AWARDS
Your school, backed by the UK's biggest parent charity
After five years of evidence-based research we have developed three tiers of parent practice within UK schools. Schools can move through each of our Accreditation stages, from Standard Award to Silver Award and on to our Gold Award. Each stage has its own measures and methods of best practice in parent participation, building up the data, story and context of your school's practice.
Standard Award assessment
Self-assessed in 60 mins
Our self-assessed award defines good practice in a school, with up to 480 survey measures and unlimited uses and reports.
Achieved with an overall 40% score against the Blueprint Framework.
Included for free with our Parent-Friendly Schools Membership,.
Silver Award assessment
Video-assessed in 90 mins
Our video-assessed award defines great practice in a school, with offline video interviews with one of our expert assessors.
Achieved with an overall 60% score against the Blueprint Framework.
Parent-Friendly Schools Membership, and Standard Award required.
Gold Award assessment
Live assessed in 240 mins
Our in-person assessed award defines exceptional practice in a school, verified by one of our expert assessors.
Achieved with an overall 80% score against the Blueprint Framework.
Parent-Friendly Schools Membership, Standard and Silver Award required
REWARDS
Share your pride for parent participation
Accreditation service questions answered
Common questions answered: Explore our FAQs for quick solutions and insights into our products/services.
It's okay. At Parent-Friendly Schools, we are not looking to punish any school for the challenges it faces. On our Standard Award assessment, you can attempt the award as many times as you like within your active annual membership.
For our Silver and Gold Awards, you will need to pay for a new assessment, as we need to cover the cost of the assessor.
In all cases, you have our guide, your Standard Award assessment outcome, which will show your overall score. Our associates are on hand to help you decide when to attempt the Silver Award and Gold Award when you are ready.
That's okay. Every school gets to chart its own course towards its aspirations for parent participation. If a school achieves a Standard Award and wants to stay there, that's okay with us. There is no requirement or obligation to scale up to Silver Award or Gold Award.
Every school also moves at its own pace, so there are no deadlines or schedules for how you move through the Standard, Silver and Gold Awards, should you wish to. School leaders can take that step when they are ready.
Three years.
As long as you maintain an active membership with us and meet our annual renewal requirements, your accreditation remains valid. If a school leaves our membership, its accreditation ceases. We may ask you to complete a short survey to check on your progress during this three-year period.
The Blueprint Framework and our accreditation standards evolve each year as we listen to and learn from our schools, and as changes in education policy, governing standards and parent participation shape them.
If a school no longer finds value in our membership or accreditation, it may leave our service in line with our terms and conditions, and its digital and physical accreditation assets can no longer be used.
To ensure you continue to meet the Accreditation awards and the evolving Blueprint Framework, we need to renew your Award with us every three years.
We will ask you to take a short survey to check on your progress each year, and offer you some insight, too. As long as you maintain your membership, this short survey will be free.
We are happy to hear your thoughts, and we will take them seriously. As we use the same standard for all schools, it would be difficult for us to reapply a different standard to those who feel it has judged them harshly.
