International CLFP tool
Details: Written by Eleanor Lodge
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Published:
Here at The Skills Network, we're offering financial planning assistance to schools throughout the MENA region with our newly developed Curriculum Led Financial Planning tool (CLFP).
This comes following three years of frozen international school fees and stagnating government educational spending following the pandemic, causing mounting financial pressures for educators across the world. International schools in the MENA region have been particularly hard hit by the fee freeze, with the last permitted fee increase being in the 2019-20 academic year. The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) announced in March that international schools would not be allowed to raise tuition fees for 2022, further hindering revenue and economic growth.
The CLFP tool can help support MENA schools in navigating this challenging & unprecedented financial climate. CLFP is a global school resource, that is fully cloud based, allowing the user 24/7 access, from anywhere in the world and eliminates the archaic use of outdated and inaccurate excel spreadsheets for financial planning. Developed in partnership with leading schools groups in the United Kingdom, the CLFP tool is providing educators with a collection of resources, templates and methodologies designed to support financial planning and manage staffing through efficient and strategic systems, providing schools with expert support through challenging financial times.
One anonymous GEMS principle stated: “Petrol has gone up, accommodation and rent is going up, food and groceries have increased a lot; as far as I can see, inflation is increasing, which also means that our running costs as a school are going up such as the daily maintenance, DEWA bills, rental of teacher and staff accommodation, and so on”. It is clear that international schools in the MENA region are being financially impacted from all sides and with financial planning tools such as The Skills Network’s CLFP tool providing an average saving of £163,000 per secondary school in the United Kingdom, this resource helps budgets stretch.
The tool offers a range of benefits for education institutions including:
- Benchmarking finances: Benchmark spending and staffing in comparison across schools groups, providing insights and assisting informed financial decision making.
- Detailed workforce planning: Supporting institutions to deploy staff efficiently, targeting recruitment and enabling workforce planning to manage and achieve targeted teaching group and contact ratios
- Curriculum and subject modelling: Accurately model curriculum and subjects in greater detail
- Quick health check: Gain insightful analysis of a Curriculum Bonus and Contact Ratio, benchmarked against recognised standards allowing institutes to conduct important checks on their planning and management resources
- Managing your school group: A ‘Group Overview’ function, well suited for School Groups, gives access to a ‘top-down’ view of all a school’s staffing and financial data
An integrated curriculum planning strategy involves measuring current curriculum, staffing structure and finances to create a three to five year plan based of attained data. Helping educators develop the best curriculum for their pupils with the funding they have available.
The Skills Network’s CLFP tool meets tough regulatory requirements and is developed to provide the highest quality and most efficient financial planning tool to support educators across the world.
How does CLFP benefit educators and students?
Advance Learning Partnership (ALP) is a not-for-profit Multi Academy Trust based in the UK, consisting of a mix of primary and secondary academies. Their aim is to give children and young people from all backgrounds an outstanding education, providing them with values, skills, knowledge and understanding to prepare them for success both in the classroom and beyond.
The Academy Trust is now entering their third year working with us at The Skills Network, employing their CLFP software to access financial information planning through a quick and efficient tool. The use of our CLFP tool replaced a tedious system of gathering curriculum information through various formats, improving efficiency and outcomes of an integrated financial plan for students throughout the trust.
A spokesperson from Advanced Learning Partnership, says: “This software has improved the ability to compare our schools against curriculum and financial KPIs and against the other schools in the Trust, leading to effective discussions and planning with schools throughout the year regarding curriculum and financial efficiency. The increased accuracy using this tool has also given us a greater confidence when it comes to school plans and Trust analysis”
The Skills Network’s CLFP tool is cloud based, helping educators benchmark spending, support conscious investment choices, increase savings and enhance learner outcomes.
Paul Sorby, Executive Director of Curriculum at Outwood Grange Academies Trust, says: “After years of development, we’ve finally shared our model to help schools with a robust curriculum and financial tool that is critical year-on-year. Partners we’ve helped in the past continue to use this model; and this software will now allow the whole sector to benefit.”
Sophie Spencer, Head of Education at The Skills Network, says: “Our new software, which meets tough UK DFE requirements for ICFP (Integrated Curriculum Financial Planning), is specifically tailored to planning within the primary phases and covers all areas of financial planning including your teacher-contact ratio and cost per lesson, the overall view of your schools’ staffing and financial data, comparisons of multiple schools within your group/MAT, full financial and curriculum transparency, guidance on how to plan optimal staffing structures, forecast scenario planning and staff deployment analysis.
“The quality of our CLFP tool is what sets this apart, providing a user focussed experience that improves the efficiency and ease of financial planning, ultimately creating the best learning opportunities for learners worldwide.”
Enquire about our CLFP tool here.
To find out about our CLFP tool in the UK click here.