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 […]
Timetable recovery – COVID response
With all the challenges created by the COVID-19 school return guidance, many are considering ad hoc arrangements for timetabling pupil bubbles. You will have already written and roomed full timetables for the 2020-21 academic year and now be making adaptions.
Why outsource your timetabling?
In a recent contract review a leading headteacher of an large outstanding school said “never again will I allow my senior staff to be stuck in a room pouring over a timetable for weeks, I will always seek to use a skilled timetabler who builds a relationship with the school and we can rely on […]
What will be normal?
So much change within the passing of weeks; the use of ‘unprecedented times’ has been over-used perhaps but we are certainly in unusual times and only time will tell its long term impact. Do you remember the video that did the rounds in the early part of the new millennium ‘Shift Happens?’ If ever we […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]