An excellent tool to manage staffing levels and deployment (teaching and non-teaching), curriculum structure and the impact of these two on the budget
SMARTcurriculum CASE STUDY
St Mary’s Church of England High School, Cheshunt, Herts
Case Study kindly supplied by: Nicholas Simms, Headteacher
February, 2023
Context
St Mary’s is a mixed, comprehensive, church school, in Hertfordshire, and close to London. We have a healthy budget, but the 2019 OFSTED inspection (RI) judgement has led to a decline in student numbers in KS3, but also a rise in student numbers in KS5. The Head Teacher wanted to monitor curriculum and staffing costs more closely to ensure value for money and to understand what impact these two changes are having on school. Having worked with Chris Jones for a number of years, and been aware of the software, we signed up to use SMARTcurriculum Analytics to enable us to manage this change effectively.
SMARTcurriculum impact
SMARTcurriculum Analytics is a really innovative piece of software that has enhanced the work of so many school leaders in their various roles. The Head Teacher asked Chris Jones to do a demonstration of the software to the SLT and collectively we felt it would be an excellent tool to manage staffing levels and deployment (teaching and non-teaching), curriculum structure and the impact of these two on the budget. Once the Head Teacher decided to adopt the software, Chris provided training to all SLT and some admin staff to enable us to get the most from it. This training has continued as our use has extended and as new features are added. Although much of the software is intuitive and easy to learn, Chris has also produced really helpful ‘How to’ videos for various aspects of the software to enable us to further develop our understanding.
We feel the software is innovative in that it enables us to model changes to curriculum, staffing and budget and assess the impact of different decisions in a way that no other software we have used does. For instance, we had three Technology Teachers leave in one term leaving us with a hole in what is a key subject for us, but is nationally difficult to recruit to. SMARTcurriculum Analytics really supported our long-term planning work when we worked through the various ‘what-ifs’ of this issue and enhanced our understanding of what we could do, and what we may struggle to do in various situations.
SMARTcurriculum Analytics has also really helped the team with learning. As well as looking at how staff changes impact on curriculum, it has allowed us to model how the curriculum changes we wish to drive can be staffed. For instance, we have looked at changing from Triple Science being in effect an extra-curricular activity to being in the option block, giving it more secured time. SMARTcurriculum Analytics has enabled us to model the outcomes of various ‘what-ifs’, to enable us to understand the pros and cons of each variation on learning, staffing and ultimately budget.
SMARTcurriculum Analytics is very cost effective; it has enabled the school leaders to make more informed decisions more quickly and to explain these to the Governors in a way we were not able to before.
Conclusions
SMARTcurriculum Analytics is a complex tool that is easy and intuitive to use that has enabled St Mary’s school leaders to do their job in a more effective and timely way. It has enabled us to create a curriculum based on our budget, but also to budget for a curriculum design the school needs. In that sense it is innovative because other tools we have looked at have done some of these things, but not all.
