Welcome to the February NRCSE E-Bulletin: News, Training, Funding, Events
How as the spring term been going at your school? We’ve been really busy here at NRCSE.
Thanks to all of you that have renewed your membership for 2014/15. You may have done it spontaneously (big clap) or you be have been reminded by a call from our dedicated volunteer, Farzi. If you just haven’t got round to or are confused about what to do, give our friendly membership administrator, Fatima, a call and she’ll gladly guide you. Access to the Quality Framework is included in the price of your membership as well as online advice and guidance, resources, discounts on training (including tailored courses on your site), and more! We’re keeping the membership fee the same for 3rd year running, so to renew your membership go here.
1. NEWS
Quality assurance
In January, eleven supplementary schools completed Quality Framework Awards – congratulations!
The Qurtabah Institute in Tower Hamlets, for achieving the Bronze Quality Framework Award just six months after attending an Effective Management Skills course and quickly moving on to work on their Silver Quality Framework recognition;
the Black Families Education Support Group in Bath. Approved provider of mentoring and befriending AND Bronze Quality Framework Award successfully revalidated and preparing for Silver! Keep up the great work!
Haringey Chinese School for revalidating their Gold Quality Framework Award ‘The Haringey Chinese School is well run with a clear focus on the promotion of the youngsters’ Chinese heritage and on providing them with the opportunities to obtain qualifications in Chinese (Mandarin).‘ Haringey QF mentor, Rosemary Wiles;
Latvian School ‘Pucite’ and Leeds Refugee Forum Homework Club for achieving the Bronze Quality Framework Award with the support of the Leeds mentor, Wesley Wu. Two Leeds schools are also working on their Silver Quality Framework Award;
Kingsbury Somali Youth and Crescent Community Services ‘Kulan Association’ in Brent. Both have revalidated their Bronze Quality Framework Awards and, thereby, successfully obtained John Lyon’s Charity funding for their English and maths tuition;
Kentish Town Somali Welfare and Camden Bengali Education Centre both having successfully revalidated their Bronze Awards. Camden Somali Cultural Centre for maintaining their Gold Quality standard and Rustam Iranian School for maintaining not only the Gold Quality standard but also continuing to disseminate their excellent practice and support to other supplementary schools, thereby demonstrating that they are a school of Special Distinction!
Supplementary schools in Harrow have just completed the Effective Management Skills course and used it to prepare their portfolios for the Silver Quality Framework Award together. The first Silver Recognition Meeting this term will be taking place on 19th February. Another three Silver Recognition Meetings will be taking place in March and April (including one in the North of England) so if your school is thinking about Silver and you’d like to observe other schools presenting then just get in touch with our new Quality Assurance Manager, Gosia McKane.
Special Distinction
A new cohort of schools is preparing for the Special Distinction Award! They will attend workshops together and work on the presentation of a partnership project. The five existing Special Distinction schools have already started working with them to share expertise and good practice. If your school is ready to be an example of the best a supplementary school can be why don’t you consider the Special Distinction. Our Special Distinction schools are ambassadors for all of you, form the National Advisory Group on the Quality Framework and are invited to speak at prestigious events.
If your school wants to prove the quality of teaching and learning you are providing – get in touch. We’ll do everything we can to support you, email the Quality Development Advice Team on QDA@supplementaryeducation.org.uk or call them 020 7697 4053
2. TRAINING
NRCSE OCN-accredited courses: Effective Teaching Skills & Effective Management Skills in Supplementary Schools
These courses are run over 7-9 sessions with learner completing a portfolio of evidence of learning and a practice file showing how their learning is applied in their own supplementary school.
This term learners in Leicester, Northamptonshire, Harrow and Barnet have been doing these courses.
We have also added four new modules which can be combined to achieve a ‘Level 3 Certificate in teaching in the supplementary education sector (QCF)’. These include: Teaching in Supplementary Schools (6 credits), Teaching a Language (6 credits), Maintaining a Safe Environment (1 credit), Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs (2 credits), Teaching in Islamic Supplementary Schools (2 credits).
‘You may have knowledge of the subject, this course gives you the skills to pass it on.’ Learner, Milton Keynes Teaching course. ‘The tutor on the course was very knowledgeable and understood the needs of students. The resource book and learner file are very useful’ Learner, Tower Hamlets Management course. ‘Extremely well taught and very helpful in aiding successful development of our school.’ ‘Useful in pulling together all the disparate policies and procedures into one place.’ Learner, Camden Management course.
NRCSE open training
If you are interested in attending any of our courses on the open training programme please let us know. We are holding some open training sessions in October/November – see the events calendar for details. The courses can run in the evenings, at weekends or on a week day – but we do need a minimum of 10 learners to enable us to run them. For details of course content and forthcoming dates, check the pages below.
Mentor training – 19th March
Development and management of your supplementary school – 26th February BOOK NOW Safeguarding for supplementary schools – 8th March session has been postponed due to low numbers, we are very keen to offer this as an open course but must have at least 8 people booked. If you want a basic child protection course do get in touch with your Local Safeguarding Children Board who run child protection and other safeguarding courses for all voluntary organisations working in the children’s sector. Generally these are free of charge.
11th March Quality assurance for supplementary schools – bitesize 5.30 to 7.30pm
Book us in for a full day training course on your site
Do like Cambridge Bilingual Teachers’ Association or the Polish School in Harrow and book a full day training course with an NRCSE trainer
Polska Szkola Przedmiotow Ojczystych im.Juliana Tuwima w Harlow updating their safeguarding and child protection procedures with NRCSE trainer, Ertanch Hidayettin. Book your onsite training http://supplementaryeducation.org.uk/training-resources/nrc-training-courses/
Booking a full training day on your own site enables us to tailor the course to your specific needs and means that you can get all your staff trained on one day. If you’re interested in commissioning please take a look at our training pages and get in touch to discuss your needs.
3. FUNDING
Awards for All
Awards for All gives groups a quick and easy way to get small Lottery grants of between £300 and £10,000. Go to the Awards for All website and download an application form, the forms are quite straight forward, once you’ve put in all the required information about your organisation and your project, give it to someone external to read. If you’d like to send it to us for advice, ring first to make sure someone is available.
- Email the completed form to englandapplications@awardsforall.org.uk at least 3 months before you want your project to start.
- They’ll let you know their decision in six weeks.
If you need more information please email general.enquiries@awardsforall.org.uk or call the Awards for All team for advice on 0845 4 10 20 30
If you want to know how Suffolk Supplementary School Partnership got funding for all of them to work in partnership with each other, complete the Bronze and Silver Quality Framework Awards, engage a mentor to work with them and support their engagement with arts & heritage organisations – get in touch.
BBC Children in Need
We’ve been talking to grants officers and trustees at BBC Children in Need. They’re concerned that they’re still receiving too many funding applications from supplementary schools that are not properly written, don’t address the BBC CIN criteria, or are incomplete. NRCSE is happy to act as referee for your application but we need to have visited your school. The best way for us to do this is for you to complete the online self-assessment and request a visit to complete your Bronze Quality Framework Award. Then you can say you are quality assured in your application (always a bonus!) AND put us down as a referee. The next BBC Children in Need deadline is 1 March, and then 1 June 2015, download a small grants (up to £10,000) application form now.
Santander Foundation
Santander have two funding programmes, Community Plus (up to £5,000) and Central Fund (up to £10,000). There are no specific deadlines and you can expect an answer on whether or not your application has been successful within 1 month. Please note that Santander will only fund UK registered charities, your supplementary school itself doesn’t have to be a registered charity but you need to be part of a larger organisation that is registered. www.santanderfoundation.org.uk/ For the Community Plus grant you can go into your local Santander branch to submit your application and you should demonstrate that you have the support of local people, so think about asking a local school, Parent Teachers’ Association, community centre, etc. to endorse your application.
Yapp Charitable Trust
Here is a funder that only makes grants for core funding. They define core funding as the costs associated with regular activities or services that have been ongoing for at least a year. The grant offered is normally in the region of £3,000 per year and for three years. Good opportunity for supplementary schools that have been running for a while, have annual income under £40,000 and are registered charities. Newly registered charities may apply but the organisation must have appointed a management committee and adopted a governing document at least 3 years ago. See more at: http://yappcharitabletrust.org.uk/
UK Community Foundations
Funding Central
- Takes you through a series of questions to return the most appropriate funding opportunities.
- Identifies helpful advice and relevant resources.
4. EVENTS
New Supplementary Schools Programme at the Museum of London (MoL)
The Museum of London’s FREE programme for London Supplementary Schools starts this summer. To help MoL create an exciting programme, and give your school the chance to win a £50 Amazon voucher, please clink on this link and complete the surveyhttps://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CF8QRBF
Supplementary Schools at the British Museum
The Supplementary Schools Programme was established in April 2012 and for the last two years has offered unique cultural opportunities to 2500 children, young people and their wider communities. The programme is developed in collaboration with supplementary schools through its steering group; a dedicated team of teachers who meet every 3 months to advise the museum on future events and activity. Opportunities currently available to supplementary schools include: free training sessions for teachers exploring museum objects as a learning resource, activity weekends which creatively engage with the Museum’s permanent galleries and collections, object handling sessions delivered in supplementary schools (both big and small!), and free tickets to temporary exhibitions as part of the Museum’s Community Previews.
The Supplementary Schools Programme (2014-15) in numbers so far…
- 292 children, young people and adults attended Ming: 50 years that changed China exhibition as part of the Museum’s Community Preview
- 185 children, young people and adults have booked to attend Germany: memories of a nation exhibition as part of the Museum’s Community Preview which will take place on 12th October 2014.
- 18 teachers attended the Connecting Cultures training session in June.
- 10 teachers booked to attend the Exploring objects, sharing cultures training session to prepare them for their visit to the Supplementary Schools and Families Activity weekend in November.
- 58 children, young people and adults are taking part in Exploring objects projects in three Supplementary Schools across London to work creatively with artists and programme the content for the Exploring objects, sharing cultures Supplementary Schools and Families Activity weekend in November.
What’s next? Upcoming activity in 2015
Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th March Game on! Connecting world cultures through play – Family and Supplementary School Activity Weekend
Sunday 22 March Community Preview of ‘Defining beauty, the body in ancient Greek art’
Sunday 22 March & Sunday 29th March Free filmmaking workshops for Supplementary School students aged 15-19.
British Museum and the Roundhouse lead a lot of innovative and engaging projects with young people and have offered to lead 2 workshops for Supplementary School students to learn the basic skills in filmmaking. Young people will have the opportunity to work with a professional broadcasting team to create their own short documentary inspired by the British Museum’s world collections. This is a wonderful opportunity for creative and motivated young people to work alongside industry professionals to learn new skills and gain new experiences.
For more information please see our website or contact Emma Taylor on 0207 323 8398: eltaylor@britishmuseum.org
News every day!
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