The COBIS Standards were thoroughly revised during the Summer of 2020. Safeguarding is a never-ending challenge for all institutions who teach and look after children and the COBIS Standards are now stronger than ever and quite rightly challenging for COBIS schools. COBIS have also updated the Standards to reflect the conditions in which schools have been working during the global pandemic, with particular reference to the quality of provision for supporting and teaching students remotely. The increasing attention paid to mental health and well-being in schools is embraced and encouraged by the revised Standards.

COBIS Accreditation

There are two routes to COBIS Accreditation:

  1. Compliance only
  2. The COBIS Patron’s Award

The standards are as follows:

COBIS Compliance Standard

  1. Safeguarding and Safer Recruitment Standard
  2. Student Welfare Standard
  3. Facilities Standard
  4. Governance Standard
  5. Ethos and Values Standard
  6. Boarding (if applicable)

COBIS Accreditation: also includes Compliance Standards 1-5(6)

  • Standard 7: Learning and Teaching
  • Standard 8: Leadership in the School
  • Standard 9: Communication
  • Standard 10: Extra-Curricular, Enrichment and Engagement

COBIS Digital Workbook

The COBIS Accreditation process takes place through a Digital Workbook (DWB). Through our service you will be trained in how to make the very best of this, ensuring compliance and excellence.

Areas JMC can support COBIS International schools with:

  • Safeguarding (policy and practice), Safer Recruitment, Single Central Register
  • The effectiveness of governance, leadership and management
  • Health and safety audits
  • Policies
  • Curriculum, teaching and learning audit
  • Data analysis
  • School self-evaluation

Mock COBIS Accreditation:

Taking part in a mock accreditation is the perfect way to understand how your processes and teams will react and ‘hold up’ during an accreditation, giving you the time to make any necessary adjustments within your organisation based on an honest, critical evaluation of your processes and practices.

Benefits of a mock COBIS accreditation by JMC

All our accreditation teams are led by an experienced Lead Improvement Partner, they will be your first point of contact once you have decided to take advantage of our ‘mock accreditation’ service. Although they are referred to as ‘mocks’ they are designed with school improvement in mind and our teams will offer a mixture of training, coaching and mentoring throughout the process.

The mock accreditation will encourage both reactive and proactive improvement in the quality of education provided by school and will help to standardise teaching, enable benchmarking and comparison in improving the quality of teaching and learning.

Pre Accreditation Training

Our training helps you when preparing for accreditation. We will provide a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of your service, focusing on quality of education, safeguarding arrangements, leadership and management in particular.
Furthermore, we will develop an action plan with clear strategies for improvement prior to the mock accreditation date.

Mock Conference call between the Head and the Lead Improvement Partner (LIP)

If required, we can arrange a ‘mock phone call’ between our Lead Improvement Partner and the Head of the school. In COBIS accreditations Heads are expected to hold a substantive discussion with the LIP. This is more than an administrative discussion; it will set the tone and accreditation trails for the whole process. This discussion is a valuable exercise helping the Head prepare for the call as well as using it as a coaching opportunity to learn from our LIP.

Mock COBIS Accreditation Visit

Our accreditation teams conduct the mock exercise over 2-3 days depending on the size of the school. The mock accreditation can take many forms and these are some areas for which you may be interested for your school:

Quality of Education

Our team will use the COBIS framework to evaluate the main outcomes for pupils – achievement and personal development.  The team would visit lessons, discuss the lesson plans and overall schemes of work with Department Heads and the Academic Deputy Head and then meet with a variety of pupils to discuss their views on teaching and delivery.

Boarding Welfare Audit

If you are a boarding school you may consider a need for an inspection of your Minimum Standards for Boarding Schools.  This would include a visit to your boarding houses, meeting your house staff and Pastoral/Boarding Lead and discussing boarding with your Head.  The team would also meet with a group of boarding pupils to discover their views of boarding within your school.

EYFS Provision Audit

If you have a EYFS provision we can organise an experienced team to evaluate this area of your school to ensure that it fulfils the requirements for the framework (published by the Dept for Education).

enquiries@jmcinset.com

020 8531 4182

enquiries@jmcinset.com