Primary partnerships: valuable lessons in sharing from English schools

This article synthesises findings from research on groups of primary schools involved in a nationwide programme of school partnerships in England. It focuses on just one kind of collaboration among several that evolved on the SBM Demonstration Project Programme. Within the programme, single or mixed-phase groups of schools bid for government funding to develop a locally appropriate means of sharing and enhancing capacity in school business management across the group. School Business Managers (SBMs), are now common in secondary schools where the role of the SBM/Bursar in managing school finance is well known. This article explores the relatively unfamiliar territory of the role of the SBM in partnerships of primary schools, with a specific focus on non financial aspects of the job. The paper presents headteacher views on actual and potential strengths of the new arrangements for participating schools and highlights key tensions revealed by the study. With government-funded primary partnerships being rolled out nationally, the paper is timely and of potential interest to primary school colleagues, researchers and policy makers.