School retains flagship status for work on inclusivity

WORK to make a school inclusive has earned it a third successive quality mark.

New College Leicester retained the Inclusion Quality Mark (IQM) Award with Flagship status.

It was one of 100 schools in the UK, and the only coeducational school in Leicester, to have achieved this status.

The school was described as “a thriving, highly inclusive and exciting place to be” in the assessor’s report. IQM said the school’s success lay in “an incredibly dynamic leadership team” and the fact it places its students at the heart of all it does.

Jane Brown, principal of New College, said: “We are all one family here, we know our students well, we understand their issues and appreciate the backgrounds that they all come from.

“Our deep understanding of our students along with ensuring that they all receive the support they need to learn effectively within engaging lessons, is central to our inclusive education philosophy.

“Our approach works for our children and we are delighted that this has been recognised by IQM.”

During her visit to New College, assessor Sally Hamson reviewed documentation, held discussions with key members of staff and representatives of the student parliament and had informal conversations with other staff and students.

She praised New College’s approach to careers education, the role students played in developing activities through the citizenship programme, and how students with English as an additional language were fully integrated into lessons and school life.

Ms Hamson said: “All students were fully integrated, accessing the same learning activity with clear adaptations taking place to enable this immersion.

“The students’ behaviour throughout the school was exceptional.

“Students were clearly proud of their college. They were particularly vocal around the inclusive nature of their college and their lessons.”