Schools are complex organisations. Even in small schools a team of staff work with a range of expertise and have to complete a considerable number of activities using a range of resources if the pupils are to receive the education to which they are entitled. Registering pupils, teaching, cleaning, answering the phone, purchasing new books, dealing with parents, sending statistics to the DfES. The list is seemingly endless.

Given this complexity it can be difficult to understand what ‘makes the school tick’ and what needs to fixed if things are not working as they should. To manage this complexity Cocentra uses a ‘systems approach’. In this approach the organisation of the school is broken down into a set of distinct, but related, elements or systems.

Systems can be defined as structured organisations of people and resources that work in an orchestrated manner to run the activities necessary to meet some specific objective. An example of a school system would be the personnel system to recruit new teachers.

There are many school systems and these are often related. For example one set of systems is concerned with providing support to particular pupils and groups of pupils to enable them to effectively take part in learning. These systems might be called the ‘Pupil Support Systems’ and consist of such things as tutoring, behaviour management, attendance monitoring, home-school liaison, Special Educational Needs and so on.

One of the characteristics of systems is that for them to be effective information should flow between them. For example, information on a child’s special educational needs should be made available to their class teacher so they may be taken into account when classroom activities are being prepared. With a systems approach it is much easier to identify what these information flows should be and to identify if they are not occurring in a school.

If you would like to discuss our “One School™” approach further please contact jacqui@cocentra.com

Alternatively, please call 0845 009 4010 and ask to talk to Jacqui or order a Cocentra brochure.