Blog

Browse our latest blog posts, which offer ICFP insights from accredited consultants.

Featured Blog Posts

What is the ‘curriculum’ element of Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning?

Friday, March 14, 2025

What is the ‘curriculum’ element of Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning?

The idea of ICFP is that it generates metrics which act as ‘question starters’ for the school. For instance, if …

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Why have we developed ICFP Software?

Friday, February 21, 2025

Why have we developed ICFP Software?

Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP) has been a central element of our work for many years; both the work …

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ICFP and Budget Assumptions

Sunday, February 16, 2025

ICFP and Budget Assumptions

Budgeting is a gloriously messy process. Across the country finance professionals are doing what seems unnatural for such a process …

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Friday, March 14, 2025

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Peter Tomkins

What is the ‘curriculum’ element of Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning?

The idea of ICFP is that it generates metrics which act as ‘question starters’ for the school. For instance, if the school is spending above …

Read more

Friday, February 21, 2025

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Peter Tomkins

Why have we developed ICFP Software?

Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP) has been a central element of our work for many years; both the work we and our consultants do …

Read more

Sunday, February 16, 2025

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Peter Tomkins

ICFP and Budget Assumptions

Budgeting is a gloriously messy process. Across the country finance professionals are doing what seems unnatural for such a process and making guesses about what …

Read more

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

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Peter Tomkins

How can ICFP help with assessing central trust costs?

Unlike other ICFP tools, ICFP.school redistributes the central trust costs to schools so it is possible to assess the efficiency of the both the school …

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Monday, February 10, 2025

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Peter Tomkins

How important is ICFP when you set your budget?

Somehow I seem to have become a reluctant budgeting and financial planning guru. Not only have I, with input from a panel of SRMAs, written …

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Friday, January 17, 2025

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Peter Tomkins

SEND – How can ICFP help?

It’s time to talk about SEND. The increase in SEND, both in terms of pupil numbers and need, is probably the greatest challenge that schools …

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Sunday, January 05, 2025

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Peter Tomkins

Why is ICFP important for setting the budget?

The starting point for budgeting really should be asking the following question: how can I use my finite financial resources so that it has the …

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Sunday, December 15, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

ICFP in Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs)

Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) provide some challenges to Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP). The first is how we ensure that all the costs associated with …

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Monday, December 02, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Thresholds, benchmarks and metric ranges

The longer you spend in education – and I am just shy of forty years as a teacher, headteacher, consultant and director of TSO Education …

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Sunday, December 01, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Does ICFP work for primary schools?

I used to hear the above question all the time and I thought we’d moved past it until I was brought up short in a …

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Wednesday, November 20, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

What is the relationship between ICFP and timetabling?

Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning (ICFP) informs the timetabling process, but is not part of the process. We have noticed that quite a lot of …

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Monday, November 18, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Small schools and ICFP

As a governor, and chair of finance, in a small, LA maintained village primary school where numbers are fluctuating between around 40 and 60 I …

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Sunday, November 17, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Can I use ICFP metrics as KPIs?

The Academy Trust Handbook used to mandate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as an element of monthly management accounts; this was removed from the 2023 edition …

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Sunday, November 10, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Is Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning better than Curriculum Led Financial Planning

The short answer is no. The longer answer is that they are basically the same process, just with slightly different titles. Integrated Curriculum and Financial …

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Saturday, November 09, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Does ICFP work for special schools?

The challenge of using integrated curriculum and financial planning (ICFP) with special schools is the diversity of the schools. Different special schools focus on a …

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Wednesday, November 06, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Is it best to use an ICFP tool?

It is not unusual to hear people argue that using a tool to generate your Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning data actually disempowers you. The …

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Friday, November 01, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

ICFP Metrics – Now what?

Calculating the integrated curriculum and financial planning metrics are the easy part of the process, particularly when you use a tool like ICFP.school. The more …

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Friday, October 25, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Does ICFP work in all school phases?

The short answer is that ICFP works in all types and phases of school, although the larger the class of school the more useful the …

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Friday, October 25, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

ICFP vs Benchmarking

Integrated Curriculum and Financial Planning can sometimes be dismissed as just a rather fancy name for benchmarking, but they are two very different processes. The …

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Friday, October 25, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Why use ICFP?

The ICFP process is about providing useful management information to school leaders and governors/trustees. It is not, much to some leaders’ surprise, about levelling all …

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Friday, October 25, 2024

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Peter Tomkins

Is ICFP too broad?

Some approaches to ICFP don’t differentiate between schools on the basis of contextual features like geographical area, socio-economic background or outcomes. The ICFP.school dashboard allows …

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