Primary ICFP
I was recently asked to write an article for the PSM magazine to discuss the application of Integrated Curriculum and Finance Planning within the primary sector. Here is a taster of what I discussed.
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.
School Financial Management Made Simple
Join School Finance Specialist and founder of Effervesce Susan Fielden to demystify the sometimes fear-inspiring arena of school finances. This free webinar is discursive and designed to answer the most significant issues attendees have. The session began with a poll to gauge which topics were most important to attendees. Susan then focussed on what they […]
Mind the Gap – Bridge the Gap
Within the education world, to the educators, the driver is that education is for the good of the learner. Within the business world the key is efficiency- the best we can get for the least investment, the ratio of output to input within any system. The educator and the business leader narratives and purposes apparently opposed and there lies a difficulty.
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 […]
Academy Ambassadors – Fundamentals of Education
SMARTcurriculum featured in the Academy Ambassadors Fundamentals of Education resources.
Boom or Bust
I was talking to my son-in-law the other day about what we do within schools and the SMARTcurriculum work. He, like many outside the education dome, expressed a complete lack of understanding or appreciation of the working of schools. ‘It’s just there – teachers teach classes, don’t they?’ was his response. He had not considered the HR, finance and funding efficiency […]
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 […]
Hatchet or Scalpel?
You may not have seen our recent post in the Confederation of School Trusts . The goal is to develop a different narrative in the world of funding challenges toward an investment frame rather than a deficit frame. ‘We do not have enough to carry on doing what we have always done, but rather we […]
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 […]
SMARTcurriculum method
The core principle behind the SMARTcurriculum® method is to have sufficient detail and reason to make good decisions about the curriculum provision reflecting the intent – implementation – impact framework now in popular understanding from the 2019 Ofsted framework- thus ‘To understand’. On so many occasions during my working life I have had reason to […]
