ICFP Metrics: The magic number
When considered alone, there are some issues with the use of teacher contact ratio as a measurement of school structure that must be understood if it is being used to compare school structural efficiency.
Why does Curriculum Enhancement matter?
What is Curriculum Enhancement? After years of working with schools on efficiency, affordability and recovery I found myself asking a common question when reviewing and analysing a school’s curriculum planning: “Is this curriculum plan the right size for the children that are currently in the building?” For many years schools have used a set of […]
Why would ICFP matter for us? Part 1
I recently wrote an article for online journal the headteacher, ‘Getting to Grips with ICFP’ focused on why ICFP is different in its application within the primary context. Do have a look. https://www.primaryleaders.com/school-procurement/data-administration/getting-to-grips-with-icfp
Timetable Recovery – a post pandemic response
In recent conversations with many schools it seems that people are taking seriously the changes in circumstances that have opened their eyes to alternative methodologies in putting their schools together.
Curriculum Modelling: Population Design
Population design is a technical paper exploring the subject of how we put populations together within school and curriculum modelling. It is intended to define terms, explore principles and outline practice. Curriculum modelling for excellent practice.
The three Es of curriculum modelling
Over the past 10 years of reviewing curriculum design, I have tried to make a clear distinction between curriculum design in terms of the elements that make a broad and balanced curriculum, teaching and learning strategies and structural analysis. All are important but each should not be confused with the other. SMARTcurriculum® focuses on is […]
Travelling Light?
When creating curriculum models for September 2020, Chris Jones discusses the system wide impact of over-staffing strategies and the impact for us all.
Curriculum Enhancement
Why does Curriculum Enhancement (CE) matter? Contact Ratios and Pupil Teacher Ratios are familiar to most school leaders as measures of classroom resourcing. At the most simplistic level, given that they have been around for a long time and the problems of funding that are now facing schools, one could ask whether the majority of […]
Pack them in?
When we talk about class size it becomes a really contentious issue. Ministers are criticised for an agenda of raising them; Education Endowment Fund (EEF) curate research evidence that suggests that reducing class size is costly and has little impact on outcomes for learners (1); and teachers will say that in certain contexts ‘big’ classes are unmanageable […]
The Magnificent Seven
In an attempt to define Integrated Curriculum Finance Planning (ICFP), the Department for Education (DFE) originally outlined 7 measures that would make a significant difference in managing an establishment budget. Today this has been extended to 10 planning checks (Link here). You may be familiar with other systems that use a combination of these metrics outlined […]
Dream the Impossible Dream
ICFP, Integrated Curriculum Finance Planning, coined by Kate Copley a Deputy Director within the Department for Education (DFE), is the term that the DFE is now using to describe a process that has had a number of names in recent years. Some will recognise ‘Curriculum Led Finance Planning’ (CLFP) used by Outward Grange Academy Trust (OGAT) and various NPQH/NPQEL providers to describe a […]
A balance of three
For the past 10 years I have been working on school efficiency, particularly in the area of curriculum design and provision. As a result of that work I would suggest that there are three characteristics of curriculum design that need to be held in balance at every phase. Efficient (can we afford it?), Effective (does […]
