Specialist Schools Programme extended the choice available for maintained and non-maintained special schools, by allowing them to be specialist in one of the areas of the SEN Code of Practice:

- communication and interaction;
- cognition and learning;
- behavioral, emotional and social development;
- sensory and /or physical needs

To apply for specialist status, schools must raise £50,000 in sponsorship (less in the case of small schools with under 500 pupils on roll) and draw up a school and community plan to raise standards, increase provision and encourage take-up in their specialist subjects.

Their community development plan has to show how they will share the benefits of good practice, expertise and resources with other schools named in the plan and with identified groups within their wider community. The Government believes that widening schools’ options in this way means they are able to develop their individual strengths, promote innovation and spread good practice throughout the whole school system.

In order to help them develop their specialism, specialist schools receive the following additional funding from the Government: £100,000 (to be combined with the £50k sponsorship) for a capital project to enhance the facilities in the subjects related to the school’s specialism; and recurrent funding of around £129 per pupil per year to implement their specialist school development plans.

Special schools receive £645 per pupil with a minimum of £60,000 per annum to implement their plans. Specialist schools are expected to target around one third (one half for SEN schools) of their specialist school recurrent funding on sharing resources and expertise in their specialist area with partner schools and the wider community.

In 2003 the Government introduced a ‘Partnership Fund’ to provide support to specialist school applicants that can demonstrate their sustained efforts to find the £50K sponsorship have been unsuccessful. The fund is administered by the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust in accordance with DCSF criteria. 410 schools have benefited so far.

A total of 33 Local Authorities are now 100% specialist: Bath and NE Somerset, Barnet, Bedfordshire, Blackpool, Brent, Bromley, Cornwall, Devon, Durham, Ealing, Gateshead, Harrow, Hartlepool, Herefordshire, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Merton, Middlesbrough, North Lincolnshire, North Somerset, Plymouth, Reading, Rotherham, Rutland, Southwark, Shropshire, Thurrock, Trafford, Wakefield, Walsall, West Berkshire, Wigan and York.

Hamilton House Mailings can select its Personal and Preference email lists and its direct mail lists according to specialism.   The new specialist schools will be added to the database in the next few weeks and will be available for mailing from September.    There is an approximate list of specialist schools at http://www.directmail.org.uk/School_lists2.pdf - but these totals do not include updates we have done in the past term - for the very latest figures please call 01536 399 000.

Tony

Hamilton House Mailings plc reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB.  Phone 01536 399 000.

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16/06/2009 by Tony Attwood.

Viral marketing is one of the most talked about elements in contemporary marketing.  Can it be applied to education?   Here’s a quick run down, just in case you ever pondered such an idea.

The process

The aim of all viral marketing is to create an email, a blog or experience (such as a You Tube video) which works like this…

1.  You send the viral agent (email, blog link or whatever) to a lot of people (in our case, teachers).

2.  These people forward the viral agent to other like minded people (presumably other teachers)

3.  All of these people buy into your message by enquiring about your product or service.

Creating the elements

1.  The idea: what are we going to tell them?   Most viral agents focus on humour (people or animals behaving in a strange manner is a favourite one), which in some way can be seen to link into the product.    Although humour is the norm, you can also create lists of tips, “how tos” and so on.   The Hamilton House “How To” articles (www.hamilton-house.com - and click on “how to” on the left) have circulated widely - I often get calls from people who have been forwarded one of the pdfs by a colleague, and have come to us for more.

2.  Putting it into practice - the creative element.  The article, email or film has to be created.  A straight forward advert won’t work - this has to be something that is so interesting that others will want to pass it on to friends.  

3.  Starting the marketing.   You start by emailing lots of people with whatever it is you have created as a viral agent.   They then forward it.  But here’s the twist. There is no point in just getting lots of people to look at your message.  If you are selling a book to English teachers in the UK, there’s not much point having 50,000 university students in the USA coming to your site.  It just clogs up your site and has your internet service provider shutting you down because the site can’t cope.   And that is the issue with viral when it comes to teachers.   At the moment we can reach around half the heads of department in secondary schools by emails that go to them direct.  Next term the numbers will be higher.   Is it really worth all the trouble to get that other half, when you could direct mail them, even if you can’t email them.

The cost and benefit of going viral

1.  Because it involves researching and developing the story you need someone who is used to this type of writing to do it.   Blog entries can work - but again this needs a pro writer.   I’ve been writing commercially for all my adult life, but it still took me a year of practice before people started picking up my blogs and forwarding them.

2.  One of my biggest hits with this was a daily blog written for 9 months for the School of Education Administration which told the story of a school administrator’s activities each day to promote the name of the SEA.   You can look at the opening of this at http://blog.admin.org.uk/2008/04/10/diary-of-a-school-administrator-april-8/     The blog appeared on the SEA’s site, and was copied many times.   Indeed we still get calls about it, over a year on.   But again there is cost - unless you or one of your colleagues has this talent.

The opening lists.

Whether you go for a viral campaign or you go for a straight email campaign which you also put on your blog, you need a list of people to send the opening emails to.   We can supply these.  There are full details of the named lists at http://www.yesmail.org.uk/PersPrefLists.html and these numbers are growing all the time.   Schools where we don’t have the email address of the teacher can be reached through general emails, until we get the full list.

We can also put your notice on the Schools Blog - www.blog.schools.co.uk at no extra charge.  Call me if you would like to know more.

Tony

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12/06/2009 by Tony Attwood.

Research by Hamilton House into the effectiveness of emails to schools has shown huge variations in the success of different emails.

The main factor that influences the success of any particular email is the list itself.

There are four lists available for mailing schools - I list them below the comparing click through rates.  This is the percentage of people mailed who have clicked on the main link in the email on to the advertisers web site. 

This is a key figure in email marketing.   If the percentage figure is low, then the email has not worked very well.  If the percentage figure is high, but sales are low, it means the email is working well, but the web site is not doing its job.  If sales are good, then everyone is happy.

So, here are some recent typical figures that we have seen from email campaigns we have run, along with the cost of each list

Subscription lists: 35% click through (20p per email address)

Personal lists: 15% click through (18p per email address)

Preference lists: 3% click through (10p per email address)

Generic lists: 0.5% click through (5p per email address)

Each list has its own plusses and minuses, as always.  The subscription lists only go to teachers who have subscribed to a news service.  Adverts are limited to one a week and some of the lists get booked up quite a way in advance.  Also there are not subscription lists available for every subject - and of course not every teacher subscribes.  

Personal lists are lists of teachers own personal email addresses at school.  These are responsive - although only around half the secondary schools in the UK will give these out.   The preference list is the list of schools that won’t give out personal list addresses.  They are emailed to the administrator, but with the name of the teacher in the subject line.

The generic lists have the virtue of reaching virtually every school (these addresses just have the school email address and a note on the subject line to say “Attn Head of Maths, or whatever) and they are the cheapest.  But the rates are also the lowest.

So, in my opinion, the first decision when emailing schools is, which list to choose.  It is only after that decision should one think about the structure of the text etc.

There’s more information about emailing schools on www.yesmail.org.uk/schools.html - or you can email me or call HHM on 01536 399 000.

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