We didn’t plan for the annual COBIS conference to coincide with the king’s coronation weekend but the sense of occasion accompanying the event, attended by more than 500 delegates, exhibitors and guests from across the world, has certainly been enjoyed by all.

With this wider context of celebration and togetherness, we at COBIS are also proud to announce that our Patron’s Accreditation and Compliance scheme, in operation since 2017, has received a huge boost following external validation from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA).

The review was diligent and in-depth, and the published report makes clear our commitment to long-term school improvement and the impact and value schools gain from engaging with our quality assurance scheme, with seven areas in particularly highlighted for praise:

1. Efforts to support the safeguarding of all pupils and staff across safer recruitment, child protection, mental, physical and emotional health, and wellbeing for all.
2. The quality of the curriculum and its ability to enable all pupils to learn and develop. This includes COBIS’ focus on British educational values.
3. The quality of teaching that enables pupils of all abilities and levels to engage with the curriculum.
4. The potential enhancement of the quality of assessment to enable pupils to progress via engagement with UK assessment styles.
5. The personal development of all pupils and a focus on a wide range of extra-curricular activities and enrichment opportunities.
6. The school’s ability to enhance the delivery of information that is fit for purpose to parents.
7. The effectiveness of leadership and management with a focus on how school leadership embraces the wellbeing and performance of staff and students, and how senior leadership engages and communicates with all stakeholders.

Designing a fit-for-purpose “done with and not done to” school quality assurance has always been at the very heart of our philosophy, and being able to share the key findings of the QAA report with delegates at the conference and to thank all those involved gave me and the COBIS team an enormous sense of pride.

While this is obviously good news for COBIS, it is also good news for the wider international schools sector for several reasons.

With the international school market continuing to grow, we are increasingly seeing our scheme being used by established and new British international schools, including those linked to UK independent schools, which are setting up overseas.

This makes sense because our accreditation scheme is viewed as a trusted quality kite mark by an increasing number of education ministries, regulators, investors and, importantly, staff and families opting for high-quality British education.

Indeed, we know that many education ministries and regulators around the world want to partner with us to help them evaluate, monitor and quality assure schools. In recent months, I’ve been involved in numerous conversations with schools and ministries in Nigeria, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and South Korea.

There’s clearly a demand for relationships with trusted quality assurance partners like COBIS, which share their philosophy and commitment to safeguarding, high standards of teaching and academic excellence, student and staff wellbeing, good governance and more.  

As such, being able to demonstrate our deep commitment to long-term school improvement, with the backing of external validation of the QAA, can only help - and, in turn, strengthen - the brand and ecosystem of British education worldwide.

With all this said, it remains a source of puzzlement as to why our accreditation scheme remains unrecognised by the Department for Education, which instead only recognises the British Schools Overseas (BSO) inspection.

That’s not a criticism of the BSO scheme. Far from it. As the association that lobbied for its introduction, many of our members access BSO inspections and we continue to see that it has great merit.

However, you can probably read my mind. To reflect quality and innovation, following QAA’s scrutiny, surely it’s time for the DfE to revisit its position.    

This is not just about COBIS wanting a bigger piece of the quality assurance pie. The situation of non-recognition poses a clear barrier to the DfE-approved induction of early career teachers because only schools that are inspected against the DfE BSO inspection standards can offer this.

For us, this seems at odds with the DfE’s policy of wider access to international schools wishing to offer initial teacher training via the new international qualified teacher status (iQTS). It’s a bit of a headscratcher.

Looking ahead and with a coronation crown of optimism, we hope that with the QAA’s solid judgement, future discussions with the Department for Education may prove more fruitful.

Colin Bell is the chief executive of the Council of British International Schools