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 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.
Thinking and Practices in Safe-guarding
Debbie Dowsett has years of professional experience in safeguarding practice in social, health and education services. In this webinar Debbie covers the story of how she has brought professional safeguarding thinking and practices to the school environment by engaging all staff in an understanding of how to approach this huge issue. Debbie explores: – the […]
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 eternal round
Once you have considered the Curriculum Enhancement value, we then need to consider how much curriculum is too much; how we can control it; and what influences the amount that we plan in? In the example used in the recent blog ‘Return on Investment’, we showed that the basic curriculum design is based on the principles described of optimised class sizes and efficient delivery. Curriculum Enhancement is the […]
Return on investment
Our recent blog post ‘Magnificent Seven’ outlined the seven measures used within the Integrated Curriculum Finance Planning (ICFP) indicators of school efficiency. I just want to take a moment to consider a measure that many are grappling with and some feel has little, or even negative impact, on a school. I will say at the beginning that I believe it can be […]
The Eleventh Hour
We have observed, while analysing curriculum design over many years, that school leaders tend to invest time and resources at particular thresholds in a learner’s journey throughout their education. Over recent years much has been said about intervention strategies, which in layman’s terms means that we throw time and resources near to examination thresholds to […]
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 […]
