We all know that the vast majority of a school budget is spent on teaching staff, and quite right too; they are the best, most important, and most valuable resource in any school. But with budgets being ever tighter, are there ways that Finance Teams and Business Managers can release money from the staffing pot without cutting teaching staff numbers or quality? The answer is “Yes”.
By implementing Sparkjar as your school’s teaching and learning platform, creating a workspace for teachers to manage their workload more effectively, you can save around 1% of your overall budget (average school saving of £49k), plus you can make additional savings in the Supplies and Services cost centre as well. Read on to find out how.
How Sparkjar reduces teaching costs
We all know happy, healthy staff are less likely to have long term absence, and that a large part of teacher absence is due to stress and high workload. So how does this breakdown?
Sparkjar is designed by teachers in the UK, for teachers. We have an absolute understanding of teacher workflows and have created an environment that supports and streamlines the everyday working life of a teacher. By providing your teachers with a fit-for-purpose digital working environment, you reduce their cognitive load and stress levels.
Our objective is to free teachers from tech stress and admin and give them back the space to focus on teaching and pedagogy. Over the last 5 years we've developed Sparkjar's robust technology to save teachers an average of 3 hours every week, helping to redress their work-life balance.
Let's take a look at the numbers:
The average UK secondary school budget is £4.9m, with an average of 3% of that budget being spent on supply staff. If we reckon that Sparkjar could cut that supply cost by just 1/3, then the average school is looking at cutting their supply costs by £49k per year. That’s a whole extra teacher!
How Sparkjar reduces Supply & Services Costs
No one knows better how much paper and printing a school goes through than the admin and finance teams. And constantly photocopying teaching resources is expensive, stressful for teachers, and bad for the environment.
Sparkjar is like a digital exercise book, where teachers can upload resources to share with students, students can access these resources, annotate them, store their own annotated copies, and complete and submit class and home work. Imagine reducing the number of overworked photocopiers, slashing your paper and toner order each term, and seeing the electricity cost associated with printing plummet.
So, what’s the cost?
Of course, all these savings are great, but the investment in Sparkjar needs to show a solid return. Sparkjar is priced per user, with an average school of 600 students and 40 teachers having an annual licence fee of just £7,900.
We know all schools are unique, so if you would like to calculate your schools potential savings and the return you could achieve through investing in Sparkjar please fill out the form below and we will email you your very own cost saving calculator.
