Case Study
Paul Steward | Director of Business and Operations | La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls' School
La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls' School is an Inner London voluntary-aided 11-18 secondary school with approximately 1,200 students on roll. The SLT here comprises the Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher, Director of Business and Operations, one Director of Learning and six Assistant Headteachers - the team all work extremely cohesively. The Director of Business and Operations takes an active role in the SLT and his views and opinions are generally welcomed by the other SLT members on a range of curricular and non-curricular matters. His is a strategic role when it comes to resource planning and developing support services in the school to enable the best possible quality of teaching and learning; students can then achieve outstanding results!
In his 17-year tenure, he has successfully overseen the smooth transition of many key support services historically provided to the school by outsourced companies to an in-house operation e.g. catering, ICT support.
This has not only improved service quality but has provided greater value for money for the school. The school always tries to be commercially astute where it can be and the school generates at least an extra £600,000 annually from hiring out its facilities and outsourcing its own staff, for example IT, premises, and business management, who support other schools.
He takes an active role in SLT responsibilities involving students e.g. gate, lunch, bus stop duties, and is well known across the school community with many students knowing him by name.
The Headteacher and governors recognise the importance of having an experienced and confident individual in the role and, as such, remunerate the role at the same ISR as the Deputy Headteacher.