Quality Assurance
Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well
John W. Gardner
Quality work with children and young people depends on creating an ethos and philosophy which has, at its heart, a belief in and commitment to their well-being and potential, and their absolute right to remain free from harm. In order for this to happen we have to put the children we support at the centre of everything we do. Our community values espouse the view that our staff and pupils must have high expectations and work hard and that we will never give up on a child. We use internal and external quality assurance methods to verify that the children and young people within our schools, Create service and National Online School services are being supported to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and independent adults. This ensures that a culture of responsibility, accountability and expectation is created and maintained throughout the organisation and owned by every member of staff.
Internal quality assurance
Maintaining and improving standards is principally driven by the school leadership teams and by their partnership with our school support teams. That is the culture of responsibility and accountability that we expect from our schools and all of our services. Our Commercial and Operational Boards and especially our Board of Governors focus on the improvement of educational standards so that children and young people have the chance to realise their full potential.
We have put in place a system of internal quality assurance through Governors Visits and Committee meetings, which produce Governor action plans for the schools and services. Additionally we quality assure through Internal Inspection delivered by the Schools Proprietor and the most senior managers based in Central Services and augmented by Heads of our other Schools. Our Internal Inspectors carry out a termly inspection of every school and service according to current Ofsted and DfE standards. The schools then provide an action plan on any areas for development following on from these internal inspections.
We also have a number of QA processes which ensure that our pupils’ attendance, behaviour, emotional, and social outcomes are monitored as much as our pupils’ academic outcomes.
These QA processes include:
- A weekly Complex and Additional (CAN) Panel chaired by our Director of Integrated Services and whose membership includes the School Leadership Team and our School Support Teams. This internal ‘Team around the Child’ (TAC) includes educators, clinicians and social workers with additional expertise in safeguarding. The panel considers assessments, additional resources and pupil concerns. Referrals are made by the Schools and Services SLTs to the CAN Panel.
- Pupil Monitoring Meetings: The internal TAC meets usually in school to review Integration and Pathway planning for those pupils who are not making progress within a framework of attendance, behaviour, engagement and academic progress. This PMM also reviews those pupils who present as ‘at risk’ or indeed who display ‘risky’ behaviour. All discussions result in action planning the future interventions. Referrals are made by the Schools and Services SLTs to the CAN Panel.
- Commercial and Integrated Services meetings: This is a half termly opportunity to strategically review the commercial aspects of the business to ensure that schools and services are managing their budgets well and that there are sufficient resources to improve pupil outcomes and that the schools and services are operating a ‘best value’ approach. That is the morning Commercial meeting and it links to our social mission to reach as many pupils as possible. The second integrated services meeting is led by the Director of Integrated Services and is held with the aforementioned internal TAC, the Executive Head and the Head of School and School Business Manager where the Head of Schools report and the SEF SDP are reviewed on a half termly basis. The Board of Governors attend these Business and Finance twice a year as committee meetings.
External
inspections, accreditations & awards
Ofsted
Since we opened TCES North West London in 2008 and TCES East London in 2009, we have had 100% (a total of seven) ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted inspections. That is a record of consistent high quality that we are very proud of.
- 17/03/2010 - Ofsted ‘Good’ Inspection report
- 03/07/2013 - Ofsted ‘Good’ inspection with two Outstanding standards
- 07/02/2017 - Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ Inspection report
- 19/11/2019 - Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ Inspection report
- 10/11/2010 - Ofsted ‘Good’ inspection with one Outstanding standard
- 25/03/2014 - Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ Inspection report
- 10/07/2018 - Ofsted ‘Good’ Inspection report
‘Real’ and not symbolic Inclusion
TCES has a proud record of inclusion and values of ‘never giving up’ on our pupils and we have lived those values over the past 20 years with no permanent exclusions and now, over the past two years, no fixed term exclusions either.
Inclusion Quality Mark
- TCES East London: The Inclusion Quality Mark is a nationally recognised framework for schools who demonstrate highly inclusive values of inclusion
- TCES North West London: The Inclusion Quality Mark is a nationally recognised framework for schools who demonstrate highly inclusive values of inclusion
quality mark for PE and sports
- TCES East London has achieved the Quality Mark for PE and Sports which is a prestigious award that evidences the strength and quality of Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity (PESSPA) in our school
healthy schools london
TCES North West London: A Quality Mark for Healthy Schools London for supporting the health and wellbeing of our school community and for creating a health promoting environment and ethos for our pupils and staff- TCES East London: A Quality Mark for Healthy Schools London for supporting the health and wellbeing of our school community and for creating a health promoting environment and ethos for our pupils and staff
artsmark
TCES North West London achieved a Platinum ArtsMark Award in September 2020. This is the highest award and accolade in recognition of the school’s commitment to, and excellence in, arts education. Artsmark is Arts Council England’s award recognising excellence in cultural education.
pearson national teaching awards 2020
- Silver National Award for Excellence in Special Needs: TCES North West London celebrated in September 2020 their Head of Arts Faculty Paul Morris who won a Pearson’s Silver National Award for Excellence in Special Needs Education and is in the running for a potential Gold award at the Pearson’s finals
send awards 2019
- Finalists 2019: TCES were nominated as finalists for the SEND Awards 2019 celebrating the most inclusive practice for young people in schools, colleges, educational settings and employment across the UK
nasen awards 2019
- National Award in SEND Leadership: Our CEO Thomas Keaney won the NASEN (National Association of Special Education Needs) SEND Leader of the Year 2019
national diversity awards 2019
- Life Time Achiever Award Finalist: Thomas was also shortlisted for the 2019 finals of the National Diversity Lifetime Achiever Award
quality management systems
TCES holds an ISO 9001 Quality Management System award. ISO 9001 is the international standard for a quality management system. The standard is used by organisations to demonstrate their ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and regulatory requirements and to demonstrate continuous improvement
goldsmiths independent research study
- In November 2019 to mark our twentieth anniversary an Independent in-depth, qualitative research project is published by researchers from Goldsmiths University of London. The Research project ‘A Journey of Change: From Social isolation to Inclusion’ indicated that “We have observed ‘Authentic Therapeutic Education’ at its finest ...and “The outcomes of this research project demonstrate that TCES is highly effective in transforming the lives of pupils, educationally, emotionally and socially”