The Appendix contains possible answers to the final Tasks from Chapters 2, 3 and 10, along with the job and person descriptions from Chapter 3.

Organizational analysis of the school

Chain of command

• • Fairly flat on academic side, a little bit deeper and more hierarchical on admin side.

• • Fairly typical for LTOs.

• • Problems with clarity of chain of command on admin side: people sidestepping line management and going to the top (previous line manager).

Departmentalization

• • Few departments – essentially two: admin and academic.

• • Advantages: little silo-ization; easy to communicate within departments.

• • Disadvantages: may lead to a lack of skill in certain areas; the LTO could be carving out a niche, but at present is not doing so.

Formalization

• • Mixed: some positions very formalized, others not at all.

• • Problems:

  – Mixed levels can lead to resentment (those with very formalized roles may resent those who have much more freedom, while those with less clarity of purpose may resent those who have much more structure).

  – They can also lead to a lack of clarity from customer’s point of view – not sure who to go to for what problem/question (and staff may be similarly unsure).

Span of control

• • Quite high. The academic director has a very large span of control – thirty teachers with no middle management. On the admin side, the span is lower, but still relatively high – approximately fifteen people theoretically reporting to the office manager, though many may actually be reporting to the director. Recent changes designed to reduce the director’s span of control have only been partially successful.

• • Problems:

  – The academic director has too great a span of control: she cannot possibly do the job successfully and act in a successful performance management role at the same time (coaching/mentoring/supporting staff)

  – Likewise office manager.

  – The Director’s span of control has been brought down to more manageable levels, but needs to be more clearly formalized.

Centralization

• •Very centralized, with an attempt to reduce centralization.

• •Likely to be too great an amount of centralization – clearly staff still feel they should check things with the director – culture of centralization difficult to break.