Brave PAs

The ultimate guide to being outstanding in a tough job

Angela Garry

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781781352212
• eBook ISBN: 9781781352236
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The common image of the secretary or personal assistant is that of a quiet "Miss Jones" type - not usually expected to have the courage (or the right) to speak out on something they are passionate about. However, PAs have a vital role to play in an education environment - a role that requires real bravery. Written by the former PA to the principal of an innovative new academy in the UK, who now delivers training courses for secretaries and PAs in schools globally, this book offers tips, hints, anecdotes, time-saving advice, knowledge and expertise for PAs, secretaries and administrators to follow throughout the year. Each individual bravery-themed section is packed with advice and insights to assist with your continuing professional development, enable you to perform at your best and cope with the inevitable challenging situations you face, one week at a time. PAs, secretaries and administrators in schools, colleges and universities, this book is for you. Make this a brave year!

BRAVERY IS …

BRAVERY IS … STEPPING

INTO YOUR FIRST ROLE IN AN EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Your first experiences of working in an educational environment may well be scary, whether you are arriving straight from school or college or from working in a role in a different industry. Many people believe that a job in education will be ‘easier’ than elsewhere, that they will enjoy long holidays and short hours, but this generally does not prove to be the case!

With increasingly smaller budgets and tighter controls on spending, educational institutions are becoming pressurised into becoming ‘lean’, which means reducing staff numbers and overheads whilst still maintaining standards and delivering excellent teaching for the students. The role of PA, EA or secretary in a school, college or university is often therefore a hugely responsible position, which will require you to have lots of fingers in lots of different pies throughout the organisation, regardless of whether your job is to support just one individual or many staff members. You will become involved in the whole organisation for the good of all – and so you should! The better acquainted you can become with the workings and machinations of your school or college, the better you will be able to support its leadership.

PAs who make the move from a corporate role will be used to working in busy, pressurised situations, but many will be unprepared for the sheer number of interruptions that will occur during the working day in education, as pupils, parents, teachers, teaching assistants, governors, professors, college sponsors, community members and many more compete for their attention. I’ve spent my career working in corporate, charity and educational institutions, and I’ve seen the huge gulf between what people think of as a ‘cushy number’ working in education in comparison with what actually happens.

Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that working in education is an awful experience, too hard, too difficult or too pressurised. I have loved each and every one of my roles as an administrator in education – as, I am sure, will you – and I have felt challenged to push myself to reach high standards throughout. It’s always been a role where I have felt valued and where I have known that what I was doing was working towards an overall goal that is sincerely worthwhile – educating the adults of the next generation. I love the PA role and working in the educational sphere with equal passion. And, with each job, I have developed different skills and new methods of working.

Education is a very different experience than working anywhere else. There are very few other organisations where you would be required to deal with huge numbers of children, teenagers and young adults every day in your workplace, as well as ‘already grown’ adults. For those who have spent their career working solely with adults, it can be a daunting or scary experience to make the switch to working in education. It takes bravery.

My experiences of working in educational environments have required bravery throughout, to adapt to the various demands required of me as a PA, an adult, a tutor, a coach, a mentor, a member of the local community; bravery which I’m going to share with you over the coming pages, and which I hope can help you in your future as a brave PA in education.

BRAVERY IS … ENLIGHTENING

– SOME LIGHT-HEARTED ADVICE FOR A NEW PA

If you are brand new to being a PA, then welcome to this really exciting profession!

Being a new PA or administrative assistant is no easy task. Your head teacher or principal will quite often expect things of you that you are unfamiliar with – they may presume that you already know what to do without being told. They will probably also expect that you automatically know their preferences and will be able to organise logistics successfully on their behalf.

If you want to be great at your job, the following enlightenments should be useful to you.

BE FRIENDLY AND EARN THE RESPECT OF YOUR COLLEAGUES

When you arrive in a new role, your colleagues need to know who you are and what you do. If you need something from them, you need them to respond accordingly. A major element of the PA role is chasing people to get them to produce reports and papers to deadline, to agree to attend meetings, to turn up on time and to take on extra responsibility, so you need your colleagues to know that you are there as the head’s or principal’s ‘third arm’. You are there to ensure that whatever needs doing gets done.

You will need to get to know about the people your boss will meet with on a regular basis – this might by the school or college’s governors, or the university’s council. If they are familiar with who you are and what your role is, a good working relationship with them should develop much easier than if they have no idea who you are or what you are doing. You may not be directly involved with their schedule or time management, but getting acquainted with their assistants will help assure their cooperation when you need something from them.

MOST LIKELY, YOUR COLLEAGUES KNOW NOTHING ABOUT WHAT A PA DOES

You will find that many of the people you work with have little idea about the role of a PA so your task should be to educate them! They may think of you as a diary-keeper, a chaser-of-deadlines or the ‘go to’ person for everything under the sun, so they will often come to you with questions or tasks that aren’t your responsibility to fulfil, but they have no idea who else to go to with them, so they come to you. Of course, these are things that you will take in your stride in time – it is usually a case of ‘If you don’t know who to ask about something, ask the PA – they will be able to find out for you’. For example, many of your colleagues will be under the impression that you are (apparently) the only person in the entire world who knows where anything is. Without you, nobody would know who to call, when the meeting is or who it is with – and the list keeps going.

Being a PA (and a brave one at that!) requires certain skills including organising meetings, handling travel itineraries, having good (or preferably great) computing skills and typing speeds, as well as being flexible and adaptable to working with last minute c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Content
• Foreword
• Introduction
• BRAVERY IS
• Resources
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• About the Illustrator
• Testimonials for Training Seminars, Mentoring and Coaching
• Topic index
• Copyright