Anyone a school bursar or finance manager or something like that?

[IdrisTheDragon]

Am vaguely thinking about it for some time in the future.

I am a qualified chartered accountant who was working in practice until about 18 months ago. Realise I need to investigate it more but was wondering if anyone else does this and can tell me more about it first

I'm not a school bursar, but I know that if you look at at ISC website and TES website you will find areas for bursars.

A school bursar often has a much broader role than just accountancy. They may be involved in personel, particularly for support staff, and also buildings maintenance and compliance with workplace regulations.

Most school bursars will be accountants but if you want to branch out beyond number crunching, it could be the ideal place for you. You would be a key member of the management team and responsible for implementing the development plan.

My knowledge of this field is out of date but some may still be relevant.

I'm an accountant and I used to work for the Education Dept in my local authority running a team that provided support to school bursars, finance officers, secretaries responsible for finance and head teachers.

In the primary sector most of the finance work was done by the school secretary or the school would outsource the work to a member of my team. This work is primarily basic book-keeping and most of the jobs seemed to go to somebody who knew somebody associated with the school!

I guess that you'd be more interested in the secondary sector or possibly an independent school?

I sometimes used to sit on the interview panel for sec school bursars and the applicants came from a very wide variety of backgrounds. Strangely, being a qualified accountant didn't seem to count for much in many of the schools. They tended to just look for somebody who had some relevant knowledge. Most of the jobs were advertised in the local press and not necessarily in the TES.

The school has to comply with regulations set by their local authority and these vary a lot depending on how much funding has been delegated to the schools. The software used in my local LEA secondary sector was SIMS. It would be worth you finding out about your local LEA and keeping an eye on the job adverts in your local paper.

I agree with vinblanc about the responsibilities of the role. It definitely isn't just a numbers role in most schools.

Hope this helps.

Argh, I'm just applying for just such a job as this (advertised as "school business manager"), and I thought you might be competing for the same job.

I have a background in finance (and broad business admin), and hope this will stand me in good stead.

Apparently there is now a Certificate in School Business Management, which they will put the successful candidate thru (If they don't find someone who already has it).

I'm crossing my fingers, it does sound interesting.

meant to say, I've also served on the board of governors at our local school, and worked within the school, so hope this will add to my appeal.