Is there much difference between working in a primary school office to a secondary school office?

[Jumpingship84]

I currently work in a primary school office. There are 2 of us in the office plus an office manager.
I find the work load to be insane and unfortunately the working environment in my office is toxic so I want to leave.
I still need to be in schools for a while as I want the school holidays off.
I am thinking about only applying for high school office roles . I'm sure the workload and responsibilities will be just as bad. But I'm hoping that there will be more office staff to work with, a better split of roles and responsibilities, less interruptions as not as many parents pick up/drop off? Which would give you a feeling of not having to carry to whole school on your shoulders? Am I being naive here? If you work in a high school office please can you tell me about it .

I’d imagine different age children with different/more grown up problems would be the difference. I shouldn’t imagine the workload will be less unless they are properly staffed.

Whether it’s better organised will entirely depend on the structure and manager, it won’t follow that because it’s secondary it will automatically be different.

What will be really important here is doing your due diligence before accepting any new role. Ask lots of questions. People always forget this - interview processes are not one way, it needs to work both ways. I always “re-interview” the vacancy holder once they have offered the job - they have already decided at that point they want you. I’m about to start a new job shortly and some things were said at the formal interview that were really concerning and potential red flags - as I took time to have a follow up meeting post offer to say look I’m concerned about xyz I know that all the things I was worried about are either resolved issues or solvable problems.

Secondary school office staff are generally set up very differently to primary schools. In a primary school, the "office staff" do almost everything - reception, absence, first aid, secretarial work etc..
At secondary level, these roles are often split out. So you might have reception staff - dealing with parents, phone calls, late students etc. then first aid / attendance as separate roles dealing primarily with students. Then "admin" staff doing data, timetables, secretarial work etc.

Working in a primary gives you experience of most roles so you would be snapped up at my school! We struggle to recruit as so many office based staff prefer to work from home these days and within schools, you do generally need people on site.

That's what I am hoping, that each person is given a specific role that they can concentrate on rather than having to do absolutely everything
For example I don't like the finance side where I am now. I would hope there would be a person who only does finance at a high school so I wouldn't have to do that.
Does anyone know roughly how many administration staff a high school has? I have just applied for one that is taking on 3 at once as it is a new school so I'm keeping everything crossed

It depends on the size of the secondary as well. But generally most will have a separate finance officer, attendance officer, senco admin support officer, head teacher PA, then a couple on reception to deal with signing in/out students/visitors and phone calls.

In my experience there are many more office staff at secondary schools. There are at least 10 at my DC's school and probably more who don't work from the main office.

I have also wondered this - I am in a primary school office, and work alone, so I do absolutely everything that needs to be done - and then some!
It's appealing to be able to concentrate on a specific core role.

It is very different, roles are clearly defined and you wont be having to do everything under the sun. Plus there are more staff so you're not inundated with work. There are also clear lines of hierarchy, so in primary its usually the SBM or head telling you what to do but in secondary, if you're admin you're not likely to be getting any tasks from the Headteacher unless its a very small secondary.

I've worked in a primary where I had 2 admin staff who did literally everything. I now work in a secondary and I have an office manager, finance officer, receptionist, welfare officer and a HR officer and their work doesn't overlap.