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 deal with circumstances where educational professionals, whose sole rationale for decisions made about school design, curriculum change and staff deployment were predicated on a survey of what other people are doing, what I did in my last school and poorly understood structures driving reasoning and practice .
In this context, much of the current narrative about funding and structures, leaves many with a real lack of narrative about the true size and cost of curriculum provision. To this end we have developed a methodology that can provide confidence about the size and cost of curriculum provision based on 12 core principles.
In no way is it intended to limit what can be done, it is to give the teaching profession the language and metrics to describe a schools provision from nursery to post-16 delivery and should facilitate all of the pedagogical conversations about teaching and learning practice and not limit them through structural design limitations. The primary goal has to be to make space in a budget for establishing rich and valuable contributions to student learning, and also to ease the workload of those delivering it not adding to the frustrations of poorly understood and delivered structures.
It should be understood that the work of the SMARTcurriculum® Analysis Tool is only a part of the SMARTcurriculum® method. The practices to secure delivery underpin the method the application provides the metrics to facilitate the necessary dialogue within each school or group of schools.