134 Total Quality Management for Schools Planning for Quality 135

Important 'product' characteristics and simultaneously improving our

One way of both reducing the 'costs of quality'
e to look afresh at all docu-
capability to offer what the customer actually wants may b
• Smart personal appearance, as appropriate for work and other social circumstances;
• Good oral presentation, confident and clear speech; mentation and internal communication systems:
• Reasoning abilities, problem-solving skills; • Why do we do it?
• Social skills, appropriate manners; • Who does it help?
• Integrity, honesty; • Can we do without it?
• Staying power,
If the answers are:
• Team-work skills;
• Independence, self-sufficiency and self-respect; • Do not know.
• Cooperativeness; • No one.
• Confidence and self-esteem. • Think so.
uality
These should have been developed through the media of curricular and extra-curricular then abolish it. With a flatter hierarchy, Quality Improvement Programme and q
ng defensive
activities. But they may not, perhaps because of the nature of the curriculum offered in circles in place, people will be talking to each other cooperatively, not writi
a particular school, and its general ethos. The schoolteacher's perception of what memos, or filling in forms with spurious information.
ing criteria.
should be expected of children does not always match the needs of the external cus- Documentation should be limited to that which fulfils the follow
tomer. Every school must decide what it is setting out to achieve in the personal
development of its pupils, but must do so with the external customer's needs in mind. Basic documentary requirements
For example, if children are encouraged to attend school in casual leisure clothing, by erpreting it,
teachers who see cords and pullover as suitable professional apparel, then the children • That which has an essential purpose - conveying information, or int
are being done a disservice. Employers expect young people to recognize what the busi- for customers, whether internal or external.
nd school
ness and working world sees as appropriate for the daily routine. If children have been . • That which is required by law, e.g. Records of Achievement, registers a
ed where
driven by a highly didactic teaching system in order to achieve high academic results, reports. Even these items should be subjected to scrutiny and redesign
ent team
they may lack some of the intangible but highly necessary characteristics of indepen- necessary. For instance, a good first project for the quality improvem
dence, self-motivation, team-work skills and so on. If the school has a philosophy which might be to redesign school report forms.
id what, when,
denies the value of competitive instincts, the pupils may appear to be too lethargic and • That which is required for purposes of accountability (who d
indemnity for
easygoing for the needs of the commercial environment. for what purpose?), e.g. medical inspection, punishment, travel
school trips.
b dockets for ancillary
• That which is required for process control. Work and jo
nd progress
Documentary control system staff, markbooks and other recording systems for process a
.
management in the teaching programme, e.g. cusum charts, etc
ok order,
Perhaps more than any other organization, schools tend to become plagued by enor- • That which is needed for relationships with suppliers, e.g. bo
mous quantities of bureaucratic paperwork. Some of this is-imposed on the schools, equipment order.
of pupils,.,
e.g. Records of Achievement, truancy returns and so on. Some is internally generated. • That which is required in relationship with customers, eg. registration
stimopials
Tom Peters recounts the story of the chairman of a major company who killed off entrance exam details, personal data, university applications, pupils' te
paperwork by binning every memo which be received. Perhaps.this is going too far. and references.
Winston Churchill insisted that memos from his staff should never be longer than one on.; „,
• That which is needed to set in motion, record and subsequently monitor acti
page of foolscap. We tend to grumble at new bureaucratic impositions but then to get , cone-
programmes, e.g. minutes of meetings, requests for specific information
on and deal with them. Management rarely steps back and considers whether we need spondence etc.
to undertake a particular task, and whether there has developed an overlap which can suppliers and
• That which is required to maintain records of all relationships with
permit the removal of one bureaucratic imposition. For example, if the sixth form customers, e.g. filing systems, databases.
parents are invited to meet the teachers in mid-March, and are then sent a school
report in late March, dc •hey need yet another report in June, when there have been , thus reducing the
only two or three weeks of revision teaching before the start of the exams in May? Much of this data could be computer-generated and stored aware of the
Arguably not, but no doubt many schools continue to send one without considering amount of manual record-keeping required. It is important, however, odel to be
of such a
whether or not it is useful. requirements of the Data Protection Act in setting up such a system. A m system
is set out in Figure 10.4.