9 New Year’s Resolutions for School Business Managers

Why are New Year’s resolutions useful for school business managers?

School business managers (SBMs) often balance finance, procurement, staffing, premises, compliance, administration and strategic planning, sometimes all within the same day. With so many competing priorities, the start of a new year can be a useful opportunity to review which routines are helping and which are creating unnecessary pressure.

In England, the Department for Education’s Education Staff Wellbeing Charter encourages schools and colleges to protect and promote staff wellbeing, while its workload and wellbeing resources focus on identifying and reducing unnecessary workload. This is an important distinction: wellbeing should not rely solely on individuals becoming more resilient or finding more time. Schools also need systems and working practices that support their people.

For SBMs, a good resolution is therefore not about completely changing how you work. Start with one or two practical changes, make them realistic and review whether they are genuinely making your working day easier.

Work life

1. Make more time for people outside school

The role of an SBM can easily spill beyond the school day. When your working week is filled with conversations about budgets, staffing, suppliers and school operations, it is important to protect some time for the people and activities that have nothing to do with work.

That could mean setting a clear finishing time on certain days, keeping an evening free from emails or simply making plans with family and friends.

Boundaries will not remove workload pressures, but they can help prevent work from occupying every part of your week. Where workloads regularly make it impossible to switch off, this should also prompt a wider conversation about workload reduction rather than becoming something you are expected to solve alone.

2. Record and reflect on your working day

SBMs often move quickly from one issue to the next, leaving little opportunity to reflect on what worked, what caused delays and what could be handled differently next time.

Try spending five minutes at the end of the day recording the main decisions, challenges or lessons that stood out. A notebook, academic diary or approved digital system can work equally well.

Over time, these notes can help you recognise repeated problems, improve processes and remember how you approached similar situations previously.

Be careful with confidential information. An informal notebook should not become an unofficial record of sensitive pupil, staff or financial information. Formal records should always be stored through your school’s approved systems and processes.

3. Keep pupils at the centre of systems and decisions

Policies, budgets, spreadsheets, processes and performance measures are all necessary parts of running a school. However, it is worth periodically asking what those systems are ultimately trying to achieve.

For an SBM, keeping pupils at the centre does not mean ignoring financial or operational responsibilities. It means considering how those decisions affect teaching, learning, inclusion and the day-to-day school experience.

When reviewing a process, purchase or new system, ask: does this make things easier for staff? Does it help resources reach pupils when they are needed? Does it support the school’s wider priorities?

Good school business management creates structure without allowing the structure itself to become the goal.

4. Give your office and workload a fresh start

A new year is a natural point to review how organised your physical and digital workspace really is.

Start with the areas that regularly waste time. Perhaps documents are difficult to find, actions are spread across several systems or important dates are being held in too many places.

A clearer filing system, labelled storage and a consistent approach to task management can all help. You do not need a complete office makeover. A desk organiser, drawer organisers, storage pots, folders and files, ring binders, document wallets, plastic wallets, letter trays, notebooks, paper pads, pens and sticky notes can be useful if they genuinely make everyday information easier to find.

Some SBMs prefer diaries and planners, while others work best with an approved digital task-management system. The important thing is choosing a method that suits your role and is understood by colleagues who need to use it too.

For further ideas, GLS also has practical guidance on organisation tips for school business managers and practical tools for busy school business managers.

5. Protect time for lunch

When the day is busy, lunch can quickly become another slot for answering emails, approving orders or dealing with unexpected issues.

Try protecting a proper lunch break wherever the school day allows. Even a short break away from your screen can create a useful separation between the morning and afternoon.

Avoid making the resolution so rigid that missing one planned lunch time feels like failure. Schools are unpredictable. Instead, aim to build a normal expectation that you will take a break and, when urgent work interrupts it, find another opportunity during the day.

Taking breaks should form part of a sustainable way of working rather than being treated as time lost.

Personal life

6. Take up a hobby that has nothing to do with school

One of the easiest ways for work to dominate your thoughts is to have nothing planned once the working day ends.

A hobby creates a deliberate reason to switch attention elsewhere. It does not need to be ambitious. Walking, swimming, gardening, photography, crafts, yoga, sport or a regular class can all provide something enjoyable to look forward to.

Choose something you genuinely like rather than something you feel you ought to do. A New Year’s resolution is far more likely to last when it fits naturally into your routine.

The aim is not to fill every spare hour with another commitment. It is to create protected time when you are not thinking about school budgets, deadlines or tomorrow’s to-do list.

7. Make reading part of your wind-down routine

Reading can provide a simple transition between the working day and your own time.

Rather than setting yourself an unrealistic target such as reading a book every week, start small. Ten or 20 minutes in the evening may be enough to establish a routine.

Choose whatever genuinely interests you, whether that is fiction, biographies, history or something completely unrelated to education.

Reading can also be part of a healthier evening routine. NHS guidance on sleep suggests building in time to relax before bed and identifies reading as one activity that may help people wind down.

Health and wellbeing

8. Build more movement into your week

SBMs can spend significant parts of the working day sitting at a desk, attending meetings or looking at a screen. A useful resolution may simply be to move more regularly.

That could mean a short lunchtime walk around the school grounds, walking part of the journey home, joining a class or using an at-home exercise programme.

It does not have to mean starting an intensive fitness regime in January. Aim for something you can realistically maintain beyond the first few weeks of the year.

NHS Every Mind Matters identifies physical activity as one of the ways people can support their mental wellbeing, so finding a type of movement you enjoy can benefit more than physical fitness alone.

9. Practise mindfulness or create another way to switch off

Mindfulness will not suit everyone, but for some people it can provide a useful way to pause after a demanding day.

You might try a short meditation, breathing exercise or simply taking a few quiet minutes without emails, notifications or another task competing for your attention.

NHS guidance describes meditation as a way to pause, become calm and release some of the tension and worries carried through the day. It also recommends building regular habits rather than expecting immediate results from one session.

If mindfulness is not for you, find another routine that signals the working day has ended. Walking, reading, listening to music or writing down tomorrow’s priorities before leaving school can serve a similar purpose.

What mistakes should SBMs avoid when setting resolutions?

The biggest mistake is trying to change everything at once. Nine ideas do not mean nine commitments.

Choose the areas that would make the greatest difference to you. Make each resolution specific enough to act on, but flexible enough to survive a particularly busy week.

It is also important not to treat personal wellbeing techniques as the answer to structural workload problems. The DfE’s workload resources are designed to help school leaders identify and tackle unnecessary work at organisational level. If an SBM is consistently unable to take breaks, switch off or complete essential responsibilities within reasonable working patterns, the solution should include reviewing systems, expectations and workload.

How can GLS support school business managers?

GLS works with schools every day, so we understand that making an SBM’s role easier often comes down to removing small but persistent sources of friction.

That can mean better office organisation, having everyday school stationery available when it is needed, simplifying repeat school procurement or creating clearer systems around ordering and planning.

GLS has developed guidance specifically around staff wellbeing, school organisation, procurement and the practical tools available to busy SBMs. Our focus is on useful changes that fit real school environments rather than adding another initiative to an already crowded workload.

It reflects the GLS approach: Schools. We get you. Supporting schools is not simply about providing resources; it is about understanding the pressures behind the decisions schools make and helping everyday processes run more smoothly.