Curriculum
A programme is a sequence of outcomes, not a folder of slides. This page explains how those outcomes are written, how the three levels differ, how a module is built, and what an organisation can later show as evidence.
Design
Each module begins with a short list of things a participant should be able to do, not a list of topics to mention. An outcome is written as a verb plus an object plus a condition: “identify the missing constraint in a draft mandate”, “explain why a VaR figure can be stable while liquidity has already gone”, “reconstruct the alternatives a committee considered”. If we cannot write that sentence, we do not yet have a module.
Outcomes are written before cases, scripts or readings. That order prevents the material from expanding to fill whatever research happened to be interesting that week. It also gives the commissioning organisation a document it can attach to a learning plan or an audit file: this is what the cohort was asked to become able to do.
Outcomes are tied to roles. A pensions operations cohort and a treasury cohort may share a foundations module, but the applied cases change. The outcome “read a market report and mark the unsupported claim” is the same; the report they mark is not. We do not write separate curricula for every job title. We write a stable outcome and vary the artefact the participant works on.
Progression
For staff who meet investment language in their work but have not been taught it. Entry assumes numeracy and the ability to read a structured document, not a finance degree. Volume is usually twelve to sixteen hours. Exit means the participant can name the instrument, the party and the risk in a short case, and can say what a document does not tell them.
For people who already handle reports, client files or committee packs. Entry is a pass on the diagnostic or evidence of equivalent work. Volume is usually sixteen to twenty-eight hours. Exit means the participant can choose a framing, name the assumption that would change it, and write a short note another colleague could use.
For specialists and committee chairs who already live in the material and need a more demanding practicum. Entry is applied-level competence or a role that already requires it. Volume is usually twenty-four to forty hours. Exit means the participant can work with incomplete data, conflicting constraints and a requirement to document dissent as well as the decision.
Modules
A module is four parts in a fixed order. Participants can pause between them; they cannot skip the check of understanding if the organisation has asked for a completion record.
A short written brief states the outcome, the time required, and the one idea the module will not cover. It also lists the terms that will be used with a precise meaning. The brief is designed to be printable so that a coordinator can see the contract of the module without watching the recording.
A recorded explanation walks through the framework. It is captioned, available as a transcript, and kept shorter than a live lecture would be. The recording is not a webinar archive. It is scripted against the outcomes and versioned when the underlying rule or data set changes.
A worked example applies the framework to a dated, public case or to a constructed file that resembles the organisation’s sector. Participants see the steps, including the step where the example refuses to give a clean answer. That refusal is part of the teaching.
The check is a short task: annotate a page, choose between two framings and justify the choice, or mark the sentence that would not survive a later audit. Multiple-choice recall is used only as a gate into the task, never as the whole assessment.
Assessment
A diagnostic at the start of a programme places people on a level. It is short on purpose. Its job is to stop a capable committee member sitting through foundation material, and to stop an operations colleague being asked for an advanced practicum they have not been prepared for. The diagnostic is not a ranking of staff.
Module checks ask for application. Recognising a definition is a weak signal that someone will notice a missing constraint in a live paper. We would rather see a marked-up page than a perfect score on terminology. Where a multiple-choice item appears, it is a filter, not the result the organisation is invited to file.
The programme ends with a practicum: a longer case, incomplete on purpose, with a requirement to write the decision path. Participants may use their notes. They may not use an outside adviser. The artefact is a short memorandum, not a slide deck.
A failed practicum can be retaken once after a documented review of the first attempt. A second failure is recorded as incomplete. We do not raise a score after a conversation off the record. If the organisation wants coaching rather than assessment, that is a different engagement and is labelled as such.
Evidence
The commissioning organisation receives a completion log (who finished which module, and when), a thematic summary of assessment results, and a short note for internal audit that restates the outcomes and the version of the materials used. Individual scores are included only when that has been agreed in the commissioning documents and is lawful for that workforce.
These records are evidence of education. They are not a professional certification, a licence, or a statement that a person is fit to give investment advice. That limitation is printed on the completion record and in the commissioning letter. We will not rephrase it to make a file look stronger than it is.
Maintenance
Every module sits on a review calendar. A full editorial pass runs at least annually. Regulatory modules are checked each quarter against the public rulebook as it then stands. A change in the applicable frame, a data set that has aged past its stated vintage, or a pattern of the same error in assessments can trigger an unscheduled revision.
When a module is revised, the version number on the reading brief changes and the commissioning organisation is told. Cohorts already in flight keep the version they started unless the change is a correction of an error; in that case we issue a correction note and, if needed, a short replacement activity.
The same discipline is described in more detail on the quality and compliance framework page.