Alternative Education
Newsletter Summer 2023
JAMES – Now an Alternative Education Provider
At the end of July 2023 JAMES de-registered as an Independent School and is now classed as an Alternative Education Provider. Some small changes have been made in relation to how many days young people can attend JAMES, but we have not made any changes to the quality and ethos of our provision. JAMES will continue to maintain Ofsted standards and support young people to gain qualifications, experience and skills to meet their full potential.
Newsletter July 2022
2022 t0 2023
It’s been a tough year for many for the 2021 -22 academic year – getting used to being back in education after so many had missed so much time in school. Attendance has been lower at JAMES and many other schools in the district meaning our young people are still missing too many days education putting them at a disadvantage and making it harder for then to achieve their potential.
We hope we can move into 2022/23 with a focus on improved attendance and engagement and we will continue to remind our young people they can achieve and can chose their future path by making positive decisions now and engaging in learning at JAMES.
INDIVIDUAL LEARNING
All students will continue to have an allocated worker and if in the case of sickness this worker can provide work to complete at home. Evidence has shown that progress is higher if learning takes place at school.
These are great resources you can encourage your child to access at home to promote learning.
https://www.thenational.academy/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
WE ARE A GOOD SCHOOL.
In September 2013 JAMES was subject to an OFSTED inspection as an independent school. This inspection was successful which means head office can take young people on roll full time as well as part time. We can tailor make packages that meet the needs of students/learners and schools/referrers.
In January 2015 we had our first OFSTED inspection and were considered to be ‘Good’ across all four areas which we were really proud of as a new independent school. Under the new framework in 2018 we were re inspected under a more rigid framework and we were viewed as ‘Requires Improvement’ overall with our safeguarding and nurturing being ‘Good’. We have put measures into place such as employing a specialist teacher to make changes to our curriculum to support our young people to progress further across all areas during their time with us.
As a result we had a progress monitoring inspection in May 2019 and at this point OFSTED were happy with progress made and the interim report states that all outcomes are now met.
LATEST OFSTED
We had a full inspection in July 2019. We were judged as GOOD across all areas. I just wanted to say a huge thank you to all our staff and students who are part of the process of striving to be a better school and meet all standards of the inspection. We have put a lot of effort and commitment into pushing up standards for ourselves and our learners and this has paid off. We still have some areas we are focusing on to improve standards further. Please ask to see our School Improvement Plan for further details but the key areas are:
-Attendance
-Improve teaching and learning outcomes
-Support SEN young people to progress further
Thank you to all who gave their input during our most recent and any previous inspections.
Mandy Lakes – Principal.
We are registered as a centre through IMI, Open Awards, Princes’ Trust and ASDAN and we focus on vocational qualifications in Motor Vehicle and Functional Skills with weekly core curriculum subjects such as Personal Social Development, Religious Education, Science and Physical Education.
New and regular referrers are welcome to drop in for a tour of the building and to talk to the Management Team about packages for young people, or alternatively please email enquiries@jamesuk.org. We can tailor make programmes to support individual needs including Special Education Needs and Educational Health Care Plans.
We believe in working with a small number of students in our setting with up to 9 in our Motor Vehicle workshops and 8 to 10 young people per day in the classroom setting with a maximum 1 to 4 ratio of staff to young people.
July 2019 full OFSTED report
10093653 J.A.M.E.S.140566 Final PDF
2019 progress monitoring inspection – click the link below
140566 J.A.M.E.S 10101745 final clean Version 2
2018 Full OFSTED report
Progression and Results – 2021 to 2022
It has been another strange year due to Covid-19 and many of our students should be commended for their hard work and commitment throughout.
This year we continued to deliver Functional Skills, Prince’s Trust and IMI although Covid has had a serious impact on attendance and as a result grades and passes have not been as strong as previous years.
Please follow the link to view the progression pathways and results of our learners from 2021 to 2022 academic year – see link below for full details.
Results-and-Progression-2021-to-2022 version 2
Results-and-Progression-2020-to-2021
Points to note for JAMES
- JAMES school times are 9 (for a 9.15 start) to 2.30 daily.
- JAMES has no school uniform but we ask that young people come in clothes suitable to their time-table (old clothes or overalls for the garage and steel toe cap boots).