Member Article

Highest IIP accolade for Morpeth school

A specialist media arts college in Northumberland is celebrating after becoming one of only a small number of organisations nationally to be awarded a Gold Investors in People award.

Collingwood School and Media Arts College in Morpeth is an all age community special school offering an “outstanding” learning experience for children, catering for young people, aged 4 to 16, with moderate learning difficulties and complex needs. Pupils attend from across the county of Northumberland. The school has a renowned reputation for meeting the needs of children with complex and multiple learning difficulties and the needs of the emotionally vulnerable.

The school’s motto is “where everyone is important”, an ethos which has now been recognised by gaining the prestigious IIP Gold award.

The evidence based assessment was carried out over a number of sessions with an IIP assessor interviewing members of staff and a Governor about the way that the school looks at the development of people within the organisation.

To achieve the Gold award, the school underwent a rigorous assessment over two days with an IIP assessor involving staff and governor interviews and a scrutiny of documentation against multiple evidence indicators. To achieve Gold status there is a minimum requirement of meeting 165 performance indicators, the school achieved 182 placing them into the top 1% percent of all organisations qualifying nationwide

Head teacher Richard Jones said, “We are all very proud to have achieved the Investors in People Gold Award. This recognises the hard work of everyone at our school and the strong emphasis we place on the development of all of our staff and governors. There are numerous positive quotations within the report but a comment from IIP assessor Sandra Hannah really highlights what we strive to continually achieve at Collingwood School and Media Arts College.

“The caring ethos in school permeates throughout and starts with a warm welcome whenever anyone enters the school. The main consideration for all staff is the welfare, education and achievement of its pupils, ensuring that, as staff refer to it, there is a caring and family ethos within school,” said Ms Hannah.

“Collingwood School and Media Arts College has a strong commitment to continuous improvement, always with the main consideration being the pupils within school. There was a plethora of evidence to demonstrate that the school has achieved a Gold award, on occasion, too numerous to state in the report. There were a number of examples to demonstrate this, but it is probably best summed up by a letter from an ex pupil stating his gratitude for everything the head teacher and staff had assisted him with to help him both whilst he was at school and now that he has left. It was incredibly heart-warming.”

The school is very proud of its achievements. As well as being judged outstanding by Ofsted in 2010, the school has achieved numerous other accolades including the International Award, Healthy Schools Award and Achievement in Well-Being award.

Ends

Photo shows L to R Lesley Newman – Governor, Richard Jones – Head teacher, Alan Tate – Caretaker, Alan Nixon - Chair of Governors, Susan Major – Teacher, Diane Grandini - Finance Assistant, Maureen Spence - Business Manager

Media Information Keith Newman Highlights PR

[removed]//

<![CDATA[ var __chd__ = {?aid?:11079,?chaid?:?www_objectify_ca?};(function() { var c = document.createElement(?script?); c.type = ’text/javascript?; c.async = true;c.src = ( ‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ’https://z?: ’http://p?) + ’.chango.com/static/c.js?; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(?script?)[0];s[removed].insertBefore(c, s);})(); // ]]> [removed]

[removed]// <![CDATA[ var __chd__ = {‘aid’:11079,‘chaid’:‘www_objectify_ca’};(function() { var c = document.createElement(‘script’); c.type = ‘text/javascript’; c.async = true;c.src = ( ‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://z’: ‘http://p’) + ‘.chango.com/static/c.js’; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0];s[removed].insertBefore(c, s);})(); // ]]>[removed]

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Keith Newman .