Plus, if there is a high level of unemployment, the government will have to give benefits to the unemployed, which means there will be less money for the school to spend because the government is giving money to the unemployed as well. This will affect their objective which is to “Implement further changes and improvements to provisions for 14-19 year old”, this means giving more facilities and recourses for the student but with the unemployment this objective becomes harder to achieve due to budget reduction.
Unemployment rate:
Political – Government spending on:
NHS – this will benefit and not benefit the school. This will not benefit because the government will be giving more attention to the NHS. The school will receive less money to spend on resources and facilities, making it harder for them to achieve their aims & objectives. The school will have to pay for their facilities themselves and may have to compromise with reduction of budget by controlling how much facilities they purchase which will affect their reputation as to not being able to provide high quality education due to not enough facilities and resources and this will also make it harder for the school to reach its aim.
The positive point about the government spending money on NHS is that the school will save up money on health & safety resources because the NHS will provide them with it. Plus, if the government is focusing on NHS, then maybe the school take advantage of that, they can inform and publish information about NHS, which will make the reputation of the school higher because it shows they are trying to keep a healthy environment and making sure everyone is safe and healthy.
Education – this is very beneficial for the school. The government helping and supporting education means the school will have a good budget to spend on their facilities, equipments and resources making their objectives more possible to achieve. This will make the schools aim higher, more competitive with other schools. However, this will give more competition to Preston manor, because other schools will have money as well to achieve their aims and objectives. The government spending on education means the school can spend more on facilities refurbish the building and offering more courses. This government spending on education is tremendously useful because it gives various opportunities for Preston Manor to make the most of this budget to provide the best facilities and resources to attract more students. Buy the latest modern technology to keep up with modern society and to give a good image to customers that the school is well organised.
This graph shows the government spending on education is increasing in 2012 so this means the school has a great opportunity to provide the high standard education by purchasing the high quality facilities. Thus, Preston manor has taken this opportunity by purchasing modern technologies (swipe cards, machines that allow students to send lunch money to their card so the money is much safer, higher quality smart boards etc). Also, they introduced new courses like Applied business for A-levels to give students a greater variety to choose from. Furthermore, the school also built a new sports gym and an Astro turf for sports activities etc. Preston Manor is making the most of this opportunity and is attracting more students because of the facilities and gives them more courses to choose from. Clearly Preston manor is providing the high standard education and facilities which is good for their image and good for them to achieve their objectives.
Competition with other schools
The school will have to aim better than the other schools aim to be better than them. They may have to change their aim, and make it more higher standards. They may have to pay more and provide more courses, have a better healthier lunch, and try to set higher targets to achieve. As the other schools such as Copland specialize in science, Copland might want to improve the facilities also, provide more equipments etc. Preston manor will have to take this in consideration and try to make their facilities much better than the others. Preston manor specializes in maths and science which makes them stand out with their competitors. This affects their objective to “Strengthen and extend curriculum enhances.” because they have to focus on providing the right resources and courses to extend curriculum enhancement and making the school focus on the objective to perform better than the other schools.
Aims & Objectives of Preston Manor High School
Aims and objectives are necessary for businesses. It is very important to have aims because they provide a target to achieve for the business. An aim sets targets to achieve and aim also highlights key areas of development and achievement. Objectives are more specific than aims. They are broken down so that they are clearer and achievable. An objective is a sub goal. It is a short-term step within a period of time that is moving toward achieving a long-term goal.
Preston Manor has to have aims and objectives otherwise they will not meet their commitments to the standards set by the Government, and by Ofsted. The school is required to meet strict targets. To ensure these targets are met; they have to constantly review how they are performing against aims and objectives. The review can be in the form of a test, or exams, or more simply by filling out pupil review forms. Preston Manor should review which pupils are against the grades set for them to achieve. Without aims and objectives the school would just aimlessly do what they thought was the right thing rather than looking at their objectives and identifying what factors they need to focus on. Having aims and objectives makes the school more organized and responsible.
Aims are used in a business in order to develop and be successful. For each aim such as “implement further changes and improvement to provisions for 14-19 years old” there are many objectives involved, such as to provide more and better equipment for students to use in school and to give more resources for students to use(books, computers etc). There is a purpose for these aims which is to develop the school. The teams of the school play a major role in the success of achieving the aims. I will give more information on how the teams and department play a major role in the success of the school later in the task.
Preston Manor aims and objectives:
1. To develop the school effectively, develop innovative teaching and learning strategies improve their monitoring, evaluation and maintain & enhance school performances, they will:
1 – Continue to develop and embed the national strategy in order to improve the quality of teaching at KS3
The School wants to aim higher than the national curriculum level, in order to become an outstanding school and the best in the Brent borough. New strategies are introduced to improve the teaching quality of Preston Manor. It is important the school focuses on the KS3 and improve the teaching quality the KS3 students receive. This is because GSCE results are very important and it will be beneficial for the KS3 students if they are given high quality teaching so they are capable of achieving excellent grades in GCSE (KS4). Preston Manor compares their past results with the present ones to see if they are achieving this objective. These KS3 and KS4 results have improved over the past years meaning the school is achieving this objective to develop the quality of teaching at KS3. The schools progress over the past years is discussed more in detail later in the task. There are competitors around the area of Brent, secondary schools such as: Wembley high, Copland, Alperton are competing with Preston Manor for better result for KS3, KS4 and A-levels.
2 –Develop the use of information and communication technology to support learning and school effectiveness
The school wants to improve its standards in ICT. They want to make the education better by providing smart boards, latest text books and computer accounts for students. Providing more resources such as text books and computers improves the quality of learning for students and also allows the teachers to make their teaching more effective. Using smart boards improves the quality of the teaching because it improves the communication of the teachers with students. It makes learning more interesting for students because of the smart board’s ability and features. Preston Manor can measure the effectiveness of the use of information and communication technology on the school by reviewing their past results and looking at if the results have improved with the support of information and communication technology provided to the students. The past results of Preston Manor are analysed in the analysis task later.
3 – Implement further changes and improvements to provisions for 14-19 year old
The school wants to provide a better service; they are providing the best text books, computers, best sports facilities (gym, sports equipments such as rackets, bats and balls) and working equipment facilities for students such as pencils, pens, tables, chairs and books. The school is meeting this objective because they provide these facilities and resources for the students and it has positively influenced the students by achieving better grades than past years. Preston Manor has made their standards high-class by introducing electronic swipe cards to register students automatically without teachers taking register by paper, other competitors in the borough, such as Alperton, have not introduced this use of modern technology. This use of modern technology influences on the image of Preston Manor by improving their reputation and giving them high standards which they want to achieve, plus it will attract more students to apply to this school because they want to go to a school with modern facilities to make their education more effective.
4 – Improve the use of the school and student performance data to track progress, set targets and further raise standards
Preston manor needs to measure performance in order to identify what they need to improve on. Computers are used to improve the performance data because it is easier to analyse, to edit and more secure with back up files. The student’s reports are more specific on computer than on paper, it also focuses on behaviour, attainment, attendance and progression so the school have a better idea of if their students are progressing and that they are achieving the results they are set (results are analysed in the analysis task). The school is meeting this objective because their progress is maintained and enhanced due to the improvements of the students’ data and setting targets.
5 – Refine systems for monitoring the quality of teaching and learning through lesson observations and department reviews.
The school recruits outstanding experienced teachers; have departments for different subjects (e.g. science department), this is an effective way of organising the school and keeping on track of the progression of students. The head of a department observes lessons so they are aware of how the teachers are teaching, they analyse the quality of the teaching so they know what improvements are needed. The school has improved the results of their students over the years and is still carrying on with these activities for further improvements meaning the school is in a healthy position to maintain the excellent results and make further improvements on achieving this objective. This is important because monitoring and improving teaching quality means better results and the image looks much stronger. I will expand in detail about the schools success over the past years later in the task.
6 – Continue to monitor and evaluate high quality professional development and training opportunities.
They organise teachers training day to improve teaching quality. The teachers have discussion with each other on how to maintain high standards; provide the most effective knowledge to students, what new methods should be introduced to enhance learning. The school has equipments (smart boards, new books etc) to provide the right resources for the teachers. The school gives special training to teachers so the quality of teaching is really high standard and effective. Teachers get trained for teaching GCSE and A level by the AQA. The school concentrate on building confidence of teachers so they can be more interesting to listen to and more communicative. This objective is met because better teaching quality means better results and the school is improving on their results every year.
2. To improve support for learning and so academic success and personal development for all students, they will:
1 – Strengthen pastoral support and social inclusion polices, and promote good behaviour and high motivation.
The school gives motivational speeches in assembly to students. They even invite celebrities to tell the students about their life, how they achieved their targets. This is a good technique to motivate students. Preston Manor has strict rules on behaviour so the students stay disciplined and focus on their studies. Preston manor have effective methods which motivate the students, such as doing practical work which makes learning more enjoyable, interesting and effective.
2 – Embed citizenship programmers across the school and improve the school provision of health, sex, drugs and environmental education
The school shows that they care about the community and the environment, they focus on having a healthy environment not only in school, but in the whole borough and this will make their reputation better. Healthy food such as, salads, pasta, vegetables and juice drinks have been introduced in the canteen.
3 – Continue to improve provision and support for target groups children.
The school aims to continue to provide the right facilities, equipment and resources for students in order to keep the education high standards. The school provides extra help for students with special needs, they give after school lesson for students who are struggling to achieve the target they need to achieve, they recruit extra staffs that look after children with disabilities so they can safely learn and work in their lesson. Preston Manor has a department called SEN (special educational needs). They provide extra help to students who are struggling in their subjects. If students are struggling in a GCSE subject, then to help them achieve something, they are moved to a BTEC course which is suitable for students who can’t cope with exams and are better at coursework. The progress in the results of the students reflects on the special support they get from the school.
4 – Strength guidance, counselling and mentoring
The school provides students with the right information of what they can do for their careers and jobs. For the sixth formers, PSHE lessons help the student with guidance from their tutors, in the lesson they are guided on the best suited career or jobs for the student. The teachers support the students by helping the students if they have an issue with anything.
5 – Strengthen and extend curriculum activities.
The school make the students work hard and give them motivation to study. The school teaches the students in a high standard so they will look the best school in the borough. The school focuses on any issues they have and make sure everything is organised.
3. To continue to strengthen leadership and management skills at all levels, improve the learning environment and foster the school effectiveness and efficiency, they will:
1 – Extend opportunities and development, especially through the learning edge programme for leadership
The school makes the students work in groups, get them to work as a team and maybe offer more practical work. Students experience working in teams so it builds their leadership skills and motivate them to work with others. For example, Teachers make the students do presentation in groups which involves discussion, making decisions and working as a team.
2 – Continue to improve administration, organisation and communication system
The school keeps their information organised, and keep the students report organised by using their facilities such as the computer and software such as Microsoft access etc. Plus, they can use telephones and internet to inform the parents for any information they want to inform. The school keeps telephones in offices so it’s easier for staff to communicate with other staff. On top of that, the teachers are given wireless “walky talkies” to contact with each others at break time duties and lunch times duties for students security in case the teachers needs assistance in an emergency (e.g. if a student is injured).
3 – Continue to improve the learning environment, site and facilities and eradicate litter
The school keeps a very strict rule on keeping the classrooms clean, keeping the playground clean so the school looks neat and tidy, this will also help them in making their reputation better. They have to make sure the school is in a healthy environment with healthy food in the canteen.
4 – Strengthen, monitor and evaluate procedures for performance review staff.
The school keeps reports of improvements in school, so they know if there is anything they need to improve. The school has meetings and teachers training day to discuss if any issues are occurring, such as if they can’t cope with a student due to bad behaviour, so they will try to find solutions to resolve this problem by making decisions like giving detentions or inviting in the student parents or guardian etc. The school maintains high standards and knows they have met the aims objectives and that is why the school is seen one of the top schools in Brent.
Marketing Activities
2a) Explaining and analysing how marketing Activities have contributed to the success of the school.
Qualitative research – is used to help us understand how people feel and why they feel as they do. It is concerned with collecting in-depth information asking questions such as why do you say that? Personal interviews or focus groups are two common methods used for collecting qualitative information and the results are in words or pictures rather than numbers.
Quantitative research – Quantitative research focuses on numbers or quantities. Quantitative researches have results that are based on numbers analysis and statistics. These quantitative researches have many participants. Sometimes it is possible to have over a thousand people in a quantitative research method. It is ideal to have a large number of participants because this gives analysis more statistical power.
In Primary research, there is no data available for the researcher; therefore the researcher has to start from scratch. In this research the data is collected by using market surveys, telephonic interviews, questionnaires and focus group interviews. This information is gathered by directly contacting the customers. Preston Manor uses interviews to gather information through a process called market research. This is a marketing activity which helps the school identify what aspects need improving, or developing or should be introduced to the school; this information is collected by asking questions to parents and getting their opinion on the school. For example, it will help them identify if they need introducing new courses (BTEC) to attract more students to the school or developing the teaching provided to the students (improve teaching skills to have better communication with students so they understand better). Preston manor does surveys with parents during parent evenings, plus the school is introducing surveys on their website so there is a wider range of research methods used to collect information and it will improve the response rate. Preston manor also conduct its market research by using questionnaires, Mail shots, feedback from school council, taster day from 6th form.
In Secondary research, the researchers have the necessary data available. The data are made available through other publications or reports, like newspaper or annual reports of companies. If the researcher is doing secondary research, there is no need to start from scratch; they can use the data or information done by other organizations or publications.
Preston manor also uses secondary research such as Government publications, analysis of data from other schools, past papers, local authority and Ofsted. The school collects its information from Ofsted; it tells them how well the school is doing. On the schools website there is a link to the whole report of the school made by Ofsted.
Market research: Preston manor conduct its market research by using questionnaires, Mail shots, feedback from school council, taster day from 6th form. They also use secondary research such as Government publications, analysis of data from other schools, past papers, local authority and Ofsted. Preston manor does surveys with parents during parent evenings, plus the school is introducing surveys on their website so there is a wider range of research methods used to collect information and it will improve the response rate. Evidence is available on the interview I done with Mr. Rigby (Q6).
Questionnaires contribute to the success of Preston Manor. The questionnaire allows Preston manor to get the opinion of students and parents, this is useful for them because it helps them identify what the students and parent expect from the school at what standards (high standards). The questionnaire allows the school to get as many responses possible because questionnaire are quick and easy, this will improve their understanding of what the students and parents want because the more responses the better the research. Furthermore, questionnaires help meet objectives to reach targets such as “Refine systems for monitoring the quality of teaching and learning through lesson observations and department reviews”. By conducting a questionnaire on the schools teaching quality, Preston Manor can take actions on any improvements required such as new revision books for updated information of the subjects, to motivate the students to learn and motivate the teachers teach effectively by showing that internal customers are provided with facilities as well to motivate them and show the school cares about their staff.
Moreover, questionnaires identify how parents and students feel about the working environment of the school by asking questions on the facilities, resources and provisions provided to work such as library and classroom conditions. This will help identify if the school is meeting the objective “Continue to improve the learning environment, site and facilities and eradicate litter”. When they have a negative feedback about the schools environment then the school can improve their environment by making it cleaner, provide more bins, clean every class regularly and ban people to take food in a classroom. Preston Manor takes extra care of the school’s environment as the cleaners of the school keep a hygienic atmosphere of the rooms by cleaning regularly. This is one of the main aspects when maintaining high standards and competing with other schools to impress the students to see that Preston Manor offers a clean environment. This will attract more students to the school because the students want the best learning environment and Preston manor offers that excellently clean environment and as it is one of their objectives they take real precautions of the schools environment.
However, questionnaire is time-consuming and cost money. Firstly, questionnaire takes time to make. The questions have to be relevant to what the school is trying to identify and it should be correct which takes time to check. The questions have to be proof-read so there is no mistake and any misunderstanding is avoided in the questionnaire and this is costing the school time. In addition, it cost to print and photocopy questionnaire papers.
Plus, some people may fill in the questionnaire giving wrong or not enough information about their opinions because it may seem time-consuming to some people. This could lead to false answers which may lead to further issues in the future which can affect the performances and results of the school. For example, if there is improvements required in the environment, but a person answers “No” for a question about whether if there are any improvements required for the school environment. The answer could be wrong because they answered in a hurry. This can lead to misunderstanding and improvements may not be made which makes it harder to achieve aims & objectives.
Taster day for the sixth form contributes to the success of the school because it gives them a better understanding of what the students are looking for in their subjects. If the students are not happy and satisfied with the teaching quality on the taster day and student decides to go to another college, this will help them identify that they have an issue which needs more consideration. The school can see their effectiveness of the teaching quality etc, by comparing how many students applied to the school and how many actually attended the school at the start of the year and this will give them a good judgment as to if a lot of students don’t attend then they have an issue to sort out. Also they compare past numbers with present number of students to see if they are successful.
The intake of the students has increased over the past year, which indicates the school is successful at achieving their goals.
Also, taster days are excellent method to identify the attitude of students and their first impression of the school. First impressions are extremely significant thus providing a clean environment, new books at all times, modern technology and a high quality of teaching should all be a part of the taster day so the students are offered the best of what Preston Manor has to offer them. Overall, taster day will help identify if the objective “Continue to improve the learning environment, site and facilities and eradicate litter” is being met or not.
In contrast, Taster days have their disadvantages. Taster days cost money & time to arrange. Firstly, the school has to advertise the taster day by sending letters to students and it is time-consuming because it takes time to conduct a letter, proof-read it to avoid any mistakes and sending the letter through post. Plus, it costs to print letters out and it cost to send letters through post. This will affect the school budget and the cost of organising a taster day can be expensive. Secondly, it takes time to arrange taster days because the school has to set up classes, prepare class-work and arrange the timings (timetable) for the day etc. However, I think the taster day are a useful method and worth the money & time spent because it markets & promotes the school and allows the school to show-off their excellent facilities and resources.
Surveys: Through the researches, Preston manor can identify various and lots of information on the progress of the school and how it needs to improve its quality and service. The survey allows the school to know if the objective “Implement further changes and improvements to provisions for 14-19 year old” is being met, this is done by asking current students on their opinion on the facilities, resources and provisions provided, are they happy with the facilities they get in the school, do they get enough resources to get high quality education etc. Doing survey on parents evening allows the school to identify the parent’s opinions on the schools progress. They can gather information on how satisfied the parents are with the schools service and education provided to their child. The opinion of the parents is shown in the Ofsted report below.
Ofsted Report: Preston Manor High School is a good school with many outstanding features, including its sixth form. The school has, through the actions of its outstanding leadership and management and the exceptional care, guidance and support and interventions it provides, ensured that many of the students’ outcomes are outstanding.
The grades for attainment and attendance are: 1 is high; 2 is above average; 3 is broadly average; and 4 is low
This table can be used as Secondary research because this is an Ofsted report. This table shows an overall performance of the school. This table shows the school has excellent standards, which will attract more customers (students) to go to this school. The table highlights the advantages of going to this school and indicating it’s an excellent school which will attract more customers also. It shows the pupils attainment, attendance, behaviour, healthy environment etc is at top high standard because the results are at the top level. This proves the school is achieving their objectives and students enjoy being at Preston manor because it states in the table that “how well do pupils achieve and enjoy their learning?” is at top level.
This is the result from the questionnaire taken by Ofsted which shows that most parents are happy with their child’s experience at Preston manor. This shows that Preston manor is a successful school the opinions of the parents and Ofsted because most parents are happy which is a good sign to show that Preston manor is high standard school.
However, there are some parents who are not happy with their child going to Preston manor. This factor cannot be hidden because it is on the Ofsted report. This factor may not attract some parents or students to go to Preston manor because few parents are not happy with this school and this may make the other parent who are thinking about sending their kids to this school, not send their kids to Preston manor. Plus, parents opinion can be seen important to some people and Preston manor has to make sure that parents are happy as much as possible. The negative aspects such as this cannot be avoided in the Ofsted report; however the overall performance of the school is excellent which still attracts most students.
The sixth form: the table below (from Ofsted) proves that Preston Manor sixth form is at its best and provides the best education with the highest standards of teaching quality and the high quality provisions to make the students happy and ensure they achieve the best results.
1 is the highest and 4 is the lowest score.
The market research that the school undertakes contributes to the success of the school. The data collected from the research will identify if the school is providing the best quality of service, teaching, facilities and resources .Doing research will also allow the school to identify if they are achieving their aims and objectives and do any of the aims and objectives need extra attention.
For example, one of the objectives of Preston Manor is “Embed citizenship programmers across the school and improve the school provision of health, sex, drugs and environmental education”, by doing a questionnaire on how the students feel about the health and safety in school, do they get the satisfying medical treatment if someone has an injury, do they feel that the school needs to take more responsibility of keeping the school clean, and make the security system more protective such as more CCTVs and security guards etc. The Ofsted proves that Preston Manor has taken this objective in consideration and is achieving this objective because the report states that pupils feel safe in school because the score is at the top (1). This is one of the aspects which students will feel comfortable when attending this school because they need assurance of their safety. As this report can be seen on the school website, this safety aspect will attract students because they can be confident about the security of going to Preston manor by checking online.
However, maintaining the security of the school will cost the money. Purchasing CCTVs cost the school money, having security guard cost money, plus looking for the right and qualified security guards may take time as well. Also, the school needs to recruit a qualified nurse for medical treatment for students in school, meaning it costs the school money to organise the recruitment process from advertising to interviews to look for a suitable nurse for the school. But in order to enhance and maintain high standards and meet this objective, the school has to provide these securities and facilities.
Another objective is “Strength pastoral support and social inclusion polices, and promote good behaviour and high motivation”, they take interviews or focus groups of teachers, asking them about how they feel about the behaviour of students, do they feel the students need more motivation and more discipline? This sort of research helps the school identify information about their students which leads them to success because they know if they are any issues with student progress or behaviour then they can sort it out. This is a good method however, this is really time-consuming and it would require giving extra time to these interviews and other methods which takes over their time of teaching, planning work, staying after school which is really tiring. Thus, this may cause teachers to underperform and teach while they are tired and this could affect how students learning and this will affect results of the school.
The research allows the school to achieve their aims and objectives quicker, the research will tell if the students, parents and Ofsted are happy and satisfied with the school and if some aspects of the school doesn’t satisfy them, then they take action against it and try to improve it or introduce something, such as more courses or security, that will satisfy the parents and students and achieve the targets and aims they are trying to achieve.
Explaining and analysing how marketing activities have contributed to the success of the school.
Marketing mix – is basically putting the right product in the right place, at the right price, at the right time. The marketing mix is the combination of product, price, place and promotion for any business venture.
Product - Defining the characteristics (functions, appearance, packaging, service, warranty, etc) of your product or service to meet the customers' needs.
Price - Deciding on a pricing strategy. This is how much customers pay for a product. Businesses have to consider is the customer price sensitive? Will a small decrease in price gain you extra market share? Or will a small increase be indiscernible, and so gain you extra profit margin?
Place - Place or distribution, this is looking at location (e.g. of a library) and where a service is delivered (e.g. are search results delivered to the user's desktop, office, pigeonhole - or do they have to collect them).
Promotion – this is how the customers are informed, promotion is done by advertising which is non personal form of communication and it includes television, newspapers, magazines, billboard posters, radio, cinema, etc. Advertising is intended to persuade and to inform. Also, it includes personal selling, sales promotion and publicity. Publicity is the communication of a product, brand or business by placing information about it in the media without paying for the time or media space directly, it’s also know as public relation.
Promotion can be loosely classified as "above-the-line" and "below-the-line" promotion. The promotional activities carried out through media like television, radio, newspaper, etc., are above-the-line promotion.
The terms 'below-the-line' promotion or communication refers to forms of non-media communication, even non-media advertising. Below-the-line promotions are becoming increasingly important within the communications mix of many companies and products. Below the line examples are public relations - when a business communicates directly with its public through press releases and speaking at conferences, sales promotions - such as 50% extra free, buy one get one free or coupons and gifts, sponsorship - where a business will pay to be associated with another product, person or event. Sportspersons are often sponsored by sports companies and direct sales - when a representative of the business will visit potential customers.
The school also promotes itself through below the line and above the line promotion.
Below the line promotion
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Taster day (6th form) – this promotes the school by letting the students experience the service and teaching provided to them so they can decide if they want to join the school or not. Taster days are good opportunities for giving first good impressions on the students. This marketing method allows Preston Manor to show they have excellent teaching and other services to offer to the students. By giving students opportunities to visit the school and check out their facilities such as, the sports gym, Astro turf, clean classrooms, learning area for sixth formers, the library, the school departments (music, science, drama etc) on the taster day makes a good impression on the students because they provide a lot of high class facilities (as examples given above) and this is a major aspect which attracts the students and it increases the schools admission list and more students want to come to the school. Furthermore because the school is oversubscribed they can choose the best students and have enough students to get the funding they need from the government (Preston manor is a foundation school).
Taster day gives the students a chance to meet the Preston manors teachers in person. This is another selling point because the teachers are highly qualified and well trained in Preston manor so they will also give a good impression about the whole school and inform students of all the benefits of coming to Preston manor. Also, students can ask teachers any questions they have about the school on the taster day and the teacher can explain to the student in person which is a good way to inform students because face-to-face communication is very effective and it gives the teachers a chance to show they are supportive and friendly.
Preston manor “Implement further changes and improvements to provisions for 14-19 year old” by providing high standard provisions, facilities and resources such as modern technology (smart boards, electronic registration, new books etc) to maintain and develop high standards of the school. Adding these facilities and provisions allows students to check out the schools facilities on the taster day and give them a good impression about the school.
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Open days (year 7 & 6th form) – this is presented by senior team and head students. This is an excellent method to show-off the high-class education Preston Manor offers to the students by allowing not only the students but the parents to take a look around the school and check out the schools impressive clean environment, facilities such as the sports gym and library, and meet the well trained and qualified teachers who provide the core service of the school. Furthermore, it can inform the parents and students about how the teachers make a tremendous effort to provide the first-class education by focusing on the objective “Strengthen and extend curriculum activities”. This objective is to add more curriculum activities like sports clubs. The more students the school has the better clubs and better sports team they will have because they will have more students to choose from to play for the teams. This also allows Preston manor to hire professional coaches to give the best to their students. This objective is also achievable by offering extra classes, debating teams, book reading class, football teams, basketball teams etc and informing this to parents and students on open days really attracts them to apply to this school. And the more students the better the clubs will be and it will make a good impression on the next year students.
(image of extra-curricular activities)
This is evidence for showing that Preston manor does do these extra curriculum activities and they provide this information on the website so the students applying can also see in detail of kind of activities Preston manor offers. This is a good way to attract the students by showing there qualities of providing various extra curriculum activities.
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School prospectus – shows a range of subjects on offer, facilities of the school, past results, code of conduct, values and beliefs of the school, its aim and objectives and universities places achieved by sixth formers (going to Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial). This highlights the success of their students and what the school is able to achieve (high standards).
The school has prospectus as Marketing Activity. The prospectus is beneficial for the schools marketing because it informs the students of what courses the school offers so the students have a better idea of what they want to study when they go t an interview for admission. It includes some information on past success and achievements of the school, it includes brief information about life at the school so the students know how the current students at Preston manor think about the school giving the new students a good view of the school. However, there is no specific information in prospectus about all the courses and other aspects such as the school departments and does the offer the resources suitable for every student. This may cause problems later, students may not perform well because not enough information wasn’t given about the course (product) on the prospectus and are struggling to achieve good results in it. Overall, prospectus is a good method of marketing because it gives out the main information that is necessary for the students, plus it doesn’t have to include any disadvantages about the school.
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Open evenings – if the school presents itself well and show that they are organised then the parents are likely to get impressed and make their children join Preston Manor. Same as open days.
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Saturday school – The school has got Enterprise (exploiting marketing opportunities) such as Saturday school. The school opens on Saturday for other activities like sports (basketball teams), music to drama classes, also dance classes. These activities promote the school and give them a better image because they are involved activities which don’t involve education. This will also attract more students because the school will be more popular with these activities and a wider range of public will know about the school.
Above the line promotion
Advertisement by local newspapers – this is one of the popular ways of advertising. Preston manor advertises their results on the newspapers such as students achieving 12 A to A* GCSE grades. This is an excellent way to show the public that the school is really well organised, has excellent teachers and the support and guidance to students is given at high standards. This makes the schools reputations really high by advertising on the newspaper and making it even popular with the amazing results the Preston manor students achieve. For example, the school achieves above average compared to all the schools in Brent and England and this is advertised.
This is a comparison on between Preston manor, other Brent schools and every other public school in England (based on average result). This clearly shows that Preston manor is performing better than other average public schools which is really good for their reputation and shows high standards as a result of marketing activities.
Internet site – holds much information about the school, special events in school, its success and Ofsted report. This is another really excellent and effective method of marketing themselves on a popular source, the internet. It is extremely important the school puts detailed and necessary information about the school because it’s not only people in the borough that can visit the website, people in the city and the UK can visit the website. Thus, Preston Manor has made the website at professional level, giving the school a high standard image. This professionalism also promotes the school by making it look sophisticated. This also meets the objective “Develop the use of information and communication technology to support learning and school effectiveness” because the school making the most of the ICT to maintain high standards.
The school advertise the fact that they are oversubscribed and there is a waiting list, so it creates a better image of them and the desire for students to join this school increases. This helps their aims and objectives because they want as much student to join the school and that is one of the schools aim, also this motivate the school to strengthen and extend curriculum enhancement because they wouldn’t want to disappoint the students that want to come and the ones who are already in school. The school also promotes itself by introducing new courses so they have a variety of courses for students to choose from. They introduced BTEC courses so students’ at lower level can join the school also.
Promotion is important for the school because it makes the school more popular and it emphasises on the advantages of joining the school which makes it more desirable for the students to join the school. Promotion focuses on making a reputation of the business and how well their products and services are, this is why Preston Manor is successful because they do all sorts of promotion including open evenings, taster days and newspapers.
Product – The school sells a range of products; they offer BTEC, applied courses, A–level, extra curriculum. The school approximately spends £17k on each subject and £25k on books. The product range strengths the school’s reputation because it show they have a variety of courses for students to choose from which gives them a very high standard. Plus, more students are attracted to the school because not only they provide the high standard education but they provide a variety of subjects to the needs of different students. For example, now they have introduced BTEC courses for level 2 and 3. This is suitable for students who cannot cope with A-level or prefer coursework rather than exams. Not only the facilities and provision will be attracting the students but the range of subjects will to. The more students the better it is for the school because they can choose the best students with the best results because they get a lot of applicants and they have enough students to get the enough funding from the government.
Preston manor gets on average £7.15m year budget. This is helpful for the school because can buy the high quality equipment, resources and facilities. Also, offer the best teaching possible with extra help from the budget by buying more books etc. This amount of budget the school gets every year is good for buying resources and facilities and keeps them out of debt.
The school offering extra opportunities from Saturday school gives the school an extra £20k every year making their budgets bigger.
This information was collected by interviews with several teachers of Preston Manor such as Mr. Barnet (head of form tutors), Mr. Rigby, Mr. Graham (member of senior department
) and more.
Teams
2b) Explaining and analysing how teams have contributed to the success of the school.
Teams – A team is any group of people organized to work together interdependently and cooperatively to meet the needs of their customers by accomplishing a purpose and goals. Teamwork is important because it gives each member a role to play in achieving the goal and gives them responsibilities; working in a team also motivates the members because they feel a part of the goal they want to achieve which is good for the business because the members will be putting effort to achieve the targets. When employees work in a team, they are able to pass on their ideas clearly. This rules out the possibilities of miscommunication due to complex hierarchy in the company, and due to ideas and concepts passed clearly, there is no possibility for misunderstanding. Teams also improve communication between the employees because some tasks may not be done individually and they may need each other’s help to complete the tasks. Preston Manor has teams in the school so they are more organised, the staff are motivated, and they can achieve their aims and objectives effectively. The teams of Preston Manor are
- Form tutors team
- Special Educational Needs
- Senior management team
- English Department
- IT department
- Finance team
- Catering (kitchen) team
Form tutors – Mr Barnett, who is the director of the sixth form in Preston manor, is the leader of the form tutoring team and he manages this team with the help of Ms Wilding. Form tutors are helping the school achieve their aims and objectives such as to improve support for learning and to ensure academic success and personal development for all students. The form team contributes to the success of the school by the tutors guiding and helping students in form classes if any students is not happy with their course, if they are having difficulties learning in a lesson, if they need advice on careers and etc. The sixth form tutors plays a huge role in the progression of the school by interviews, students are given interviews with their tutors to see if they need any help or guidance with any problem they have and they also have interviews with parents so the parents are informed on their child overall performance so they can also support them to achieve the results they need. This shows the school is improving support given to students so this is achieving their aim and it benefits the school because students are likely to do better at their studies if they are guided step by step by teachers. The form team organises the assemblies, and the assemblies are usually not started on time and then they run over the lesson time. Assemblies are important to organise because all students are informed of any important announcement. The Form team has to ensure students are in the right courses, they are fully concentrating and enjoying the lessons at the same time, they have to make sure students are motivated towards their work and they monitor day-to-day attendance to see if student punctuality is excellent. This team helps the success of the school by achieving the objective which is to “strength guidance, counselling and monitoring”, because it guides the students and supports them with any issues they have, plus they monitor the progress of the students which allows them to keep a record of how much improvement the school is making.
SEN (Special Educational Needs) – Ms Ward is the team leader of SEN. They have teachers and LS (Learning support). This team supports students who are struggling in their lessons and need extra help, in a classroom there will be teachers and learning support to provide that extra support. Their job is to make the student understand the things they don’t get. This helps their aims and an objective which is “strengthen and extend curriculum enhancement”; the team improves the support given to students so education provided to student in this school is high standard. Another objective “Continue to improve provision and support for target groups children”, SEN team supports this objective because the objective meaning is to give extra support to targeted children with special needs and this is what the main aim of the team SEN is. This SEN allows teachers to have one on one communication with student so the teaching is more effective. The benefit of working in a team is that ideas can be shared and everyone feels motivated to help because they feel a part of the team. This team has had problems because they constantly work together to help most students at risk, some students didn’t find this SEN useful and need to be moved courses or more help. This team has a lot of members so it gets hard sometimes to manage the team, also working with external members may cause problems with team communication. Ms Ward plays the role of the coordinator of SEN and deputy SEN coordinator. The activities between these teams are to support students in lessons, give speeches and language therapy and specialise in group work such as social skills groups.
Senior management – Ms Prince is the leader of this team, who also is the head of Drama, R.E prepares the online reports and aims higher to improve the school. This team makes the important decision in school. Getting feedback from parents improves the teams aims because they know what exactly what the parents want which will improve the service and teaching of the school. Senior Management contributes to the success by helping the rest of the school to be successful and organised. In general the team looks after the students and staff; they look after the students’ grades and also to give staff ideas on how to improve their department. Senior Management also organises meeting with subject teachers to discuss any issues with any students or any other problems teachers are having. This team aims to raise standards and overcome any problems. This team helps the school with its objective to “Strengthen, monitor and evaluate procedures for performance review staff”, this team helps the school success by achieving this objective. This is done by monitoring schools overall performance and trying to improve it, observing lessons to review the quality of teaching.
However, the senior members’ job is really time-consuming and has a lot of tasks to do. This can be tiring for the members and may lead them to not do their job properly and effectively. Plus, senior members would have to consult with other senior members before any important decisions and this could take time and disagreements can occur which can lead to unsuccessful performances. Thus, the tasks of senior members are shared as much as possible and in order to reduce the disagreements, the seniors are each given some extra authority of an area. For example, Ms Prince is in charge of Drama and R.E so if any decisions need to be made Ms Prince would have the higher authority to make a decision regarding Drama or Religious Studies.
English Department – This team leads to the success of the school because it achieves a school objective which is “Strengthen and extend curriculum enhances”, the team achieves this by organising after school booster lesson which strengthens the students knowledge and they also run homework club to increase the amount of homework students do so they can achieve better results. The teachers in this department have various duties to make sure they achieve the schools objectives such as, “Strengthen and extend curriculum enhances”, they make sure students are on track of their work and performing to the best of their ability. They do this by making reports of the students so they know how the students are performing regularly. This department is important for the school because the English subject is essential for every student in the UK and that is why this department is one of the schools biggest priorities.
The table shows that preston manor GCSEs pss rate of Maths & English is really good and above the local average and the national average. This means the english department are doing their jobs effectivle in order to achieve results like this.
However, in order to maintain and enhance this success, it will cost the school more money. This is because the teachers would have to buy new modern technonlgy & facilites, such as new updated Smart Boards or new books/novelsetc, regularly to maintain the success and keep good results against their local compeitiors. The cost of this will be coming out of the schools budget so the school and especially the english department have to spend carefully. Plus, it takes time for teachers to decide what is the right way to teach a certain section effectively. The teacher have to look at the syllabus and decide how they are going to teach the subject; this is a process of teaching however it is time-consuming and teachers havwe to be really careful and see if they are teaching the correct things.
IT Department – this department is essential to have for Preston manor as it controls the electronic data of the school and has a lot more other responsibilities. This department helps the school achieve the objective “Improve the use of the school and student performance data to track progress, set targets and further raise standards” and “Continue to improve administration, organisation and communication system”. To achieve these objectives, the has to keep the school updated on the students’ performances by keeping records of their performance on computer; making the data organised, easy to access, secured and looking presentable/neat. The IT department also use computers to review their objectives and aims by looking at how they have achieved their goals by looking at past records and comparing to the present ones. This department also focuses on achieving this objective “Further develop the use of information and communication technology to support learning and school effectiveness”. Firstly, the IT department involves helping the teaching quality of the school because the teachers can use computers for presentation with the projectors and using smart boards. The It department makes sure the teachers can properly access the computers without any problems and gets the best out of the technology they have so they are competitive with the other schools and don’t have a disadvantage compared to other schools who have the use of technology. Preston Manor also offers IT subjects for GCSE and A-levels which makes the use of IT more effective for achieving the objective, because students will learn how to use computers which will be beneficial for the school because it will help their students in the work by things like researching and lots of other uses of computers which will be beneficial for their studies, which means better results of students.
This department is also good for promoting the school, by making leaflets about the school, newsletters for advertising the school. The department creates leaflets and newsletters using the Information technology (computers) to advertise themselves which also contributes in achieving the schools objective to “Further develop the use of information and communication technology to support learning and school effectiveness”.
However, the whole school relies on the IT department and if technical problems do occur then this may cause lessons to not be taught to full effect, teachers may not be able to communicate through intranet or telephone or anything else for that matter. This would cause things to slow down and this can have a major impact on the schools’ performance and results. If teachers can’t communicate through the use of technology then may cause misunderstanding between teachers, it will require teachers to physically go and meet the teachers which is really time-consuming. If teachers aren’t be able to use technology to teach, this may affect the learning of the students which can impact their results.
This report from ofsted states that the leadership and management skills of the teams are excellent and at top quality (1). This is good for showing to the students who check online that the school has great, reliable and organised team members and they provide high standard service to students. This portrays that the teams have contributed to the success of the school.
Overall, every team has its own role to fulfil to achieve the aims and targets of the school. The teams have good organisation skills and good teamwork skills and that is why Preston is a successful school. The teachers put effort in providing the best education possible by being organised and reliable by working in teams to achieve their objectives and maintain high standards.
Some of the information that I have provided in this coursework is by my research I have done, such as interviewing a member of every team and asking relevant questions about the teams role etc. All of my research is attached to my coursework.
Enterprise Skills
2c) Explaining and analysing how enterprise skills have contributed to the success of the school.
What are enterprise skills? - There are few skills and qualities a business owner should have:
- Self Confidence and motivation
- Risk taking
- Identifying and exploiting market opportunities
- Ability to innovate
- Ability to inspire and build teams
Interpersonal Skill: this involves leadership and to be a successful as a leader, influencing staffs towards the achievement of a goal is important. A leader needs to have the ability to influence others through qualities such as personal charisma, expertise, command of language, and the creation of mutual respect. Working together as a team is also important because it’s a better way of achieving success of a business due to every staff having responsibility.
Enterprise skills make the schools staff looks more trustable, organised and experienced. A manager (head of department) having excellent interpersonal skills will improve the service the school provides and it will be more satisfactory for the customers (students). Preston manor can achieve its aims and objectives quicker and more effectively by having good networking with outsiders and staff; this will benefit them because they will have contacts outside school that may be able to help them by informing them of any new news or events happening which the school can participate in, etc. Keeping good relation with other staff will build trust and loyalty between them which will make the teamwork more effective because everyone can be trusted with the roles and responsibilities they’re given. Keeping a time limit on each task will pace up the time of achieving their aims and objectives. Staff and especially leaders such as head of a department need to have good skills on how to overcome a problem, accurate information should be taken in consideration to have a correct decision. The school can be the best in the borough if they have excellent enterprise skills because it covers all the qualities needed to be a successful institution.
Enterprise Skills contribute to the success of Preston manor because it helps achieve the aims objectives. One of the aims is “To continue to strengthen leadership and management skills at all levels, improve the learning environment and foster the school effectiveness and efficiency”. Enterprise skills are important here for team leaders (Principle) because they need to have skills to motivate staff so they are confident when managing their lessons or department and get the best out of them. The ability to inspire and build teams is important for this aim because the school needs staff with excellent leadership skills so the school has the staff with ability to achieve the aims and objectives with their use of leadership skills. Plus, the effort of the staff (including the head of departments) reflects on the results of the student every year. The results of GSCE and A-level have increased indicating that the leadership and management skills of Preston manor staff are successful. (The evidence of the results being successful is shown below)
Enterprise skills also contribute to the success of the school because it helps achieve the objectives of the school such as “Extend opportunities development, especially through the learning edge programme for leadership”. This objective shows the school wants to improve their teachers’ leadership skills, by achieving this objective it will benefit the school because leadership skill is important for teamwork and to achieve these aims and objectives, teamwork is really important.
Mr Lantos (Head teacher) needs to have good enterprise skills because it involves leadership, networking, problem solving, risk taking and decision making. Mr Lantos gains insight into the Patterns, Beliefs and Rules, defining Qualities and Strengths. He determines how well the staff perceive and what's going on around them. Mr. Lantos identifies this by discussing this in meetings. He has to polish enterprise skills and communication skills, learning about commitment and how to move things forward, making key decisions, handling the staffs and other people's stress and empowering, motivating and inspiring others. Mr Lantos needs to motivate and influence his member of staff to get the best out of them; he tries his best to keep them happy by letting them express their opinion in meetings so they feel like a proper member of the team. The staffs provide their services to the school with more effort so the school is known for how hard it works to be successful. Mr. Lantos identifies the teachers’ progress by looking at student results and analysing if the students have progressed or are they not achieving the target they are expected to achieve. This is meeting the objective “Strengthen, monitor and evaluate procedures for performance review staff”. This means Mr. Lantos is reviewing the teacher quality of teaching and looking at issues and trying to find solutions to solve them and maintain high standards of the school and making sure the education provided is first-class.
Mr. Lantos has shown his ability to innovate by introducing new courses to the school such as BTEC courses. Introducing BTEC courses is also risk taking because these BTEC courses are only coursework based, and Mr.Lantos has to take the risk of which students should be put on these BTEC courses considering the ability of the student to cope with coursework etc. Plus, it is another risk taking situation which is to decide which teacher is best suited to teach these BTEC courses. Mr. Lantos will have to take the risk of putting a teacher who he thinks is best suited to teach the BTEC courses. Mr Lantos have the skills to figure out what are the aspects which affect the school to be successful or unsuccessful; also he has the skills to make accurate decisions of what steps to take next.His decisions will motivate the staff because they can rely on a leader to have a backup plan organised if the strategy is not successful. The introduction of BTEC courses has been successful because the students chosen to be on the BTEC courses are finding the course easier to cope with than GCSE or A-levels and they are getting good results too (overall results of Preston Manor has increased) . With this risk taking situation, the school has achieved the objective “Strengthen and extend curriculum activities” because it adds more courses to the college and makes the education of the school stronger.
However, not all decisions would be correct from Mr Lantos and some decisions may affect Preston manor in a negative way. Thus, responsibilities and decision making authority is shared between senior staffs and others. In order to make a successful decision, it requires Mr Lantos to look and analyse data and this is really time-consuming. Plus, in order to make important decisions, Mr Lantos has to consult with other members which is time-consuming, on top of that, Mr Lantos and the other teachers have to agree on the decisions made and check whether they will actually make the school successful or not and this could lead to disagreements between teachers and the process is time-consuming as well.
This shows that the results has improved over the years from 770.9 in 2006 to 776.2 in 2009 and BTEC was not taught in Preston manor at 2006 and it was introduced in 2009. This graph shows that the pass rate at A-level increased and the BTEC is one of the factors that have increased it showing that Mr. Lantos made a good decision about introducing BTEC courses.
The head of department should have good networking skills because it allows them to have a better relation with the staff below them. Head of a department requires similar enterprise skills as a head teacher. The head of a department allows the teachers to have their own choice on what they prefer to teach because then teachers may not put full effort in their job because they are not satisfied with what they teach so the school could have a name with bad teaching. The Head Of Department also gives good strategy analysis, so this means they can express their intelligence and tell the teachers where they need to focus more, for example the students may be having bad results for KS4 business, so the head of business may decide to tell the teachers to have booster lessons for the KS4 students so they can get better results. The head of department organises a meeting to discuss this issue and discuss new strategies with teachers, make them motivated to work harder by giving motivational speeches so they can put more effort and teach the student at best possible quality they can give. The head of department may tell the teachers to organise after school booster lessons; this will benefit the students because they will get more help so they can get better results and contribute to the success of school by achieving the objectives “Continue to improve provision and support for target group children”.
A good example of when enterprise skill may be useful is when KS4 students are struggling to pass their GCSE English. The teacher can use their skills and may decide to have meeting just with the student to discuss the issues and motivate the student to work harder by giving more resources (books) and motivational speeches. Furthermore, put more effort and apply their knowledge more effectively. The teachers can provide booster lessons etc. To do this, teachers need self-confidence and the capability to take risk in these sorts of situations to come up with new ideas, productive solution to help the students in most efficient way possible.
This table from Ofsted shows the effectiveness of the leadership and management of the school. This table shows really good records of the school enterprising skills making their image stronger for the viewer. Furthermore, “the effectiveness with which the school promotes equality of opportunity and tackle discrimination” is at (1) which is a really good result. This shows the school promotes equal opportunities for staff and everyone else meaning the staffs of Preston manor have excellent enterprise skills and that one of the most important thing about enterprising is at excellent level, equal opportunities.
Overall, Preston manor uses enterprising skills such as Self-confidence and motivation. It is important for the staff of the school to have self-confidence and motivation, because if the staffs don’t have self-confidence then how do they expect to express the knowledge to the students effectively. Plus it is essential for the staff to have motivation so they put their full effort to reach the aims and objectives and meeting set targets.
Evaluation
Teams – Overall the main factor that contributed to the success of the school was Teams for Preston manor. This is because teams include putting teachers in the department they specialise in, for example a maths teacher works in the maths department with all the other maths teachers and this helps the school maintain their standards by being organised in teams. Teamwork is important because it gives each member a role to play in achieving the goal and gives them responsibilities to share. Working in a team also motivates the members because they feel a part of the goal they want to achieve which is good for the business because the members will be putting effort to achieve the targets. When employees work in a team, they are able to pass on their ideas clearly which makes results and performances more effective, allowing Preston Manor to achieve high standards and their aims and objectives to be successful. In general, having team means the teachers can efficiently achieve the aims & objectives because they are organised, they’re given time-limit to achieve specific objectives which makes the teachers work at a certain pace, and share responsibilities and ideas to make workforce effective as possible to achieve and maintain the success of Preston manor. Thus they can attract more students to apply to this school allowing the school to choose the best talent out of a wide-range of students (applicants).
Preston manor makes their teams the centre of attention because people in teams are the ones who provide the core service to their customers (students). Teacher provides education to students and they have the most valuable job in the whole school because their work will determine the success of the school in terms of the results. And results are an advertising factor which attracts the students to come to this school.
Every member of every team takes care of their responsibilities which results in the school to be successful.
On the other hand, there are several disadvantages of having teams for Preston manor. Firstly, it requires teachers to attend staff meeting regularly for planning and organising the team strategies etc. It requires teacher to take out their time to arrange the meeting making every other member aware of it. This is really time-consuming for teachers because they have to do this regularly taking time out of their other activities such as providing extra lessons for students so students achieve better results. Teachers need time to mark students work and create reports. And going to meetings makes it difficult for teacher to do their teaching jobs effectively. Secondly having teams can create problems in school. Members in teams can have arguments causing the work to slow down. Bad decisions could be made because of team members not co-operating and not helping each other out; and this can lead to unsuccessful results for the school. However, the school tries to make sure every staff is happy and has a good relationship with other staff by keeping a friendly environment and recruiting people who are not just qualified but have good & friendly personality as well.
Enterprise skills – Nevertheless, teams are not the only aspect which contributes to the success of the school. The enterprise skills have an impact on the results and performance of the school. Enterprise skills is about Self Confidence, motivation, risk taking, identifying and exploiting market opportunities, ability to innovate and ability to inspire and build teams. These are the necessary qualities and skills of a successful teacher. Enterprise skills requires teachers to be self-confidence and this is important because with confidence teachers will be able to communicate effectively with students passing on knowledge effectively and interestingly which engages the students to learn making their performances better in examinations. Plus, confidence is important for commutating with other teacher and exchanging ideas effectively.
Enterprise skills are important for Preston Manor because they require teachers to work hard and put a lot of effort in their duties and responsibilities. Enterprising skills are good because it requires teachers to be risk taking and invest their time in something that could turn out to really effective in achieving the success of the school or not. For example, teachers will try out different methods to make learning enjoyable and effective as possible, thus teachers take risk of making students work in groups or make them do practise exam papers. Plus, the introduction of BTEC courses to Preston manor in 2006 is a real example of enterprise skills of the senior members. The BTEC could have put the overall results & performances down because some students may not be good at BTEC (Coursework) however, as the results show; it actually increased the pass rate in the next two years.
Identifying and exploiting market opportunities. This skill is highly important for the school because if the school doesn’t take advantage of the opportunities available for marketing, then they will struggle to achieve their aims and objectives because marketing is important. Without it they won’t be able to get a bigger budget to spend on the school causing purchases of less resources and facilities. And this affects their aims & objectives and the overall success of the school.
Furthermore, enterprise skills make the schools staffs look more trustable, organised and experienced. Teachers have to have a good leadership skill and be a role model for their students. This is because students will be more focused and motivated to learn because of the influence the teachers have on students as a role model. The teachers are encouraging and supportive and this motivates students to achieve better results making the school reputation better. Also as a leader, teachers are well-disciplined and professional at work. This give good image to visitors and Ofsted inspectors and teachers become a good influence for students to behave well, respect others and focus on their education. At Preston Manor as a teacher it is important to be a confident leader because the teachers have to provide knowledge to students and have an impact to make learning more interesting and valuable.
However, in order to have effective enterprise skills, it requires teachers to be suitable for the job. The school has to recruit the suitable person who can provide service using the enterprise skills. This requires a recruitment process which is costly and time-consuming. Preston manor has to look for the right person who can contribute to the success of the school by helping to achieve their aims & objectives. This requires the school to create job adverts, person specification, and reference check, arrange interviews with applicants. This is really time-consuming and it costs to advertise and arrange interviews with applicants to look for the right person with excellent enterprise skills.
Enterprise skill is also about taking risks and making decisions. If bad decisions are made by the school, the school can have a bad reputation; their results can be affected adversely. There is a huge risk making decisions about a school because students will be affected by every decision made for the school which turn out to be a good result or a really bad one.
Also, in order to have excellent teachers who have effective enterprise skills; teachers have to take training courses to develop their skills which is costly for the school. Teachers have to take out time from their teaching duties to go to these training sessions which could affect the performances of the students and the school. Even though there are disadvantages of having enterprising skills and the cost of it too can be a bad point. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages, enterprise skills are useful because it makes teacher be confident when doing their job, make learning effective as possible with the help of enterprise skills which contributes to the success of the school because they can achieve excellent results with these skills.
However, for enterprise skills of teachers to be successful, they are required to be organised. And they way to be organised is to be in teams. Teams make the teachers focus on the department they work in and use their enterprise skills according to the department they are in and their position. For example, senior department will focus on the introduction of courses, such as BTEC, while a maths teacher will focus on arranging mock exams for maths. Thus, teams helps enterprise skills be more effective by sharing responsibilities and working according to the department the teachers are in.
Marketing Activity – Marketing is important for Preston manor because it involves promotion of the school and its popularity. Activities like taster days and open evenings are effective because they allow customers (students and parents) to experience the environment of the school and get a chance to meet the staff at the school which is an effective method to market them as a school. Furthermore, taster days are more effective as it allows the students to experience the subjects they have chosen and make the correct and best suitable decision for them about what course is right for them at Preston manor. This helps Preston manor because it is highly important for students to realise what they are good at and that if they believe they can give an excellent performance, be able to cope with the course and achieve good results. If students realise they are not confident and comfortable about a studying a course then this make teachers job easier because they will teach students who are confident and believe they can pass. This has a positive impact on the results because the right students studying the right course means the results are likely to be better.
However, organising taster days take a lot of time and it is costly as well. Firstly, it would require teachers to take out time of their other teaching activities such as planning for lessons, marking homework, creating reports etc. This would affect the effectiveness of the teaching service provided to current students because teachers will be giving less attention to students meaning this can affect results of current students leading to bad results for the school. Secondly, taster days requires teachers to have meetings with other teachers about managing the taster days which is time-consuming, teachers are required to plan what they are going to teach on the taster day which is time-consuming. Furthermore, teachers are in pressure because they have to give a good impression to the new students on the taster days and make them like the school in every way possible and this could be hectic for some teachers. Plus, the cost of taster days can affect school budgeting because they have to advertise the taster day to the public, they have to print out leaflets, posters and letters which cost money and the posting costs are going to increase the cost. However, the advantages of taster days outweigh the disadvantages because taster days are a good way for students to actually experience the school and allowing Preston Manor to show-off their high standards of the school and the excellent facilities provided.
Preston manor also promotes themselves by advertisement on the newspaper. This way a wider range of people in the borough will be aware about the school and more popularity is gained. This is effective because the more students know about the school the more applicants the school has meaning they can choose from a broader-range of students and choose the best ones who the school thinks can cope with the courses and achieve excellent results. However, there is a cost for advertising on the newspaper and this affects the budgeting of the school. Advertising on the newspaper is not really cheap so they don’t regularly advertise on the newspaper even though it’s one of the effective methods to market. Also, advertising on the newspaper means the school is not advertising to the whole public because nowadays not everyone read the newspaper and they have to market through other methods to market themselves.
The school has a website with their information about the school, another effective activity to advertise themselves because it holds a lot of information about the school. The website is easily accessible by anyone making it easy for people to look at the schools information from anywhere. This helps the school get more students because websites are a useful source for advertising and the public can see this website meaning more students and parents know about this school and more students will be attracted to come because of the schools success. On the other hand, it is really time-consuming because Preston manor has to put information about the school and update any information regularly. Also, the school can mainly attract people who live near the school, the borough. Even though the website is for everyone, students would only be able to come to a school near them meaning the amount of students they can attract is limited. This can have an impact on who the school intakes. The school have to find the best students who meet the requirements in the limited amount of applicants from the people who live near the school.
Preston manor advertises the fact that they are oversubscribed. This gives an excellent image about the school to students applying to Preston Manor because this show the school is in high demand for the high standard education and the best modern facilities they provide “Implement further changes and improvements to provisions for 14-19 year old”. This is one of the major factors that attract students because it shows the school offers the best service in the borough making it oversubscribed and highly competitive for students to attend Preston Manor.
However, advertising the fact that they are oversubscribe could make some students not come to Preston manor because the students may not feel right about going to a packed school of too many people. Students may think that having lots of student means bigger classes and this would mean bad results for the students. Plus, having more students can have their disadvantages. The more students there are, the more reports have to be written which is time-consuming, the more students the larger the classes are likely to be and this can affect the teaching quality received by teachers and this may affect the results.
Overall, I think teams are the main factor which contributes to the success of the school. This is because the school is organised due to having teams, they prepared by having meetings with team members and planning for the future performance of the school. Enterprise skills can only be effective if teams are well organised because without the help of other team members, staff would not be able to cope with their responsibilities and there will be a lot of confusion about who is doing what tasks, also bad decisions could be made if there was no other member to discuss a problem with. Teams are important because with the competition of other schools in Brent such as Copland, the schools main priority is to have the best results possible, and teams are the main factor which will allow Preston manor to achieve great results.
Enterprise skills make teachers do their jobs effectively but if they weren’t to be in teams, then teachers would not be able to share ideas, discuss solutions to problems or make effective decisions because it is always good to consult with team members before making any decisions. Marketing also contributes to the success of the school because the more students know about the school the more applicants the school has to choose from allowing the school to pick the best talent to achieve excellent results. However, Preston manors’ marketing will be useless if their results weren’t good enough because the results are the main factor which is advertised to the public. And the results can only be good with the help of organised teams.
Furthermore, teams are important because teams show the organisational & management qualities of the school such as having departments for main subjects. This makes it easier for teachers to communicate with other teachers because they know where to find them and know what department they work in. This is also good Ofsted inspection because it shows the inspectors the school is well-organised and the school has departments for better management of the school which will go in the Ofsted reports and will contributes to the success of the school.
This is a bar chart showing Preston Manor success over the past four years. They have managed to keep their GCSE pass rate between 69% and 72%, which is a great success compared to the other schools (competitors) in the area. Also, it shows that the school achieves better than the average of the Local Authority and the national average. Furthermore it proves that factors like teams have contributed to the success of the school by looking at the pass rates in the bar chart.
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