Sir Michael Wilshaw’s speech to the Confederation of British Industry earlier this month has been heavily criticised for appearing to support “streaming” at 14, and a return to the two-tier model of academic selection. However, at the heart of the chief inspector’s speech lies an important vision: one in which clusters, or federations, of schools and colleges work together to provide a range of qualifications and courses to suit all students.

University Technical Colleges (UTCs) and studio schools were designed to take a range of students from 14, not just “low ability” or “non-academic” pupils. Concerns from the Daily Mail that Sir Michael’s speech was a “tacit backing for a revival of academic selection” reveals more about an implicit snobbery over vocational education than it does about reality.

An influential report in 2013 by Thijs Bol and Herman van de Werfhorst of Amsterdam University concluded that in countries with established vocational education routes there is lower youth unemployment, and school-leavers find jobs faster. They are also likely to remain in these jobs for longer periods.

However, the “trade-off” in educational outcomes, as a result of students being streamed into particular routes, was greater inequality of educational opportunity and an increase in the effect of social origin on occupational status. Sir Michael’s proposal addresses this by suggesting that high-quality vocational education be available to all students, and that it be an equal status option. “This isn’t about selection at 14, it’s about maximum opportunity at 14,” he said.

Sir Michael is inviting the profession to explore new educational structures

Most interesting are his ideas about how these “clusters” of institutions could work together to ease student transferability. This could be exciting, depending on how far the government would be prepared to take the requisite restructuring and whether the challenges in rural areas with fewer institutions could be resolved. If students on any path were free to access specialist teaching in other institutions, many of the issues relating to the consequences of Raising the Participation Age (RPA) — such as colleges accusing schools of rejecting GCSE “failures” and the challenge faced by further education teachers to deliver results in GCSE English and maths effectively — could be significantly reduced.

There are, of course, big questions about practicality and the physical transferability of students between institutions, as well as their academic transferability. But by opening up this conversation, Sir Michael is inviting the profession to explore new educational structures: he will need to be prepared to look at local, as well as national, possibilities and options. This is a far cry from the urban centric models that we have experienced over the past decade in education.

Sir Michael argued that we are “at a watershed moment in the history of our education system”, and that there has never been a “better opportunity to tackle our lamentable record on vocational education”. If we could go beyond just encouraging collaboration between institutions and instead restructure accountability measures to focus on clusters of schools it would mean that:

• Teachers could be deployed across clusters — for example, GCSE English and maths teachers could support post-16 resits wherever they were delivered.

• Institutions would have nothing to gain by recruiting or holding on to students who would be more suited to other pathways, as the results of students in the whole cluster would be just as important as in individual schools/colleges.

• Information, advice and guidance could be provided for students covering the whole of the cluster, and schools would not demonstrate the same bias of trying to hold on to their top performers.

• Students could experience all the institutions and their specialisms from year 7 (or below) to ease transitions between them and help them to make informed choices.

Implementation would be tricky but if successful, it is an approach that might finally give pupils real choice without them being “streamed” or forced into specific paths.

Each state-funded academy is formed as an exempt charitable company, which means although it is a charity, it is not registered with the Charity Commission. Instead, the Education Funding Authority is its regulator. All charities regardless of whether they are on the Charity Commission’s register must follow the provisions of charity law. A charity is formed for the public benefit. The provision of education is a charitable activity and therefore is for the public benefit.

A charity may only operate within the charitable purposes for which it was formed. Some charities may have a broader objective – “the provision of education” for instance – while others may have more a more precise aim such as “for the provision of education of boys between 3 and 13″. It is imperative that you are aware of what the charity’s objects are and that any different activities you plan to undertake fall within their scope. In essence, it is important that a charity’s assets are used only for the purposes for which they were given.

With respect to oversight, the ultimate responsibility for running a charity rests with its trustees. Incorporated charities also have directors; often the trustees and directors are one and the same. It is the trustees’ responsibility to ensure that the charity delivers the outcomes it was established for. Trustees’ responsibilities are quite onerous and therefore it is really key to the successful running of an academy that the board has good quality trustees with the skill sets necessary to fulfil their responsibilities.

At all, times, trustees must:

• follow charity law;

• adhere to the charity’s legal objects;

• avoid personal conflict;

• act with integrity;

• apply the charity’s assets for the purposes they were given.

In addition, they have a duty of care to the charity to ensure that they apply their skills and experience appropriately, as well as recognise when they need professional help to fulfil their responsibilities. They also have a duty of prudence to ensure the charity remains solvent, they do not place its assets at undue risk and act responsibly when investing its funds. It is not a role for the faint-hearted! A key challenge for many academies is finding people with the relevant skills sets, and who have time and are willing to take up board positions.

Some trustees are under the misapprehension they will ‘run the school’

The governance of academies is a topical issue, with some high profile instances of poor governance hitting the headlines. The key to building a better school board is to cast the net wide. Rather than always looking for local people to recruit to a school board, those overseeing the process should focus on finding people with appropriate skills and experience.

The trustee’s role and responsibilities need to be made clear to prospective candidates during selection. Some school trustees take on the role under the misapprehension that they are going to “run the school.” This is not the role of the school board – responsibility for day-to-day management rests with the headteacher and the senior management team.

Aside from the governance requirements noted above, there are some financial and operational benefits that arise as a result of being a charity. Any surplus made by the school from its charitable activities is not subject to corporation tax, business rates are reduced by at least 80 per cent and, in some cases, a larger reduction can be made. What is more, property transactions are not subject to Stamp Duty Land Tax, while donations can be boosted by gift aid receipts. All these benefits can add up to significant sums that support the finances that underwrite charitable activity. The opportunity to collaborate is also present: there are many chances to work in partnership with other organisations that operate with similar drive and purpose within the third sector.

Whilst the responsibilities of being a charity can appear onerous, charities have been established for more than 400 years delivering public benefit and will continue to do so for many more years ahead.

It was only a matter of time before Labour launched an attack on the independent sector. The general election is just months away, and given that several senior Tories have recently blown the dog whistle on grammar schools, the only surprise is that it has taken this long. Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt duly delivered this week, dusting off boilerplate threats aimed at private schools that fail some unspecified test of social value.

What interests me about the policy is not whether it’s a good or bad idea (you’d be surprised how many people on the right, as well as left, are sympathetic), but that – if implemented – it would perfectly demonstrate the law of unintended consequences that affects even seemingly straightforward proposals. Here’s how.

With the independent sector increasingly catering for foreign students and providing “finishing schools for the children of oligarchs”, its traditional users – the British professional classes – are being priced out. In these circumstances, any government would be tempted to look again at the tax breaks these private schools enjoy.

Hunt proposes ending business rate relief, which would have a small but significant impact on school budgets, perhaps 3 per cent a year on average. Not a game-changer, but enough to threaten the bursaries and other support that many private schools offer, forcing them instead to focus on the bottom line. This will annoy the government even more and, the thin end of the wedge having been inserted, it would start to look at the other advantages these schools enjoy as charities. Labour has form in this area with the 2006 Charities Act, and an Ed Miliband-led government would be much less sympathetic to private schools than Tony Blair ever was.

Instead of raising prices, the average independent school will aggressively chase market share”

The threats will continue and the punishments for failing a beefed-up public interest test will increase. A few schools, the really big ones with plenty of money, will play ball and continue with their outreach work. The Etons and Wellingtons will not change. But your average private day school will be different: if they have to forgo their charitable status to stay afloat, their behaviour will be utterly transformed.

I’ve always found it curious that no one ever asks why the proportion of children educated in the independent sector has so stubbornly remained at abouy 7 per cent. The middle class has been growing and, when polled, at least half of parents would choose a private education if they could afford it. Yet the sector’s response to this increased demand has not been to increase supply but rather to raise prices. In a lightly regulated industry this is odd — and it’s because most private schools are charities. The usual incentives that businesses face are not there: these schools have a fairly fixed number of places and no requirement to expand. But shorn of charitable status, turned into companies and made answerable to investors, this changes overnight.

Instead of forever raising prices, the average independent school will aggressively chase market share. They will cut fees and sweat assets, expand places and open new schools, desperately hunting down the middle classes currently squeezed out. This is what’s happening in the developing world, where mid-range private sector providers are rapidly gaining market share.

The days of bursaries and ISSPs will be long gone and many aspirational parents will leave the state sector. Not only will the chances of disadvantaged pupils getting into independent schools – already tiny – vanish, but these young people will be exposed to fewer higher performing peers in their state schools. We know from the experience of selective local authorities that this will have a detrimental effect on social mobility.

So this is how it ends: a well-meaning policy that removes subsidies to the rich ends up harming the least well off. But at least we can take comfort that, like most pre-election grandstanding, this recycled policy will probably never happen.

James O’Shaughnessy is on Twitter @jamesosh

As we have seen in previous weeks, the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) is paid to local authorities for both maintained schools and academies in their areas. (Around 10 per cent of academies – “non-recoupment academies” – have to date been funded differently, but from 2015/16 will be brought into this process).

This week we will look at how funding is allocated locally to schools in an area.

Each local authority has a schools forum — a group on which there are representatives from both maintained schools and academies in the area.

Following consultation with the schools forum, the local authority produces a local formula based on 14 variables which determine how schools are funded locally (graph D).

The 14 factors which can be brought into the formula are set out in the table. Of these, two factors must be used – a basic age-weighted pupil amount, and a deprivation amount. The DfE also require that 80 per cent of the “schools block” part of the Dedicated School Grant is allocated to so-called “pupil-led” factors, as opposed to “institutional factors”. This remains unchanged from 2014/15.

Changes in 2015/16

In 2015/16, the only significant change to the criteria that can be used to set a local funding formula is to the sparsity factor.

Currently, if this factor is used in a local formula it is based on pupils’ average distance from the next closest school, together with the total number of pupils in the school they attend. In 2015/16, this part of the formula will change to being based on pupils’ average distance and the average size of school year groups.

From next year, an additional £50,000 of sparsity funding will also be available for individual very small secondary schools “in exceptional circumstances”, the Department for Education says – and only with the agreement of the Education Secretary.

As in 2014/15, mainstream schools in 2015/16 will also benefit from a minimum funding guarantee (MFG), by which broadly the “schools block” part of DSG funding received by a school cannot be reduced by more than 1.5 per cent. (Certain parts of funding set in the local formula are excluded from this protection, such as any sparsity payment.)

This has to be taken into account by local authorities when they set local funding formulae.

The bottom line

Once the local formula has been set, with all factors taken into account, we are near the endpoint of the process – the amount of “schools block” Dedicated Schools Grant funding due to each school.

For a maintained school, the local funding formula determines how much they will be paid by the local authority.

For an academy, the amount due under the local funding formula is recouped from the local authority by the Education Funding Agency (with a recoupment adjustment factored in). Based on this amount, the academy is then funded direct by the EFA.

f40 Chair, Councillor Ivan Ould (pictured), chair of the f40 campaign for fairer funding in education, which represents 34 local authorities said:

“The coalition government is the first administration in the past 20 years to acknowledge that the existing funding formula is unfair and inequitable, so we are pleased that it has now acted to start to rectify the situation.

“However, the methodology proposed for 2015/16 produces some obvious anomalies, with children and schools in many low-funded authority areas receiving little or no benefit.

“It remains the view of f40 that fair funding will only be achieved by introducing a formula-based approach covering the whole of dedicated schools grant ie,mainstream schools, early years and high needs.

“The introduction of a minimum funding level based only on the mainstream schools funding still leaves a funding system that is neither transparent nor fair.”

“f40 wants to secure a firm commitment that a fair national funding formula and a clear timeline – three to five years – will be fully delivered in 2016-17, whichever party is in government. f40 has always acknowledged that rectifying the root funding inequity will be politically difficult, but the first step in the right direction has now been taken.”

]]> http://academiesweek.co.uk/school-funding-changes-made-simple-3/feed/ 0 http://academiesweek.co.uk/sen-schools-cant-do-it-alone/ http://academiesweek.co.uk/sen-schools-cant-do-it-alone/#comments Sat, 22 Nov 2014 07:30:13 +0000 http://academiesweek.co.uk/?p=3117 Away from boarding schools and instead looking at SEN provision, Mark Baker discusses the challenges of budget cuts in schools attempting to meet new reforms

Children and young people with special educational needs (SEN), their parents and schools are currently facing huge changes. Quite rightly, parents have wanted more of a say in SEN provision, and schools have long wanted closer working between education, health and social service organisations to provide support for these pupils and students. However, the context of the government reforms is a difficult one. Teachers, support staff and leaders will share the high hopes of their pupils and their families but, tasked with implementing the changes, they also face huge challenges.

Local authorities have made massive cuts in the past few years in staff and services, particularly in health and social care. The second SEND Pathfinders report, published in mid-August, said families had reported a decrease in existing services and increased anxiety about the future of the services they use and need. These families also reported less access to clubs and activities, which undercuts the inclusive drive of the reforms.

Cuts have not just affected the support services that schools need access to, but also schools themselves. Over the past year, a large number of SEN teaching and support staff roles have become casualties to the new SEN “place plus” funding system. This doesn’t bode well for the ability of these schools to meet the spirit and letter of the SEN reforms.

To compound the situation, as well as the loss of SEN expertise and reduced access to external support, not enough teachers and support staff are getting the training they need to work with SEN pupils. Funding and, indeed, the time for staff professional development is often insufficient and SEN-specific CPD often loses out to other priorities.

The shortfall of staff with the right skills is exacerbated by the government’s rapid expansion of school-based teacher training. In weakening the role of higher education in initial teacher education, students are losing opportunities for deep and evidence-informed understanding of child development, pupil behaviour and SEN.

The government has made the situation worse by removing the requirement for teachers in academies and free schools to be qualified teachers, so staff who have not received any training in child development or how to teach, let alone in working with SEN pupils, are teaching in these schools, which is unfair to pupils and staff alike.

SEN teaching and support staff have become casualties of the new funding system

The SEN reforms place a much-needed emphasis on the transition from school to further and higher education, training and employment. Schools will need to support transition planning for students with SEN from year 9 at the latest, ensuring they have enough information to make informed choices about the full range of education or training options from 16 to 18, further education and apprenticeships.

Yet, since September 2012, schools have not had access to a publicly funded careers guidance service and have not had dedicated government funding to commission the independent and impartial careers guidance they are required to provide. In a survey this summer, ATL members told us that the careers education, information, advice and guidance currently available scored poorly in terms of suitability and effectiveness for a diverse range of young people. This weakness in careers guidance needs to be addressed to improve the transition to adulthood for students with SEN.

Following the reforms, school staff and governors need to familiarise themselves with the new SEN code of practice and their respective responsibilities under that.
This is especially important for classroom teachers as they have increased responsibility for the new category of SEN support, for identifying and supporting SEN and reviewing the provision for each pupil with SEN, with support from the special needs co-ordinator and others.

To comply with the principles behind these reforms, schools and colleges need to put in a substantial amount of work and changes. I know that staff in schools will continue to do everything they can to ensure that every pupil has access to a first-rate education that meets their needs. But they cannot do this alone; they will need support from, and to closely work with, their local authorities, health and social services to provide the help that SEN students need.

Children are sent to boarding school for various reasons. Some people in favour of available state boarding say that children need stability while their Forces and Diplomatic Service parents have to travel. For others, problems within the family may make it a necessary option, but for most children it is a matter of parental choice.

Parents are encouraged to place their children in state boarding schools because it is a cheaper option than private boarding. But at what cost?

It is parents who make this choice, but it is the children who have to live away from home. However children might assess their experience of school, crucially, each one has to make changes to adapt to institutional living.

And boarding schools are institutions. Sometimes hundreds of children live together and are looked after in places that do not resemble their homes. Children leave behind those they love and have been attached to all their lives: their homes; bedrooms; friends; pets and all that is familiar.

Most children suffer from homesickness before they “settle in”. What happens is that children very quickly learn to protect themselves. To comply, many stop showing their sadness and loss behind a protective shell; they no longer cry and may not ever talk to anyone about their feelings.

Having spoken to parents who have children in state boarding schools, the most mentioned issue is poor pastoral care. In two cases the school was unhelpful and the children were moved to other schools.

This brings up many questions. With these schools being partially state funded who are they answerable to? The parents or the “state”? Who is responsible for the appointing and training of the boarding care staff?

There has been much discussion recently about expanding state boarding schools to support the needs of vulnerable children. A pathfinder document from the Department for Education states: “Most parents want their child to be supported in their local communities and local day schools . . . Although it will not be the right option for every child, boarding schools can be one of the ways used to meet the needs of young people in difficult situations to prevent family breakdown or a formal move into the care system.”

All staff must be fully aware of the issues specific to boarding

But if the government is to encourage vulnerable children to be placed in boarding schools, what training are they going to provide to bring the standards of pastoral care up to those expected in residential care homes? The reality seems that if the state is encouraging vulnerable children to be placed in boarding schools, it also needs to ensure the staff are fully aware of the issues specific to boarding. This includes a real understanding of the processes and trauma that can be involved.

At present some state boarding schools use some unqualified staff to help with the care of children. What are the provisions for pastoral care training on boarding issues for all staff and, more importantly, Ofsted inspectors responsible for this aspect of care?

When a vulnerable child has the double turbulence of moving out of their family into boarding school, what special provisions are the schools making for their care?

There have been concerns about looked–after children during the holidays. One state boarding school moves all those left behind for the holidays into one of the boarding houses. Their whole life is spent in the boarding school. Should the state be encouraging this? For children never to experience a home life?

State boarding children have the same issues of being away from home that all boarding children encounter. If the government is supporting and encouraging these schools, it is imperative that staff training and understanding is focused on the boarding issues that affect all the children in their care.

www.boardingconcern.org.uk

Why should we care about what happens to the children we fail in the education system?

Well, apart from the obvious concerns about wanting to make sure we do the best for every child, let’s consider for one moment what failure costs the public purse.

For a child or young person in a young offenders’ institute, the annual bill is about £60,000, in a secure training centre it is £177,000, while a secure children’s home can cost £200,000 per year, per child.

Then we look at the likelihood of children who end up in this provision paying taxes against the likelihood of them living on benefits and in contact with the criminal justice system. The links between ill-health, criminality and poverty are well established. Children who are failed by the education system quite literally cost us a fortune, and go on costing us a fortune for the rest of their lives.

I have been a headteacher, principal and executive principal for nearly 15 years, always in challenging contexts, and have led successful school turnarounds. I am proud of all the children whose life chances have been transformed but I am increasingly distressed by the ones that we cannot reach.

For these children, our failure is because the solutions to the problems they face are out of the hands of education. As successful as so many of our schools and academies are, there are children we fail and all too often this is due to factors over which we have no control: mental ill health, substance dependency, neglect, domestic violence and lack of parental authority. Colleagues up and down the country complain that social care thresholds are too high — and they are — but perhaps they need to be. When children are placed in care, it is too often of poor quality, nearly always too late, and with no effective link with education.

A typical scenario is the dysfunctional family with, yes, plenty of love, but little ability to cope with the daily demands of a life in poverty. As the child becomes more involved in “street life”, parental ability to cope deteriorates; often benign neglect becomes replaced by angry frustration, depression and inability to communicate effectively with school . . . and so the downward spiral begins.

The lure of the black economy and the quick and easy escapism of alcohol and drugs dominate the culture of both parents and child, and authority goes out of the window. All too often intervention does not kick in until there are serious causes for concern about a child’s physical safety; meanwhile, his or her emotional development and educational chances are sacrificed.

There are so many children who have been “rescued” by so many schools doing a good job in these circumstances, but there are some where the interweaving factors provide a net of circumstances that leave the schools powerless. We need to care about this because we are committed professionals and human beings, but we also need to care because it is seriously uneconomic. Far better to ensure these children become taxpayers than a lifelong drain on the public purse.

Admission should not require a care order but agreement from parents

I am increasingly convinced that the solution is state funded boarding schools, controlled led and managed by the headteacher or principal and run as a school, not as a care home, with the emphasis on education and supporting activities.

Admission should be managed by headteachers and principals and should not require a care order but agreement from parents. This would enable us to provide the early intervention when disengagement and lack of parental control begins; it would provide respite for children and parents at critical times and would kick in when social care is not the appropriate response. I am repeatedly told that there are all kinds of funding complications that would make this impossible, but when I look at the figures that our failure costs across the country, I realise that we must get creative and develop this solution.

The cost of heating and lighting of the school buildings appears in one set; the parallel expenditure for heating and lighting a boarding house appears in the other.

There are, however, some more complicated areas where costs have to be split.

At Royal Alexandra & Albert, I do the job of a day school head but I spend a proportion of my time on boarding matters. I have two deputies: one who has responsibility for the curriculum but does some boarding duties, and the other who is responsible for boarding with a relatively small teaching timetable. For all three of us, a percentage of our employment costs (both salary and on-costs) is allocated to the school and a percentage to boarding. Obviously, almost all of the cost of the curriculum deputy is allocated to school and the majority of the cost of the boarding deputy is charged to boarding.

We also have teachers who run boarding houses – housemasters and housemistresses. They receive an enhancement on top of their teaching salary and have a lightened timetable. The boarding account pays the salary enhancement and a proportion of the teaching salary to compensate the school for the fact that the teacher does not teach a full timetable.

State boarding schools have never been allowed to make a surplus on the boarding account and they are not allowed to subsidise education from boarding.

A recent decision by the Treasury and the Department for Education (DfE), however, requires state boarding schools that are academies to implement “full cost recovery”. This means that not only must they ensure that no boarding costs are being covered by the school but also that boarding academies should aim to make an 8 per cent surplus on turnover on the boarding account.

This surplus is to be spent at the discretion of the governors. Two example of possible given by the DfE are major capital works or renovation, and financing boarding places for vulnerable young people.

An 8 per cent surplus, which can be cumulated over a number of years, might provide a school with a useful capital sum for a new roof for a boarding house, for example. However, a school with just 50 boarders and boarding charges of, say, £11,000 per year per boarder, would only be aiming to generate £44,000 per year which would not be enough to finance any serious, necessary work to boarding accommodation or to finance an expansion of boarding.

The aim is that half the pupils will board, with priority given to children in local authority care and those with parents in the armed forces.

Holyport, near Windsor in Berkshire, is a standalone academy, with Eton College acting as its sponsor. Eton is not providing significant financial support; its relationship is through representation on the board of directors and its proposed support is set out in formal, but non-legally binding, “heads of terms”.

Eton has nominated at least two of the governors on the curriculum committee and appointed some of the pastoral team. More widely it acts as a critical friend to Holyport’s senior leaders, supports curriculum planning and gives head to head support.

On the more practical side, the heads of terms also set out a commitment for Eton to provide Latin, art and Mandarin lessons (at no cost), technical enrichment lessons, make available its sports facilities, collections and design school, and provide chaplaincy support.

The question as to whether the role of Eton is really of benefit to Holyport’s pupils and the wider education sector is one that divides parents and social media.

Those in favour of the Holyport model champion the benefits of sharing the resources and wisdom of the independent sector and herald the opportunity for pupils to benefit from “Eton on the cheap”.

Objections range from the suggestion that Holyport effectively offers “selection by the back door” because the school is in the heart of an affluent, primarily middle-class area through to allegations by the National Union of Teachers that the plans for schools such as Holyport College are simply a way to provide state funding for elite boarding schools.

The lack of success of some of the larger academy sponsors in improving standards has questioned the benefits of the model. However, failure is simply not an option for the independent schools and universities that sponsor schools – the consequences would be so damaging to their reputation. It is therefore difficult to imagine a situation in which the standards of educational provision at an academy or free school would not benefit.

However, getting the balance right between the sponsor and the school can be a challenge. Too much interference and intervention from the sponsor can stifle the school’s ambition; not enough can lead to a lack of direction and questions about the sponsor’s commitment to the project.

Whatever the views, there is no doubt that the partnering of academies and free schools with other state schools, independent schools and universities is a core part of the current schools model. The number of partnerships is therefore likely to increase and their success, or otherwise, will be scrutinised for years to come.

Wymondham College is the largest state boarding school, educating about 650 boarders and a similar number of day students. Ofsted judged it “outstanding” in both its last education and boarding inspections. It became an academy in 2011 after years as a foundation school.

The reality of successfully providing a high-quality boarding experience for large numbers of students raises many issues for governance and adds a multitude of extra requirements. Beyond the academic school day we run more than 60 regular weekly clubs and societies, evening and weekend trips and visits, 700 annual sporting fixtures, and an active CCF/cadets unit. Add in the need to provide high-quality food (meeting strict nutritional requirements), strict safeguarding requirements, 24/7 medical care, evening supervision, site security, emergency caretaking and the like, and you can start to appreciate the complexity of our daily college life.

All state boarding schools are required to meet the national minimum standards for boarding (we, like many others, seek to exceed these standards) and are subject to an additional three-yearly Ofsted inspection of boarding. Effective governance therefore is essential.

We seek to have a governing body with a wide range of professional skills to provide effective support and challenge to all college life, including boarding. One governor, an experienced former boarding school headteacher, former chair of the Boarding Schools’ Association and a lead inspector for the Independent School Inspectorate, has a specific remit for boarding.

Our committee structure means that boarding issues (via our curriculum and welfare committee) are regularly discussed and evaluated. An annual boarding review, which evaluates strengths and development areas and our compliance with the national minimum standards, reports directly to the governing body. This is an invaluable quality assurance function.

A boarding parental forum gives parents regular direct access to our governing body, providing important two-way dialogue, and regular student surveys are reported to the governing body and school leadership team. Our latest parental survey indicated very high levels of satisfaction, with more than 95 per cent of parents saying they would recommend the college to other parents. As one student in the survey said: “I really love coming to Wymondham College and I will always be grateful they gave me a place.”