FAQs

B11 Education has a network of highly skilled education experts with a broad range of experience across a wide range of education settings. This enables us to provide the right person at the right time to support you with your specific needs.

The initial consultation is an opportunity for us to find out a little more about your school and your needs. Wherever possible the consultation will be with one of our senior consultants who will be able to provide specific guidance on potential next steps and make a recommendation about how we can help and which of our consultants is best suited to provide support. 

Typical is hard to define because we ensure each review meets the needs of the client. All reviews will require preparation in advance with a review of key documentation and a discussion between the headteacher and lead consultant. For many primary schools that we support on a regular basis, this can be one consultant in school for one day providing an external and independent evaluation of the aspects of your school we have been asked to review. For some large secondary schools, we provide a team of four or five consultants for two days but a review may also be anything in between. 

The time in school will be planned and agreed in advance and is likely to comprise a series of meetings with school leaders, staff, students, governors and any other relevant stakeholders as well as learning walks and observations of behaviour in lessons and during unsupervised time. The activities, meetings and discussions will be agreed to suit the timetable of your typical school day so that we don’t disrupt the normal running of the school. Exactly what these address will depend on the areas that you wish to be the focus of the review. 

At the end of the day verbal feedback will be provided to the client and any adjustments for the following day made as appropriate. Outcomes form the visit will be shared before the consultant / team leaves the premises and a written report submitted within ten working days. This allows time for it to go through our quality assurance process. 

As with all of our services, we deliver these to meet your needs. The standard package is for one visit per term and the premium package is one per half-term, either of which can also include support to the headteacher’s performance management. We have also worked with clients where they have had one review per year with two SIP visits and the HTPM combined into a model that worked for them. We can also provide support of a given number of days per school within a trust and they choose to use them as they need. In one case this became the standard package with HTPM and a thematic review each covering topics such as safeguarding, SEND or behaviour. 

YES! If you are ‘in the window’ we can help review the areas where you are most keen to test your self-evaluation and ensure that you have addressed any areas for improvement identified in your last inspection. Our feedback and report will indicate areas of strength and any that require improvement based on the evidence that our consultant(s) have seen during their visit. We can also work to coach leaders who are likely to be part of the inspection to ensure that they present their work with precision and clarity.

Please note, we do not perform mock inspections. While all our work is done with an understanding of the national education context and expectations for schools, including from Ofsted, our priority is school improvement. All our reviews are developmental with support and coaching for staff as part of the process with the aim of providing support individually and collectively that leads to improvement for the school. Ofsted grades are not applied at any time. 

We can provide training on a range of topics related to school improvement. Often this has been related to the inspection handbooks or aspects related to them. We can provide training for groups of leaders, staff or governors on leadership, aspects of the curriculum or topics such as safeguarding, SEND, behaviour and governance. These sessions can be from a two-hour twilight to a full-day INSET training session. 
 
In nearly all cases we provide training face-to-face as this allows for greater engagement, participation and better learning outcomes. However, on-line training can be delivered if that is preferred. We do not currently provide e-learning as we find that the need to adjust the content is almost constant. 

Our recruitment process is very robust and involves all the safeguarding checks that you would expect. We are very careful about who we choose to work with us and ensure that we are happy that any consultant delivering for B11 does so in line with our developmental approach. All consultants are interviewed, then if their experience meets our standards, they are invited to shadow a senior consultant before they start so we can see how they work in a school setting before they are given any assignments of their own. Their first assignment is quality assured by a senior member of our consultant team and we take every opportunity to work alongside newer consultants to ensure they meet our exacting standards. We encourage and welcome feedback on our consultants and all aspects of the services we provide through our evaluations which are sent out after each visit – or annually for SIP packages – and address any concerns directly. Reports are quality assured.

We can provide support to a school that is considering which is the best fit when choosing to join a multi-academy trust. We can look at the capacity of their team to provide support to your school regarding school improvement or other aspects such as finance, HR and IT.  
 
As with any other service, an initial consultation to understand your needs will help us to set out a solution that addresses them. 

Our safeguarding audit is a comprehensive review of every aspect of safeguarding from the robustness of your SCR through to policies and procedures and how these are implemented in school. We will go through every aspect of safeguarding covered by statutory guidance and spend time talking to your SENDCO, others involved in safeguarding roles, groups of students, staff and governors. A comprehensive report will set out where the various standards and requirements are met, partially met or not met with clear evidence for where there are gaps. Areas of strength and recommended steps to address areas for improvement are also provided. 

To book an initial consultation, complete the form, send us an email or pick up the phone and we can start a discussion to understand your needs and how our team can provide a solution.