Tutor Marked Assessment- Submission document

3HRC Understanding Organisations and the Role of Human Resources

3HRC Assessment

The Purpose and Goals of the Diocese of Coventry Multi Academy Trust

The Core Mission of the Diocese of Coventry Multi Academy Trust is to build a better future for all within our Academies who in turn will positively impact their communities. We are a self-governing non-profit charitable trust. Harris Church of England became a sponsored academy within this trust in 2014. Is a smaller than average secondary school. Entries have fallen since the school was placed in special measures by Ofsted in March 2013 but are now recovering in January 2014. Significant changes followed to senior leadership and governance. A new chaplain was appointed in 2016 as a shared arrangement with another diocesan school. Extra pupil premium funding is received for a third of entrants, which is above average. The proportion with special education needs is slightly below other schools.

The commitment is that all Academies within the Diocese of Coventry Multi Academy Trust will be recognised for their distinctive and inclusive Christian ethos and for the impact that this has on raising educational standards. Each Academy will demonstrate its Christian distinctiveness by providing an inspirational and holistic education which enables all children and staff to develop and achieve to their full potential. We currently have 12 academies in our Trust.

We will achieve our aims by ensuring that Academies within the Trust are:

Transformational, Aspirational, Sustainable, Motivational, Purposeful

Our Aspirational and Measurable Outcomes are:

Each lesson to be good or better.

Every child is expected to make progress at least in line with, and for many above, national expectations.

Every Academy is to be well led and governed

All teachers are motivated to self-improve and aspire to excellence

All Academies are to be judged good or better at Section 48 Inspections. Our recent Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools’inspection (Siams) was recorded as ‘Good’ on 17th March 2016.

Products and Services

The trust aims to provide every child between the ages of 11-16 the opportunity to reach their full potential by offering educational excellence. At our Harris academy we provide educational excellence for all our students by providing outstanding teaching. We also work closely as a community within Rugby and the surrounding areas. We provide the use of our facilities to a wide range of people in the area. We hire out our ICT suite, mini bus, the drama studio to run The Pauline Quirke Academy and our Sports Centre has a healthy letting schedule.

We work closely with external agencies to support students with pastoral issues and provide counselling services to our parents and students through Warwickshire Health Services.

Customers

The majority of our students come from Rugby and the surrounding villages, however we do have schools buses which collect students from Coventry and Daventry. Students do not have to be Christians to attend Harris and we welcome all religious faiths. Our internal customers include teachers, finance, governors, student services, pastoral, IT, reprographics, administrative, catering and site staff.

Our external customers include parents, pupils, professional partners, contractors, government and the local community.

PEST analysis of Harris Academy

The March 2016 Budget stated that Secondary schools will be allowed to keep children in lessons after 3.30pm, with at least an additional five hours a week of lessons or extra-curricular activities, including sport and art. This will mean a change in contracts for teaching staff involving strategic planning and a significant impact to the academies budget. Parents and carers may find this a positive change with regard to childcare provision.

A Government decision (2013) to increase the leaving age from 16-18 will impact on our budget. We have recruited a Careers Advisor to support students in Year 11 to make informed decisions on further education placements. This extra funding has come at a cost implication.

Economic

A free secondary school will be opening in September which may risk us losing highly skilled staff to a school which is offering state of the art technology and generous salaries. A Secondary School in Rugby has a much higher A-C pass rate at GCSE and has the added attraction of an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted report. We are an up and coming academy which now needs to continue to market the positive changes to a community which still relies on past reputation.

Teacher shortages are a national problem. We are not a rural school and are linked with excellent road and transport links but we are not fully recruited at present. The Guardian (2016) www.theguardian.com/education/teacher-shortages

Social

Our local population has increased. We have seen an increase of Polish, Latvian and Portuguese families within the Rugby area in the past 3 years. Our admission of students who have English as an additional language has risen significantly. This in turn has seen the MAT’s need to recruit for teaching assistants to support these students in the classroom.

Harris integrates students with special needs – Harris works in conjunction with Brooke (special needs school) in Rugby. The Partnership at Harris meets the needs of children and young people with special needs, from the age of 11-13. The students who have access to this provision are most likely to have been in mainstream previously, but have needed a little more support. Through this provision we follow our vision to impact positively in the community.

Technological

The introduction of interactive whiteboards has greatly enhanced our students learning potential. The use of laptops is now feasible in many areas whilst pupil premium funding has allowed students access to laptops at home. The increase in the use of the internet has meant that our safeguarding team have been trained by The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. CEOP works with child protection partners across the UK and overseas to identify the main threats to children and coordinates activity against these threats. These courses impact on our costs but are necessary in terms of safeguarding.

Educational establishments tend to have evolved with the Head teacher ultimately making the final decision. The senior leadership team relay the information to the heads of department, who in turn discuss with the subject teachers. The business manager has responsibility for all non-teaching roles, but the overall decision lies with the Headteacher.

The Tall structure creates opportunities for career development as the roles are clearly defined. This structure also enables extra specialisation, as a maths teacher will teach maths and a music teacher, teaches music. Although this is important as roles are not duplicated, skills can be transferrable and are acknowledged if we are to obtain our goal. Sometimes decisions can take time to be acted upon if lines of communication are not kept open. For example meetings that are held at a lower level which require decisions that are not discussed at the weekly Senior Leadership Meeting, will mean paperwork is delayed or not authorised.

The negative effect of this structure is that if the structure becomes too tall the communication between the top and the bottom can become disconnected. Charles Handy is a well-known philosopher who specialised in organisational culture. He states that organisations should follow 4 types of culture, namely Power, Role, Task and Person. http://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/models-of-organisational-culture-handy

Within the Tall structure we can demonstrate a clear Role culture. The Headteacher takes full responsibility for the decisions, but he still needs to follow a decision making process through his Senior Leadership team. The Heads of Subject have clear responsibility for their subject teachers, who are very aware of their position within the establishment.

Our Academy has 4 areas within its functional structure which work together to ensure that the Academy provides the highest level of service to its customers. Below is an example of how they work together:

Human Resources

A vacancy has become available for the Head of Modern Foreign Languages. The Head of HR discusses the role, salary, job description and start dates with the Head teacher.

Operations

This function will engage with Supply companies to ensure a competitive price for advertising and decide on the most cost effective approach. Discussions on internal teacher training may be discussed with finance as this will impact on our training budget.

Finance

Operations and Finance work closely together on Budgets with regards to salaries and advertising costs. The cost of training the French teacher to become Head of Subject may be a viable option. This would involve Performance Management reviews with HR and the Head of Subject.

Marketing

To attract teaching staff with the same vision and goals, the marketing function would ensure that the advert/job description reflect the Christian Ethos of the Academy.

Our Culture - the effect on Harris Academy.

The academy has a very strong Christian ethos which is embedded into the day to day activities. Equally we serve those of other faiths and those with no faith.

Our students have a clear understanding of how the distinctiveness as a Church of England school impacts on their development. We have strongly embedded Christian values which permeate relationships at all levels. Collective worship has an impact on the whole school community and our weekly Christian Union group is popular with our students. This ethos creates a productive, caring learning environment where students feel safe. I believe this impacts on the retention of our staff as many staff voluntarily follow the Christian faith which matches the culture of the organisation. In turns of recruitment this can have a negative effect as governors may also ask how potential headteachers will maintain and develop the Christian character and ethos. Many dioceses have become more flexible around the requirement that headteachers need to be practising Christians. This works as long as the vision remains clear. The link below discusses this in more depth.

Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3251452/You-needn-t-Christian-head-Church-England-school.html

This culture is carried across all departments and there is very much a harmonious atmosphere where all departments react positively with one another. We are all aiming to aspire to the same goals, to provide our students with educational excellence, and are not attracted by sales targets and profits.

How HR supports Harris C of E Academy

The Multi Academy Trust supports all the academies under its umbrella by providing HR Business Support. Corporate level decisions and policies are implemented by the Trust. The academies are responsible for their recruitment and selection procedures. This responsibility falls to the Business Manager and Head teacher.

Resourcing and talent management

It is important that we follow our strategy of building links with our community. Harris is committed to building a school culture and curriculum which takes account of the Church Foundation. As well as exceptional teaching techniques we would hope to see evidence of learning experiences for pupils which are linked into and integrated with the wider community, the local church and diocesan communities.

Learning and Development

All staff are continually reviewed on their continually professional development. In order to provide effective teaching for our customers we continually strive to provide training for our staff. All teaching staff are expected to attend 10 hours of training (outside of their school day) within the school year. Twilight training sessions are run weekly and these sessions are intended to enrich the teaching methods used within the classroom. Our senior leadership team manage and develop staff effectively so they achieve the organisation’s goals of outstanding teaching in all lessons. All heads of department are encouraged to coach and mentor their teams and training courses are linked effectively to their personal development.

Performance and Reward

All staff participate in annual performance management reviews with their line manager. This ensures that performance standards are reviewed and training needs identified. This review can clearly identify if the persons job description is being implemented and carried out to support the vision of Harris. Staff are encouraged to move forward to continue their career development. The headteacher is supportive and staff are paid to attend interviews outside of the academy. The Academy’s motto ‘Whilst we have time, let us do good to all’ (Galatians 6:10) equally motivates staff and students in all areas of academic and pastoral work leading to better progress for all.

The role of HR professionals in supporting line managers and their staff

Employee well-being is important at Harris. Staff sickness has dropped significantly since the appointment of the new head teacher and Return to Work Interviews play a significant part in reducing sickness. These meetings are conducted by senior HR personnel and the line manager. Staff are encouraged to use these meetings as a support network and if necessary, to encourage staff to use external agencies such as Occupational Health Services to improve their well-being at work. These meetings are invaluable in determining if sickness is work related and the impact it has the on department.

Employee Relations

All policies can be found within the Staff Shared area. These policies are available to all staff at Harris. The induction process at Harris promotes the Safeguarding Policies which can be found at http://www.harris-school.co.uk.

Matters relating to staff grievances and disciplinary are dealt with by the HR Business partner and headteacher.

Employee Engagement

All staff attend weekly departmental meetings to discuss good practice and data analysis e.g. student targets/estimated grades. Any concerns are discussed and raised with the line manager who in turn is able to escalate to the senior leadership manager. Lesson observations are key to intellectual engagement which encourages positive thinking. Staff work across all departments to promote these initiatives which lead to social engagement. As a small academy staff relations flourish in and out of work and social gatherings are common place, this is very helpful in maintaining working relationships.

|REFLECTION JOURNAL – to be completed as part of each unit |
|This work will be assessed and form part of your evidence for 4DEP, criterion 3.5: |
|“Reflect on performance against the plan, identify learning points for the future and revise the plan accordingly.” |
|Reflection |
|You may like to consider, what you enjoyed in the unit and why, did you find anything challenging, if so why? What have you learnt that |
|you can take into the work place? What professional areas or behaviours would you like to develop further? (approximately 500 words) |
|This is the hardest question on the TMA. I have not studied in depth on a specific subject for over 20 years, and I admit to having, and |
|still having moments of panic in completing this TMA. I have recognised that I am more productive when working in silence and I can |
|concentrate much better in the mornings. I have struggled with the textbook as I tried to read too much information which wasn’t |
|relevant to the question I was trying to answer. I need to focus on the question. I think, going forward I will use highlighter pens to |
|discourage this habit and to ensure that I do not get lost in the course. I enjoyed looking into the depth of my organisation and it has |
|made me focus on the bigger picture rather than just my role. It has been beneficial for me to get out of my comfort zone at work and |
|apply my knowledge of the Academy to this module. |
|I really enjoyed the live lectures and the interaction with the students in the group. It was a relief when questions which I had been |
|thinking about were being raised. The power point presentations have been really beneficial whilst making notes after the lecture. |
|I found the culture section (2.3) interesting as it was easy to apply it to the Christian Ethos at Harris C of E Academy. I struggled |
|with question 3.1 because we do not have an HR department within the academy. Although I undertake HR administrative tasks such as |
|recruitment and staff absence data I found that I had to research the profession map in more depth. I do not think I am using References |
|in the correct format, or possibly enough of them. I do need to use the support of the tutor which I think will come more easily with |
|time. |
|I provide HR administrative work within my role but I can now reflect that is a very small part of HR. I am interested in employee |
|relations and I also enjoy talent management. The CIPD performance map has made me think a little more about my future development and how|
|I can incorporate these functions within my current role. As an Activist I struggle with reading detailed information and this is an area|
|I need to be aware of throughout my development. I am hoping that I can develop my Theorist side by researching and reading. I would |
|like to attend some courses that CIPD provide to further my knowledge in a different learning environment. I feel that I need to use these|
|events to develop my networking links within the HR industry. |
|On reflection I need to commit to specific days for study and not worry so much. I need to remember that this is a nine month course and |
|help is available to support me through it. |
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