Pointless (Job Title)

[Supermike]

On tonight's Pointless a female contestant said she is a Business Manager for a Primary School. What does this job comprise? Is it a new name for School Secretary and, if so, where does Business Management feature?

[VHG]

I did a search for "Business Manager for a Primary School" in Google and got lots of hits.

One was for a job vacancy and it said the following was part of the job

•Payroll preparation and data input
•Maintenance of personnel data on SIMS (staff/student database) and input of data to Oracle (HR system) relating to changes, appointments and terminations
•Handling all elements of the school's invoice processing and payments, purchase orders, reconciliation of the purchase ledger control account, credit card statement and petty cash procedures and administration
•Financial administration, sales ledger activity, bank reconciliations, and recording and processing of income, for example relating to school trips and visits, external lettings etc
•Production of other management information as required for the senior leadership team, taking the minutes during governor's meetings

[zebo]

She said yeasterday that it was what was once called a Bursar.

[angie55]

She was on yesterday. I think the general consensus was that it was the new name for a bursar.

[Supermike]

Thank you all for your inputs. I remember the wide ranging role of the Bursar from my days at university which included maintenance of buildings and project managing any building projects as well as financial controls and reporting. Where I'm puzzled is what happened to the School Secretary? Can a Primary School afford to employ a School Secretary and a Business Manager?

[Buenchico]

Our 'school secretary' became a 'bursar' back in the 1980s (so a change in title isn't exactly new). She had considerable responsibility and was paid more than about 20% of the teaching staff. She was assisted with routine duties (such as typing) by an 'administrative assistant'. (This was in a secondary school)

The old school secretaries used to do a great deal of typing, either (for example) typing out worksheets from teachers' written notes or sending out letters to parents from the head teacher. They also did a lot of duplicating work (typically turning the handle of a Banda machine for hours to produce worksheets and newsletters).

With the advent of personal computers, teachers now routinely type their own worksheets and head teachers quickly modify Word templates to send letters to parents (without the need for any secretarial assistance).

Worksheets are either produced by simply clicking the 'Print' button on a computer or possibly duplicated by a different member of staff. (We had a 'resources technician' whose duties included using our offset-litho printer).

[Buenchico]

^^^As an analogy, almost every large business used to have a typing pool. There are very few people with 'typist' as their job description these days.

[Supermike]

Thanks for your response Buenchico. You are absolutely right, job titles change as the requirements of the jobs alter, and rightly so.

I'm a bit behind the times as I have been retired for so long and haven't kept up with current practices. So I've benefitted from all of your inputs. Thank you all once again. Mike

[Postdog]

I used to be a communications facilitator.

[BlackadderV]

I remember the Banda machines. One of the maths teachers would draw up the stencils for his worksheets over the weekend then come in early Monday morning and run them off on the banda. The sheets were still wet with fluid when first lesson started so the kids would sniff them and were as high as kites by break time.

[AlwaysConfused]

Glorifying roles through titles!
Shelf filler - stock rotation and replenishment assistant
Or try this random job title generator :)
http://www.bullshitjob.com/title/