Devasted that Luljeta Nuzi has died after a long fight with cancer. An incredible, dynamic, fierce woman whose optimism and passion for equality for all, in education, as women, as members of refugee and global majority communities will remain an inspiration for those who met her. I first met Luljeta in 2009 when she came […]
Quality Mark your supplementary school
The NRCSE Quality Mark builds on Section 11 of the Children’s Act 2004 and addresses eight standards in educational provision:
- Create an effective learning environment
- Teach effectively
- Record progress and achievement
- Choose the right resources
- Plan and develop your organisation
- Select and support staff and volunteers
- Make sure that children are safe
- Manage finances
The NRCSE provides free self-evaluation resources and online guidance on minimum safeguarding standards on our website staging.supplementaryeducation.org.uk Downloadable templates and discounted training can be accessed by subscribing to NRCSE. Contact details for agencies providing support in the school’s local authority area are also provided. The NSPCC has recently updated their toolkit of safeguarding standards and guidance in line with Section 11 guidelines so that is a good place to start if your local safeguarding children board isn’t responding quickly. Section 11 of the Children Act 2004 places duties on a range of agencies and individuals to ensure their functions, and any services that they contract out to others, are discharged having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. You can contact your local safeguarding children board to obtain details of the support provided in your area to meet these standards.
In order to apply for an NRCSE Quality Mark a supplementary school must:
- Meet the stated Section 11/safeguarding requirements for the local authority, and
- provide up-to-date information on the services it provides, and
- have received a visit from an appropriate person*.
To check whether you are ready to attend a Quality Recognition Meeting – self-assess your provision here.
Following an NRCSE Quality Recognition Meeting the school will receive a detailed report highlighting good practice and containing recommendations for development. Successful recognition will entitle the school to carry the NRCSE Quality Mark and the quality assurance report will be publicly available on the NRCSE Online Directory of Supplementary Schools (unless the supplementary school has provided a written request not to be publicly listed).
*nationally qualified member of teaching staff (not your school), or Children’s Services, or registered NRCSE quality mentor
Once you have achieved an NRCSE Quality Mark, celebrate!
These three Bradford schools asked their MP to invite them to the Houses of Parliament to present their certificates. Naz Shah MP was very happy to do so, see below. They also had a tour, listened to Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons and had tea and biscuits in fancy Houses of Parliament teacups! Bradford Council also had an event where all the pupils performed and councillors, education staff and families and friends recognised their achievement.
Open access to our 3-day Good Management course
The purpose of this popular three-day Good Management course is to help community providers of supplementary education meet the minimum requirements for safe out-of-school provision.
It remains our firm mission to get local authorities to book the 3-day Good Management for Supplementary Schools course directly and offer it to supplementary schools under their remit. We have had an excellent response from Brent, Harrow, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Sheffield and Suffolk since launching the 3-day course and we’re keen to deliver in other authorities. Please take a look at the course content and get in touch to discuss further.
It is also, however, our mission to support community-led supplementary schools where the authorities are not able to support you. For this reason in January 2018, we are offering our popular 3-day Good Management course directly to individual learners. Whether you are planning to open a supplementary school, you have just joined the management committee of your child’s supplementary school or you have been running out of school activities for many years and you need to check that you are doing everything in line with current policy and good practice – our 3-day Good Management course will help you.
You can meet all your New Year’s resolutions at once by attending our course in January!
Over the three days we shall prepare a three booklets that you can use with parents, teachers and volunteers, and the management committee. Together the three booklets will guide you to put together a Management File for your supplementary school.
The Good Management Pack consists of
- A Welcome Pack for Parents
- Staff and Volunteer Handbook
- Management Committee Guide
To complete the minimum requirements for safe out-of-school provision you must have all of the policies and procedures detailed in the Good Management Pack. Each day we shall complete one of the three focused booklets: Day 1 -Welcome Pack for Parents; Day 2 – Staff and Volunteer Handbook, Day 3 – Management Committee Guide.
The fee for the full course is £450 or £150 per day. If you book all three days together you can send two people for the price of one, an excellent opportunity to train up a prospective trustee or a staff member.
If you subscribe to NRCSE you access discounted prices on all our products. For this course the full price is £225 or £75 per day. You are also eligible for the same two for one discount as above.
Just go to the training section in our online shop to book your place(s). To get the maximum benefit from this course your school should send at least one person to all three sessions. Even better, if you book all three days together you can send two people each day for the same price!
Changes to GCSEs
For GCSE subjects taught in mainstream schools the new specifications are already being taught and children will be taking the new exams in the Summer term 2018 (or in the case of English and maths already took the reformed exams this year).
For ‘community’ languages ie. many of the languages taught in supplementary schools, the new specifications were issued for teaching from September 2017 by AQA and are still in draft for Pearson Edexcel, due to be taught from September 2018. Exams will be available to take in 2019 or 2020 depending on language.
Take a look at the draft specification for your language on the exam board website.
Have you had training on the new specification? Are you sure that your pupils will be able to take the current/old specification exam in 2018? Have you spoken to the mainstream schools where your pupils sit their language exams? Let us know and we will get more information for you and, if necessary, co-ordinate a campaign to ensure that pupils are able to take ‘community’ language exams in 2018 and 2019.
These changes will apply to all awarding organisations’ specifications:
- The new 9-1 grading system will replace A*-G, and there will no longer be any controlled assessment. All papers will be set and marked by the awarding organisation.
- Papers will be tiered, with 25% assessment weightings per skill (listening, speaking, reading, writing).
- Compulsory topics will be linked to identity and culture; local, national, international and global areas of interest; and current and future study and employment.
- Papers will include:
- short translations from and into the target language
- some target-language questions in the reading and listening papers
- authentic stimuli in the reading paper, including literary texts.
For AQA the following languages will be available for GCSE examination from 2019:
Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, Modern Hebrew, Panjabi, Polish, Urdu
For Pearson Edexcel the following languages will be available for GCSE examination in 2019
Arabic, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Urdu
And the remaining five from 2020:
Gujarati, Turkish, Biblical Hebrew and Persian
For A levels check with the examination boards directly.
If you teach a language offered by AQA then you should contact the person you generally speak to, these languages have been with AQA for several years. If you used to speak to someone at OCR, contact Alistair in the first instance for all languages with Pearson because he is very helpful – see below.
Top Quality Mark Award for Bradford Supplementary Schools
A ceremony to recognise supplementary schools who have achieved the national Quality Mark for Supplementary Education was held at City Hall in presence of the Lord Mayor of Bradford and Judith Kirk, Deputy Director of Children’s Services, NRCSE CEO, Pascale Vassie, and other respected councillors and guests from Bradford’s diverse communities including representatives from supplementary schools as well children and young people who inspired the audience with their cultural performances.
Bradford Council, in partnership with the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRCSE) has recently piloted the nationally recognised Quality Mark launching their commitment to raise the quality of supplementary education in the city at a packed event in February 2016. In July 2017, over 250 people attended a conference at the University of Bradford on the Emerging role of supplementary schools: Practical solutions for challenging times. From June to September 2017, the Bradford Polish School, Bradford Chinese School and Gurdwara Singh Sabha Khalsa Punjabi School were visited by mentors and prepared evidence for a Quality Mark recognition meeting.
Javed Bashir, School Development Officer within Bradford Council’s Diversity & Cohesion Service, said: “We held a Quality Recognition Meeting with the schools in September where portfolios of evidence of their work were presented to education experts. The Bradford Polish School, Bradford Chinese School and Gurdwara Singh Sabha have all achieved the National Quality Mark and the Madrasah Madania Tahfeezul Quran (MMTQ) gained the Bradford Bronze Award, which means they have completed the basic requirements for Safeguarding and now they will go on to complete the other elements which will see them also receive the National Quality Mark in the future. It is fantastic that we can welcome all those involved to an Awards Ceremony at City Hall.
“Coun Imran Khan, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Education, Employment and Skills, said: “This is great news for these schools and our congratulations go to all those who have worked very hard to bring about this positive achievement.”
“We expect every Supplementary School in the district to achieve this Quality Mark, and the Council’s Diversity & Cohesion Service, which works with Supplementary Schools, is aiming for this to happen.”
For more information on how to get involved please contact javed.bashir@bradford.gov.uk or call 01274-439385.
