|
Imagine a typical secondary school, perhaps like the one you went to. By 6pm all the kids have gone home, and the school is sitting empty. Isn't that a waste?
So we at Schools Plus sign a contract with the school, and then market those facilities to the local community. Want to play football? Hire our pitch. Having a wedding celebration? Hire our hall. Need a place for a meeting? We have dozens of offices, meeting rooms and classrooms. We make sure the facilities are ready for our customers, look after them while they are in school, check everything is hunky-dory after they've gone, set the alarms, lock the doors, and go home.
The full story, with lots of loverly photos, is here!
The benefits? Well, we make money for the school. And, more importantly, we transform them into thriving community hubs open 365 days a year. Community groups get a proper professional service. And someone (it could be you!) gets to run the whole thing like their own business.
The key to making this whole thing work is the Manager. Marketing the premises. Showing customers round. Deciding the prices. Recruiting people to help. Doing the cleaning, the caretaking, the customer service, and the security when you don't have enough staff. Spending a LOT of time during the school day building up fantastic working relationships with the school staff. Looking after your team. It's like having your own business. You’re in charge.
It might sound a bit like a marketing job - that's what we thought when we started the business... But in fact, the marketing is pretty straightforward. The key to the job is getting to know EVERYONE at the school really well (leaders, teachers, caretakers, cleaners, cooks, support staff, guard dog...) so that you can work closely with them through the many complexities which arise.
And then, obviously, you need to manage your operation and your staff. We give you a lot of help with this – in the first year, you get an existing Manager as a Mentor. And nearly all the procedures for running community use of schools have been written up for you to read, so you’re not making it up as you go along (although you might have to make some of it up – every school is different... but, being an entrepreneur, you’ll enjoy that).
By the way, we really don't like the word "Manager", which is why we advertise for "Social Entrepreneurs". If you can come up with a better job title feel free to let us know...
(Oh, and it really is all about the relationships, just in case that wasn’t clear before.... )
It's your business - you decide! The last thing you need is one of us telling you to be at school by 0854 every morning. You know what needs to be done, and you put in the hours that you need to achieve this. Realistically, the first 6 months you work all the time, quite often seven days a week, and it's a huge effort. But the reward comes once you have built the relationships and trained your staff and got a set of good customers, because then you can take a breather.
Typically, after this start up period, managing one school is equivalent to one part time job, and two schools is one full time job. You come to work when you want. You stay in bed when you want. You work in bed whenever you can! Take holidays as and when you wish.
Sound good to you?
We guarantee your base: £12,500 pa if you are starting at one school, £25,000 if you start with two or more schools. From year two onwards, it's all performance based. You control all the money that comes in to your operation, and then you pay yourself whatever you like.
Sorry - was that right? I pay myself whatever I like? Yes indeed! But you have bills to pay first...you need to pay your staff. You pay rent to the school. You pay 15% of your revenue to HQ. You pay for any other costs, like the window that the footballers broke, or the new marketing campaign. But once you've paid your bills, it's up to you what you do with the rest. And it can be pretty good money - two of our Managers earned £70,000 last year....
After two years you get the chance to buy shares in the company. And the right to vote!
Your staff are like your family, only more important. If they come to work and do a good job, you relax. Without them, you just have to work harder! And if they get it wrong, you get the blame...This is the joy of management. They're your team, so you recruit them, and you decide how much to pay them, you worry about their health and happiness. Have a good friend from college who you'd like to work with? Then employ them! Your husband lazing around at home? Put him to work as security, and pay him as little as possible.
The only significant control - and it's really important - is that we are VERY hot on child protection. So anyone employed by Schools Plus, including you, is subject to extremely thorough vetting and background checks, and ongoing monitoring throughout their employment to make sure that they are safe to work around children.
Like everything else, we try to keep this as simple as possible. There are no complicated 10-step online application forms which you forget to save and then lose when the internet goes off. If you see one of our ads for ‘Social Entrepreneur’, read this website, decide it sounds good – all you have to do to apply is email your CV and a short Cover Letter to:
Francis Woods
francis.woods@schools-plus.org
If you still have a few questions, feel free to call him on 07811 344 411. He does tend to get a lot of calls at recruitment time, so if you get his voice mail just leave a message (make sure you state your number clearly) and he’ll get back to you.
There are two stages to our recruitment: first, you may be invited to have a 30 minute chat at the school – this is a chance for you to ask questions about the business and get a feel for how the whole thing works; then, if we both think it’s a good idea, you’ll be invited back for a proper interview (with a test and everything).
Finally, all of our employees are subject to the approval of the school in question.
We look forward to hearing from you!
|
