Does ICFP work for special schools?
The challenge of using integrated curriculum and financial planning with special schools is the diversity of the schools. Different special schools focus on a different range of needs. The SEN Code of Practice (2015) divides SEND into four categories:
- Communication and interaction
- Cognition and learning
- Social, emotional and mental health
- Sensory and/or physical needs
Not only do special schools contain a different mix of these categories, but many pupils have complex needs that do not fit conveniently within only one of these categories.
Added to this the make up of any special school will change over time as the individuals that make up the school’s cohort changes and so the range of needs changes.
And a further complexity still arises from the particular funding methodology that is used by the Local Authority (LA) that the school is within; and further the mix of LAs that they take their pupils from.
This is not to say that a specialist school or special needs trust would not gain any value from an integrated curriculum and financial planning approach to an analysis of their finances. The key process, however, needs to be around understanding why the school varies from the norm referenced metrics, whether the school or trust are comfortable with this deviation in the metrics and whether the overall position reveals a balanced income and expenditure position.
At ICFP.school we are very keen to find ways to improve our analysis and so are keen to hear from providers of SEND education about how we can improve the ICFP.school dashboard and make it more useful for SEND establishments.
Do please get in touch at office@tsoeducation.co.uk and let us know what you think of our current dashboard and to tell us what else you would like to be added.
Introducing ICFP.school – our online Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning tool
We are really pleased to announce that we are in the final stages of testing our online Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning tool, ICFP.school.
The idea behind the tool is to make the completion of an ICFP review of a school or trust as easy as possible by:
- Pre-populating previous years with publicly available data
- Ensuring that the requirements for data entry are minimised
- Clear input of curriculum data to avoid errors
The system has been developed and tested by our team of SRMAs (School Resource Management Advisers) and includes advice about how to address the issues identified. Schools can use this system to complete the analysis, but then can use the system to identify how to improve efficiency.
All users of the system who wish to will be able to book a meeting to discuss their analysis with an accredited School Resource Management Adviser.
If you are interested in being part of our Beta testing then please send us a message. Or we expect to launch the commercial version of the online tool in late October.
About our SRMA accreditation
The consultants at TSO Education are specialists in both Education Leadership and Education Finance. Most of our consultants are accredited School Resource Management Advisers (SRMAs) – currently we have nine SRMAs signed up as consultants (including our two directors). To ensure they have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to undertake the role they have all passed an independent accreditation panel. As part of the ISBL SRMA team, our highly skilled consultants are able to provide high levels of support and insight.
All our consultants have held senior posts in schools, academies and MATs. With a wide range of experience and knowledge our consultants support our clients by providing evidence-based recommendations, promote and share best practice on managing resources across maintained schools and academy trusts, identify opportunities where schools and trusts can improve efficiency/increase their revenue generation and support schools and trusts to strengthen their governance and oversight of their finances.
Contact us for more information on how our services can be beneficial to you and your school, trust or local authority.
Financial Advice for Schools – DfE List
