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 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 […]

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 […]

Autumn MAT briefing and workshop: from aspiration to implementation

‎Tue‎ ‎18‎ ‎Sep  |  AQA Free event for MAT CEOs, COOs and senior MAT leaders. Sessions led by the Regional Schools Commissioner, David Ross Education Trust, Smart Curriculum, AQA, Arbor Education, Judicium, CJK Associates Book a place Time & Location ‎18‎ ‎Sep‎ ‎10‎:‎00 – ‎15‎:‎00 AQA, Stag Hill House, Guildford GU2 7XJ, UK About The […]

Scalpel or Hatchet

You will not have missed the continuing dialogue concerning challenges in school funding. The varied impassioned reactions of educational leaders and the concerned public to the tightening of school budgets, a story that has maintained prominence for more than a year. For many within the state system, the inevitable cut-backs have been a reality for […]

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 […]