The Wellbeing Award for Schools (WAS) is awarded for a three-year period after which there is a reassessment process. The following information outlines this process.

Preparation for reassessment

Schools have up to 9 months to complete the reassessment process. 

The reassessment process will go more smoothly with some preparatory work. The different strands in the preparation can be run in parallel:

• Convening the Review Team
• Updating the portfolio of evidence 

Convening the Review Team

The Reassessment Self-Evaluation needs to be a whole-school, collaborative approach and should be led by a Review Team representative of the whole school community.

It may be possible to reconvene the original Change Team to form the Review Team but, three years on, pupils and parents are a different group and likely to need different representation and there may have been staff turnover or changes in leadership and staff responsibilities. 

As with the Change Team, the Review Team should represent the different stakeholder groups across the school and will benefit from including a representative of the services and agencies that work with the school. The Review Team must be chaired by a member of the senior leadership team. This will give the Team the authority to:

• delegate tasks; 
• gather evidence;
• communicate across and beyond the school;
• bring together those who need to contribute to the WAS Reassessment Self-Evaluation; and
• plan and implement any actions in the light of the Self-Evaluation.   

As with the Change Team, we recommend that you consider selecting a pupil to fulfil a Co-chair role with the Review Team.

Whilst the Objectives for reassessment are very similar to the original Award, the KPIs and the evidence requirements are not as extensive. However, the requirements for reassessment assume that the school has maintained the whole-school approach to emotional wellbeing and mental health and has gathered evidence that the school has kept ‘on track’. 

Where the Review Team is significantly different from the original Change Team, it is essential to refer to the original guidance on the Award Objectives for more detail.  Whether or not the Review Team is similar to the original Change Team, make sure that you refer to the original guidance on the Award objectives.  

Updating the portfolio of evidence

The evidence provided for reassessment must be recent and/or updated (i.e. no more than six months old).Carry out a preliminary review to check that the most up to date versions of all relevant documents are available to the Review Team early in the reassessment process.  

Documents such as the school development plan, the CPD, staff development or training plan and a range of other school policies should be available: ensure that these are the most up-to-date versions. 

Administrative support to the Review Team to bring together the most up-to-date versions of available documents, before starting the Reassessment Self-Evaluation, will enable the Team to progress the reassessment more efficiently. 

Self-evaluation

The Review Team leads the WAS Reassessment Self-Evaluation. With preparation, the Team should have available to them a range of evidence that has already been gathered. The Team will also need to draw on contributions from members of the school community. 

All these contributions will support the Review Team in deciding where further actions are needed to meet the KPIs and what further evidence needs to be gathered to support the achievement of those KPIs. 

The Team completes the online Reassessment Self-Evaluation, based on the reduced number of KPIs. Please note there is no paper version of this form. The Reassessment Self-Evaluation should be completed at the beginning of the process (and within not more than 8 weeks of signing the Reassessment agreement) since it will form the basis of your reassessment planning.

Actions and evidence

Carry out any actions identified through the Reassessment Self-Evaluation, collect evidence for the portfolio and prepare for verification. Refer to the Evidence Requirements list provided. You need to provide one piece of evidence for each KPI in the framework, to show that the whole school approach to emotional wellbeing and mental health has been maintained over the three-year period.

You can choose which format of portfolio is most accessible to you - a paper-based portfolio or the Reassessment e-portfolio on the AwardPlace platform - and you can mix and match where you store the evidence. Schools may find it particularly useful to upload evidence to AwardPlace where reassessment meetings are conducted virtually.  Alternatively, they may opt to post evidence to the Verifier or send it via means such as email, Dropbox or WeTransfer.

Gathering the views of stakeholders

The views of different stakeholders are key to informing the school’s approach to emotional wellbeing and positive mental health. Many schools will have continued to gather the views of stakeholders on a regular basis since the original work for the award. However, since the original gathering of views from stakeholders, the pupil population will have changed significantly and, depending on the age range of the school, this may amount to a change of 50% or more. With similar changes in the parent cohort and any turnover in staff, reassessment is a key moment to gather views of all stakeholders more systematically. 

The Stakeholder Evaluation Forms (STEFs) should be sent out and the responses gathered and analysed. To secure a good response rate, reassessment needs to be widely publicised, planned and discussed across the whole school community. For the original award, a response rate of at least 50% is expected for staff and pupils. This minimum requirement is the same for reassessment and it is particularly important to address any shortfall in responses from groups who may have been under-represented in the original STEF returns, for example, non-teaching staff, parents who do not speak English as their first language, or pupils with special educational needs. 

Different themes from the analysis of the STEFs will inform actions the school may need to take following the Reassessment Self-Evaluation and are required as evidence for many of the KPIs.  

Guidelines for the Reassessment Visit

The process will involve a reassessment verifier and will take approximately 4 hours.

Please download the pdf 'Verification or Reassessment Visit School Guidance' in this section. This contains detailed guidance for the Reassessment Visit.

The completed Reassessment report will be sent to you within five working days.

If successful, the school will be accredited for a further three years.

Support

If at any point you would like any advice and support about the reassessment process, please contact the Awards Office on 0208 315 1246 or email WAS@optimus-education.com.