With the sector facing increased financial pressures, curriculum reform and rationalisation are becoming more commonplace as avenues to potentially reduce operational costs. But how can a more cost-effective curriculum be balanced against continuing to optimise the pupil experience? Acting Head & Deputy Head (Academic) at Wrekin College, Shropshire, Ben Smith, shares some of the lessons learned from their recent reform process.
Never has the debate surrounding curriculum reform been more pertinent in the independent sector. The ‘triple whammy’ of financial pressures currently facing independent schools, namely the introduction of VAT on fees, the removal of charitable business rates relief and the increase in employer National Insurance contributions, has focused senior leaders’ minds like never before on creating the most cost-efficient curriculum models.
As the most significant expense for the majority of independent schools, curriculum review and rationalisation have become commonplace across the sector in recent years and play a central role in schools’ efforts to reduce their operating costs. Research published in October last year by the Independent Schools Council confirmed that one in ten independent schools had already reduced the size of their curriculum in order to cut staffing costs. This trend is only set to continue with a subsequent survey of independent school headteachers carried out by The Heads’ Conference suggesting that approximately one-third of private schools were planning to remove entire subjects from their curriculum…