I have an interview for a Finance Manager's job in a primary school

[MaryBS]

I'm numerate and literate, but my most recent career history has been payroll, with little accounts experience. Despite this, I've got a job interview for the above role. The last role I went for was for a similar position, I got an interview for it, but was woefully unprepared, and didn't get the job.

Can anyone suggest how I can research this role? I don't have time to go into a school before the interview, which I thought might be one way of doing this.

Does anyone do this role at the moment and can suggest things to think about?

Research FMSiS - Financial Management Systems in Schools - all schools have to be signed up to this now. Good luck

finance in schools is nothing like finance in the private sector.

Agree that knowledge of FMSIS will be benefitial during interview, is it just an interview or will you be given a task to do as well? When I interviewed for a finance manager job in a school part of the interview was a task where they gave you a draft budget which showed a projected deficit in three years and asked you to look at it and to amend it so that you had a balanced budget at the end instead of a deficit.

One thing to consider when doing this would be how to increase the school's income rather than how to cut expenditure, i.e. increasing take-up of school meals for instance and pupil numbers if the school does not have a full headcount, rather than cutting staff costs for instance.

hth.

Thanks. As far as I know, there won't be a task, but I guess I can't rule anything out.

Last time, one of the governors was an accountant and he asked me questions about accountancy terms. Plus I was asked about "Every Child Matters"

Interview is this Friday, have been reading up on FMSiS, and printed off some stuff, anyone else like to add anything?

I'm also going into my local primary tomorrow, for 1/2 hour, see what its like there...

Wish me luck!