Quality Framework – 10 years of quality assurance

STOP PRESS

From August 2017, the Quality Framework for Supplementary Education will no longer be available. 

NRCSE is continuing to offer training (open/bespoke/accredited) as a tried and tested way to support supplementary schools seeking to develop and assure the quality of their provision.

NRCSE has developed a new quality assurance mechanism by which supplementary schools can be quality assured and obtain a quality mark. We will offer it nationally. Providers of out-of-school educational activities, supplementary and complementary schools will be able to apply via our website from 1 September 2017.

Revalidation of existing QF Awards ended on 30 June 2017.

NRCSE will quality assure any school that wants our support, but can no longer subsidise the cost of this. There will be an initial online assessment which must be done before we give any individual support. This is already available on our website and is free to access. Templates, best practice, case studies can be downloaded for a subscription fee of £25. As well as the self-assessment schools will be required to submit evidence of basic management practice.

Background: The national Quality Framework for Supplementary Schools was developed in 2006/07. Since 2007, 480 supplementary schools have completed a Quality Framework Award with the support of local ‘mentors’ employed by councils, funders, CVSs. The NRCSE was established in 2012 with the express purpose of continuing to offer developmental support to supplementary schools when government funding ended in 2012. NRCSE took over the facilitation of the Quality Framework in April 2013. We have been running the QF since then and throughout the last four years have worked with supplementary schools, local authority staff, education professionals and community capacity building organisations to evaluate the way it works, its sustainability, and, simultaneously, to develop alternative methods of quality assurance for the sector more appropriate to the current landscape. An evaluation report of ‘The Quality Framework: 10 years of quality assurance’ will be published in the Autumn.