A leading academies trust has partnered with The Skills Network to launch a brand-new online Curriculum Led Financial Planning (CLFP) tool.

̨��swag Grange Academies Trust, one of the most successful academy trusts in the country and the pioneers of CLFP have used their extensive knowledge and many years of training schools up and down the country, to develop a simple to use tool with The Skills Network who are one of the most successful providers of online learning solutions in the UK.  

The simple to use tool will enable school and trust leaders and governors to quickly analyse the financial efficiency of their curriculum and guide them through how to apply tried and tested metrics to ensure that children can succeed whilst keeping control of their finances.

With staff costs being by far the highest expenditure in a school we have more than 20 years of experience of identifying savings with many examples of academy trusts being able to identify efficiencies of around £500,000+. 

The new CLFP software, available to secondary schools and multi-academy trusts with secondary schools, is a collection of tools, templates and methodologies which aid institutions to manage and plan more effectively and allows leadership teams to report to governors on their curriculum led financial model. 

The CLFP software will benefit schools and trusts by making it easier to plan finances and manage staffing via:

• Benchmarking finances: Benchmark spending and staffing in comparison across individual schools or schools in a trust, to give new insights and help the user to make informed choices on where to spend and save in a school.

• Detailed workforce planning: Use tools that enable a user to deploy staff efficiently, enhance targeted recruitment and ultimately plan the workforce to manage a trust’s targeted teaching group and staff contact ratios.

• Curriculum and subject modelling: Software helps a user to learn how to accurately model curriculum and subjects in more extensive detail.

• Quick health check: This enables a user to enter a small number of variables to gain an insightful analysis of a trust’s curriculum ‘size’ (measured in how many teaching periods are needed) and staffing ‘size’ (measured by staff contact ratio), benchmarked against recognised standards. Conducting important checks, like this, are imperative to ensuring a school or trust is doing a sound job of planning and managing resources.

• Managing a school group: The ‘Group Overview’ function, well suited for Academy Trusts, gives the user access to a ‘top-down’ view of all a trust’s secondary school’s staffing and financial data.

Paul Sorby, Executive Director of Curriculum at ̨��swag Grange Academies Trust, a leading expert in CLFP says, “At ̨��swag, we put students first and we believe every student can succeed when provided with a caring, inclusive environment where they have access to a curriculum that empowers them with knowledge and experience.

After many years of development, we’ve finally shared our CLFP model in a sustainable and robust way. Partners we’ve supported in the past continue to use this model; and this software will now allow these and indeed the whole sector to benefit with critical year-on-year curriculum and financial benchmarked analysis.”

Sophie Spencer, Head of Education at The Skills Network, said: “As a leading online learning provider within the Education Sector both within the UK and globally, we are proud to be part of this strategic partnership which has enabled us to develop and deliver the software in conjunction with the prestigious ̨��swag Grange Academies Trust. 

“We are proud to be part of this initiative to provide schools with a platform to allow curriculum to be at the core, whilst maximising Financial efficiencies and delivering optimum outcomes for pupils and their educational journey.”

The software was developed with the Integrated Curriculum Financial Planning requirements, as set out be the Department for Education, in mind and meets them.

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