Review 17: Rethinking the 80/20 Split in Education Spending

Introduction: The Reality of School Spending

Across the education sector, leaders are consistently challenged to do more with less. Budget pressures, rising costs, and shifting policy demands mean that financial sustainability is an ever-present concern. While much attention is given to reducing costs through operational efficiencies—such as energy use, procurement, and administrative reductions—the reality is that the biggest proportion of school spending is tied to curriculum and workforce decisions.

In the vast majority of schools, around 80% of the budget is allocated to staffing—teachers, support staff, leadership, and operational teams—while the remaining 20% covers everything else, including utilities, resources, and maintenance. Yet, when discussions around efficiency occur, the focus often remains disproportionately on the smaller, more visible areas: cutting paper use, turning off lights, or renegotiating supplier contracts.

While such efforts are valuable, they do not address the core of school expenditure: the structural relationship between curriculum design, staff deployment, and pupil experience. If we are serious about improving efficiency without compromising quality, we must shift our focus to how we structure our curriculum and workforce to maximise impact within available resources.

This article explores how schools can rethink their approach to financial efficiency by addressing the?80% of spending linked to workforce and curriculum?rather than being preoccupied with marginal savings from the 20%. In reality,?this is another example of how a single statement is expected to apply to the entire system. The projections are for 72/28 for secondary/senior organisations and nearer 90/10 in most primary/elementary organisations, with special provisions often being higher than that, 93/7 not being unusual.

The 80/20 Split: What It Means for Schools

A school’s financial model is largely dictated by its curriculum decisions. The subjects offered the number of teaching hours allocated, and how staff are deployed all influence overall budget sustainability.

The Core Issue: Curriculum Drives Workforce Needs

Curriculum structure dictates staffing requirements, not the other way around. When a school decides to offer a broad range of subjects, specialist provisions, or smaller class sizes, this directly increases the staffing bill. However, in many schools, curriculum modelling is not always linked to financial sustainability, leading to inefficient workforce structures.

This results in:

• Unbalanced staff workloads, with some teachers carrying heavier timetables than others.
• High staff-to-pupil ratios in non-core subjects that may not be viable.
• Inefficient class structures, where some groups have significantly fewer students than others.
• Over-reliance on costly interventions rather than curriculum design that mitigates the need for them.

While energy-saving initiatives and administrative efficiencies can contribute to cost savings,?they cannot offset the financial impact of an inefficient curriculum model. Therefore, schools must prioritise aligning curriculum design with sustainable workforce planning.

Strategic Approaches to Achieving Efficiency

To optimise school spending, leaders must focus on curriculum-led financial planning. This involves:

1. Assessing Curriculum Cost per Subject and Class
2. Evaluating Staffing Efficiency and Deployment
3. Rebalancing Contact Ratios and Workloads
4. Maximising Teaching Time within Contracted Hours
5. Aligning Timetabling with Financial and Educational Sustainability

By addressing these areas, schools can achieve efficiencies without compromising educational outcomes.

1. Understanding Curriculum Cost per Subject and Class

Each subject and class size carries a financial cost, determined by the number of teaching hours, specialist requirements, and pupil uptake. Schools need data-driven insights into the true cost of each curriculum decision to determine whether current structures are financially sustainable.

Key Actions:

• Conduct a cost-per-period analysis to understand how much each subject area contributes to overall spending.
• Identify low-uptake subjects that are disproportionately expensive to run.
• Evaluate the financial impact of small-group teaching, particularly in Key Stage 4 and Post-16 provision.

A SMARTcurriculum review helps schools map these costs against available resources, ensuring that curriculum structures remain viable.

2. Evaluating Staffing Efficiency and Deployment

Staffing efficiency is not just about cost-cutting—it’s about?optimising teaching time is allocated to ensure equitable workloads and sustainable employment structures.

Key Actions:

• Assess staff timetables for uneven contact ratios, ensuring fair distribution of teaching time.
• Reduce unnecessary non-contact periods that could be reallocated more efficiently.
• Identify gaps in teacher utilisation, particularly where part-time or specialist staff could be deployed more effectively.
• Review support staff structures, ensuring that roles align with school priorities rather than historical patterns.

Timetable modelling can highlight areas where efficiency gains are possible without increasing staff workload or compromising pupil outcomes.

3. Rebalancing Contact Ratios and Workloads

Contact ratio—the percentage of a teacher’s contracted hours spent in direct teaching—varies significantly across schools. Many institutions unknowingly operate at an inefficient staff-to-pupil ratio, leading to unnecessary cost burdens.

Key Actions:

• Benchmark contact ratios against national norms and adjust accordingly.
• Reduce unnecessary duplication of staff deployment, particularly where multiple teachers support small groups in subjects that could be restructured.
• Streamline class structures, ensuring that pupil numbers per class align with financial sustainability.

By making strategic adjustments, schools can optimise teaching time without increasing workload stress for staff.

4. Maximising Teaching Time within Contracted Hours

Inefficiencies often arise when schools underutilise their staff within their contracted hours. This can happen due to overly complex timetabling, inefficient curriculum structures, or legacy staffing patterns.

Key Actions:

• Conduct a staff utilisation audit to identify underused capacity.
• Adjust timetabling to ensure optimal deployment of teaching staff within existing contracts.
• Reduce reliance on expensive interventions by integrating additional support within core timetables.

Efficient timetabling can prevent unnecessary recruitment costs while maintaining high-quality provision.

5. Aligning Timetabling with Financial and Educational Sustainability

Timetabling is one of the most powerful tools for achieving financial efficiency. However, many schools design timetables reactively, based on historical patterns rather than strategic financial planning.

Key Actions:

• Align curriculum hours with financial capacity, ensuring a balanced approach to subject provision.
• Minimising?split classes and inefficient teacher deployment?can increase workload pressures.
• Use timetabling software to model different staffing structures before making long-term decisions.

When timetabling is proactively linked to financial planning, schools can achieve efficiencies without compromising the pupil experience.

Balancing Teaching and Non-Teaching Workforce Efficiency

While teacher deployment is a crucial area for efficiency, non-teaching staff make up a significant proportion of school spending. Many schools operate with historically structured administrative, pastoral, and support teams that may no longer reflect the school’s strategic priorities.

Key Considerations:

• Administrative Efficiencies: Are there roles that could be streamlined through better systems, automation, or centralised functions?
• Support Staff Deployment: Are teaching assistants and pastoral roles aligned with curriculum priorities, or are they responding to historical needs?
• Specialist and External Support: Are expensive external contracts (e.g., IT, catering, cleaning) delivering value for money, or could in-house solutions be more effective?
• Leadership Structures: Are leadership roles proportionate to school size and budget, or have they expanded beyond necessity?

By aligning non-teaching roles with clear strategic priorities, schools can reduce inefficiencies while ensuring that support structures remain robust.

Conclusion: Rethinking Efficiency in Schools

The 80/20 rule in school spending highlights a fundamental truth: if we are serious about efficiency, we must focus on the areas that make the biggest financial impact—curriculum and staffing. While operational savings are useful, they are not the key to long-term sustainability.

A?data-informed, curriculum- and workforce-integrated approach to financial planning?ensures that schools are?fiscally responsible and educationally ambitious. The time has come to?shift the conversation about efficiency. Schools cannot afford to focus on the 20%—they must start where it matters most.