If I was working with the leadership team in your school, I wouldn't be looking for the things that are missing first. Of more interest initially would be the things that are working, but that are taking just too much effort or energy or time to achieve.

Schools are awesome places, with fantastic professionals doing wonderful things every day. However, if left unchecked, schools are also a place where lots of time is spent on things that make very little difference when it comes to ensuring positive outcomes for everyone.

So here is what I would be asking:

• What works really well?

• What takes up a lot of time?

• Where does it feel like outcomes are slow to appear?

I would want to take a look at systems and processes. For example, how does the school organise and articulate the curriculum? How is this mapped and how is this mapping communicated to everyone across the school community? Do parents have a single point of access to read up about what their children will be learning in school this term? Has the school clearly and routinely shared why this is so important? Do parents feel part of the process? Are conversations happening at home that directly support curriculum progression? If not, what's preventing this from happening?

There is a lot there, I know. So I would want to work with the team responsible for the curriculum. Not to do the work for them, but to add capacity into their busy working routines. When I work with teams, I am not there to replace anyone. I am there to act as a strategic support mechanism and then actually get things done.

In a school, this would mean taking the time to collate and collect in all the documentation, whether that's on a central drive, individual laptops, in files, in memory sticks. Job 1 is to bring it all together in one place.

Then, I would want to work to map out the progression across year groups. Why do students learn what they learn and when? How does what happens in one year group or subject area link to what happens elsewhere? Great things will of course be happening, but my initial wonder will be whether this is by design or something more organic....

There is of course a place for curriculum development to be an organic process. But from experience, when left unchecked and without clear guard rails, things up being taught for all the wrong reasons: "it's what we have always done, I really like planning this, the kids just really love it..." All great, but how does it link with what everyone else is doing?

From experience, the key to this whole process is collective ownership. Every team and teacher must feel responsible for the development of the whole school curriculum. However, the leaders in the school have a responsibility to provide the framework for staff to work within. I always take the view that when things go 'off script' in schools, it's always a leadership issue. And that's not to burden school leaders, but it does make leadership teams ask the right questions: 'What have we done as a team to allow this to be possible?' What have we not provided that has allowed this to happen?'

When I work with curriculum teams, the pieces are almost always there, it's just mechanisms for articulating that are missing. So, I would want to create the platform for this within the schools existing infrastructure. All the usual platforms work for this, some schools are Google, some Microsoft, it doesn't really matter. The essential element is that there is one source of the truth, created by the senior team and owned by everyone. When this is the case, even better things start to happen....

Once the mapping of the curriculum is shared and universally accessible, less time, effort and energy can go into the whole process. It will now start to feel like 20% of the effort is creating 80% of the outcomes.

When the curriculum is clearly mapped, teams can begin to identify the threads through subjects and years. For example, it then becomes easy to identify when eco, the environment or sustainability features. Not as an extra or a bolt on, but as a thread running through what already exists in the framework. This can be a simple process initially, perhaps as simple as adding a symbol to the curriculum map. Students are learning about the effects of deforestation in Geography, learning about photosynthesis in Science, learning about recycling materials in Art, simply add the symbol to the curriculum map. The same single, central version that is saved centrally and visible to all.

The same can then be done for other areas of learning: digital citizenship, local history and culture, global citizenship, etc. Not everything can be a discrete subjects, some things are best planned as threads through existing curriculum areas. Time is always tight, so schools need to be efficient, pragmatic and clever.

I have seen this work best when the school has a fully mapped out curriculum framework. Individual responsibilities can then be devolved to smaller teams or individuals to look at the bigger picture through their own unique lens.

When the long term plan is clear, teams are freed up to spend more time planning in more detail. The termly, medium term plans can then be constructed and calibrated to meet the needs of the individual cohort (and fit into the calendar).

Where I have seen this work best is when the system takes 80% of the workload and frees up teachers to add the 20% that makes all the difference.

If year groups or faculties are able to work in teams, planning can be a shared, collective responsibility with accountability built in from the outset. I have worked with schools to engineer a system where individual teachers use the long term, whole school, curriculum framework to plan for the term ahead. Firstly, this involves constructing the medium term plan. The map of what happens when, week by week. How does everything fit together? What is there no time for? Where can we expand upon central themes? How does this all link to wider school life and events?

When this is in place, individual team members can then plan individual elements and bring this planning to the table weekly. I have seen it work best when teaching teams all have individual areas of planning allocated to them. They work in a central location online, allowing for constant and open access for all. But once each week they bring this planning for discussion with the rest of the team. What is the intention? How does this link to the bigger picture? What are some of the elements students may find tricky? How are the other groups getting on with what was previously shared? Is everyone broadly on the same page?

Of course, it is then down to the individual teacher to calibrate, scaffold, modify, adapt the central planning to meet the individual needs of the students in their class. But 80% of the work has already been done and the final 20% will make all the difference. Time now well spent to ensure the very best outcomes for all.

If this process is working well, each teacher should have constant access to the central curriculum map (so they can see the bigger picture), they should also have been a part of creating the medium term plan for the weeks ahead (so that they are sure what is intended will actually work) and they should have access to individual lesson plans (so they know that what is happening in their own classroom is consistent and coherent).

When this is all in place, that 20% the individual teacher puts in, creates 80% of the impact.

When then this is done well, creating simple reference guides for parents becomes an easy process. Everyone is informed, everyone knows what is planned, how it all fits together and what part they each play in the process.