Curriculum profiles vs programme profiles: what is the difference?

Curriculum profile, the "what children learn"

A curriculum profile is a framework of learning objectives, developmental indicators, or assessment criteria. It answers the question: What should a child be able to do, and how do we measure whether they are doing it?

Examples of curriculum profiles in School Vault:

• EYFS, seven areas of learning with Development Matters age bands (0–6 months, 6–18 months, etc.)
• NERDC Primary, subjects, continuous assessment weighting (CA1 + CA2 + Exam = 100), and grade bands
• Montessori, work areas with introduced/working/mastered status indicators
• British-Nigerian Hybrid, a blend of EYFS developmental areas and Nigerian subject terminology

A curriculum profile is installed from the Library and assigned to a class section. It controls what teachers see when they record an assessment.

Programme profile, the "how your school is structured"

A programme profile is the operational description of your school's provision. It defines the age groups you serve and how children move through them. Programme profiles in School Vault correspond to:

• Creche, typically 0–18 months
• Playgroup, typically 18 months – 2 years 6 months
• Pre-Nursery, typically 2 years 6 months – 3 years
• Nursery (Nursery 1 & 2), typically 3–5 years

Programme profiles determine which age-appropriate defaults appear in the Daily Report (e.g. nap tracking is a default for Creche but optional for Nursery 2), which milestone sets are shown, and how the Daily Journey PDF is formatted for each programme type.

A concrete example

Why the distinction matters

Getting these mixed up causes two common problems:

1. Assigning a primary curriculum to an early-years class, a Nursery class that is assigned the NERDC Primary curriculum will show subject-score entry screens instead of developmental observations. Teachers will not know what to do.
2. Setting the wrong programme profile on a class, a Creche class with a Nursery programme profile will not show nap tracking or feeding logs in daily reports, because those features are programme-aware.

Common mistakes

• Thinking programme profiles and curriculum profiles are the same setting, they are not. They are configured in different places and serve different purposes.
• Assigning the NERDC Primary curriculum to a Nursery class because "NERDC is the Nigerian curriculum", NERDC has both early-years and primary variants. Make sure you install the correct one.
• Not setting a programme profile on a new class section, it defaults to the most generic option, which may cause daily reports and milestone tracking to show the wrong defaults.