After describing the school’s working environment as “criminal” at interview, Martin Kerslake was amazed to be offered a job as the school’s first Business Manager. Six years later, the school is transformed and Martin has been elected as the 2008 Bursar of the Year by the NBA. How did he do it?

Martin went straight from school into the business world, built a successful career and never looked back – until he found himself between jobs six years ago, and went along to an interview for the job of School Business Manager at Priory Community School (PCS). This was where he described the state of the buildings as “criminal”, and made the interviewers blush. Thinking he had no chance of being offered the job, he left the school to go to his nephew’s nativity play, and it was there, surrounded by children in sheep costumes, that he got the call that would change his life – and the school.

In six years, Martin’s leadership has helped to transform the school premises. He says that “you wouldn’t recognise the place.” A new reception and office area replaces the previous “appalling conditions.” A café style canteen links the old school buildings with the new Humanities block, which contains an innovative flexible learning centre. Many classrooms are newly refurbished – or new – and equipped with state-of-the-art ICT cabinets with projectors, DVD players and sound equipment. 

Martin stresses that the improvements in the school, and the recognition of the award, all come back to teamwork. He pays tribute to the leadership team, of which he is a part, and the site services team, which facilitates community use of the premises at weekends and supports further work. The school even has its own YouTube channel to broadcast monthly updates to the school community, courtesy of the dedicated ICT team.

Investment has also been key: money for improvements was raised by selling land and through capital grants. PCS is now looking to become a trust school, which should open up more funding streams.

However, Martin underplays his own role in all of this. His abilities and leadership have been a significant part of the transformation achieved at the school, as recognised by his Principal - who nominated him for the Bursar of the Year Award in 2008.

Since the award, Martin is getting a lot of publicity locally, followed by requests for help from other SBMs. As he says “people out there are doing these tricky jobs, and they haven’t got the network.” 

Networking was one of the main benefits that Martin got from the CSBM course, which he took early in his role as an SBM, and describes as “Brilliant: delivered at the right pace, the right level and at the right time.” 

Martin has recently started on the MMU’s BA (SBM) course, and is enjoying the exchange of ideas with other SBMs again. After his career in business, some of the material is already familiar to him, but he always returns to work re-energised after a day on campus. He also observes that a degree matters to many of the people he works with:

Personally, when I’m interviewing, I’m more interested in what people can do, but in academia, you’re often seen as a third class citizen without a degree.

In the process of transforming the school, Martin has transformed the view of SBMs at the school and beyond. When he took the post, the school was taking a gamble in appointing its first SBM. Martin is now at the level of Senior Vice Principal, sharing the job of running the school with the Principal and Leadership Team. This enables the right people to focus on ensuring that their vision of “Students First” is upheld in everything that is done. He is now on leadership pay, but is very aware that many SBMs are not. He believes that awareness of the role of SBMs has come a long way in the last few years, but there is still a long way to go.