Why Balance is Key
Balancing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Ethics
With the drive to establish efficient use of funds for the greatest impact, finding efficiencies has become a driver for many actions in the education world, but from experience, we would suggest this is a reaction to funding challenges and needs to held in balance of everything school leadership means to achieve. That’s not to say we do not need to be more efficient, of course we should, but, there is a balance to be achieved, not a pendulum swing!
In working with school leaders of all types we have developed the SMARTcurriculum Method to consider the synergy between curriculum analytics and those measures of the quality of education as a balance of three characteristics; three pillars of discussion about the core purpose to keep the three imperatives in balance. To read more link to two blog posts A balance of three and Scalpel or Hatchet.
The impact of imbalance
Consider this balance, all must hold the tension of their position. You must have strategies for all not just a focus on one.
- A highly efficient curriculum might disregard challenging circumstances that demand some enhanced provision for some or all learners. An efficiency drive alone may risk the effective and ethical provision characteristics.
- A highly effective curriculum might focus on results in such a way that ethical imperatives are ignored. Producing results for performance tables may not equate to a full education provision for some or all learners, while cramming results with lots of interventions are not sustainable.
- A highly ethically driven curriculum provision may be expensive to deliver and may not develop the highest outcomes possible, you might be doing what is right in your context but is it delivering the outcomes, not just in results but in learners lives and prospects for their futures.
Efficient
- Staffing costs within deliverable budget proportions.
- Resource budgets sufficient to be able to make decisions about investment in learning.
- Class size, contact ratio and pupil adult/teacher ratios monitored within an understood context.
Effective
- A local school of choice among parents, roll is full.
- Learners are attending, engaged, and involved in the learning community.
- Outcomes are at or above national expectations.
- Learner destinations are known and appropriate to outcomes and aspirations.
Ethical
- Full provision is the right for all learners, providing and equipping them for future life within the community.
- All learners become fully educated and engaged citizens with an appreciation of all that the learning experience offers and can use it to achieve personal goals.
Click the leaflet to open PDF file
