School and Trust Business Professionals - Local Support Offer con_25233

The service involves in-person training for School Business Professional Networks and Multi Academy Trusts to request for local events, meeting the evidenced problem that many SBPs request more upskilling and suppliers have capacity to offer this, but time and funding constraints are holding back the market. This training would cover one of four areas, at the request of network leads and their members: i. technical support, ii. professional development support, iii. capacity support, iv. softer skill support.

The service will involve 80 practical training sessions delivering to school and trust business professionals (e.g., School Business Managers, Finance Managers, CFOs, COOs).

It will be delivered to at least 1,800 professionals in total (20 participants on average per training session) over 2023-24 and 2024-25, across local authority maintained school and academy trust settings.

Training will be designed and delivered across four content areas:

• Technical skills and knowledge. For example, integrated curriculum and financial planning, financial management and budgeting, income management, manging risk, internal audit and scrutiny, operations, sustainability and climate change, procurement, estate management, HR, digital and technology.

• Soft skills. For example, leadership, communication, managing teams effectively, effective line or performance management, resilience.

• Career development. For example, career pathways that are available in schools and academy trusts, suggestions for how to access different pathways, practical advice on professional development in school and academy trust business professional roles, coaching-style sessions for attendees.

• Capacity building. For example, accessing apprenticeships, team building, collaboration with other schools, school groups and/or academy trusts, aggregated purchasing, flexible working approaches.

The training sessions will be delivered in-person, in a workshop style. The sessions will allow for discussion between the trainer and delegates and between delegates themselves. This will be for delegates to share ideas and the trainer to relate the training content to the issues and situations facing delegates in reality.