The annual SBM conference is an important event in the Schools North East calendar, allowing School Business Professionals to step back from the day-to-day, connect with colleagues and collaborate on the most important issues that affect their roles. This year, more than ever, it was important that SBPs had this opportunity to network with others and reflect on the impact of the pandemic on their roles.
The overarching theme of this year’s conference ‘Survive the Covid Zoo’ was chosen to address the key issues that School Business Professionals have been facing over the last 10 months; with sub themes around finance, HR, wellbeing, and coping with covid. The main theme was explored in depth with a conference keynote from motivational speaker Nigel Risner on ‘How to become an effective zookeeper’, acknowledging the integral role that SBPs have in their schools. Communication was a key aspect of this session which focused on how to understand the different ‘languages’ that staff members use to communicate and to use this as a tool for improving leadership.
Day one gave delegates the opportunity to choose breakout sessions, attending either ‘Uncertain Times : The Future of Procurement’ with Claire Delaney from Schools Buying Club or ‘Developing a strategy for wellbeing’ with Susan McGinn, North Yorkshire Education Services, both important and timely issues for School Business Professionals under the current circumstances. Following the first round of break out sessions, delegates were then able to look at ‘Improving Your School Communications: A COVID-19 Retrospective’ with Callum Underwood – Account Manager at Eduprise, or explore the six traits of effective School Business Leadership with Stephen Mitchell, CEO of Keystone Knowledge and Stephen Morales, CEO, ISBL, both informative sessions which drew on real experience from working through the pandemic to help delegates shape future responses.
The afternoon saw delegates join a networking coffee break session for the opportunity to connect in a more informal environment. The first half of the session looked at peer to peer support, with SBPs sharing their experiences of this, while the second half of the session was based on the film ‘Zootopia’ following the conference theme, and aimed to look at some of the positives which have come out of the pandemic, with delegates sharing their experiences.
With a strong focus on promoting wellbeing for delegates, as well as sessions focused on this, both days of the conference started with ‘wellbeing warm ups’, designed to help get delegates into the headspace to start their days.
Day two kicked off with fascinating insights from Nicola West Jones, Head of Market Research at The Key, digging into findings of The Key’s research into the challenges of School Business Management. This session, which revealed not only the challenges SBPs had faced but how this compared between the North East and rest of the country was followed by a panel to dig further into the topic with speakers Nicola West Jones, The Key, Stephen Morales, ISBL, Hayley Dunn, ASCL, Louise Levy, COO, Bishop Wilkinson, Catholic Education Trust and Pauline Aitchison, Deputy Director of Schools North East. The session was chaired by Chris Zarraga, Director of Schools North East and looked at how to deal with some of these challenges, as well as looking at the more positive aspects of the work that has come out of the pandemic, showing that SBPs are more recognised within the profession and have a voice, as well as some of the more simple aspects of measures making schools safer and communication with parents improving.
Afternoon breakout sessions allowed delegates to look at the pandemic from an HR perspective with ‘How to plan and respond to the Coronavirus – an HR overview’ from Jane Warburton & Pamela Mee, Avec and ‘Coping with absence management during Covid 19’ from Karin Brawn, Education Mutual. Coming back together for a final session keynote speaker Nigel Risner looked at ‘How to perform with what you have learnt’ – helping delegates to get the most out of the conference by committing to put these takeaways into practice.
The conference was a fantastic opportunity for School Business Professionals in all roles to take a step back, and come together to reflect on recent months, as well as think about the future. Recurring themes from the conference highlighted the importance of this connection and collaboration, as well as making the collective voice of SBPs heard so that the crucial work they do does not go unrecognised.
We want to say a huge thank you to all delegates, speakers and sponsors for making the event possible, in particular main sponsor Education Mutual for their support. It was wonderful to be able to connect with SBPs from all over the region and beyond, and we hope that next time we can do so in person.
