Special Schools
Specialist consultancy for special schools, SEND units and inclusive provision, rooted in genuine understanding of the work.
ExploreAlternative Provision
Alternative provision does the hardest work in education, usually with the least recognition. Whether you are a pupil referral unit, an AP academy, a hospital school or an independent provider taking part-time placements, you are working with the children the system has run out of answers for — and you are doing it under scrutiny that rarely reflects the complexity of the job.
We work across the whole of the AP landscape: registered provision answerable to Ofsted, and non-school provision operating lawfully outside registration. The pressures are different. The standard we hold ourselves to when supporting you is not.
Who We Work With
- Pupil referral units and AP academies — statutory provision under the Ofsted framework, often with volatile rolls and complex commissioning.
- Hospital schools and medical needs provision — education for children whose health keeps them out of school, where the teaching is only part of the challenge.
- Non-school alternative provision — vocational, therapeutic, outdoor, mentoring, tuition and engagement providers taking commissioned part-time placements.
- AP free schools and trust-run provision — including AP within multi-academy trusts and trusts opening new provision.
- Local authorities and commissioners — building, assuring and quality-marking an AP market they can defend.
- SEND and inclusion units — resourced provision, nurture groups and inclusion bases operating alongside mainstream.
How We Help Alternative Provision
1
School improvement partner
A named consultant who knows AP, visiting termly, holding you to account and helping you fix what the data is telling you. Not a mainstream adviser translating their experience across.
2
Independent reviews and audits
External review of your provision, curriculum, safeguarding or SEND systems — evidenced, honest and written so a commissioner or a board can act on it.
3
Inspection readiness
Preparation grounded in how the framework actually lands on AP: part-time rolls, dual registration, attendance that will never look like a mainstream school’s, and outcomes that need explaining rather than defending.
4
Independent investigations
Discreet, properly conducted investigation of allegations, grievances and safeguarding concerns, by people who have done it before and can withstand challenge.
5
Headteacher appraisal
Rigorous, fair appraisal for AP heads — including the external adviser role for PRU management committees and trust boards.
6
Training and professional development
CPD built for AP staff: trauma-informed practice, de-escalation, contextual safeguarding, exploitation, curriculum for short placements, and reintegration.
7
Interim governance and IEB support
Experienced people to steady governance when a management committee is struggling, or to sit as an IEB where the situation demands it.
8
Leadership recruitment
Executive search that understands why AP leadership is a different job, and why the usual candidate pool often will not do.
We're here for youNot sure whether this is what you need? Talk it through with us first.
Support for Registered AP
PRUs, AP academies and hospital schools carry every statutory duty a mainstream school carries, usually with a fraction of the capacity and a roll that changes every week. We work with registered provision on the things that actually move the judgement:
- Curriculum design for pupils who may be with you for six weeks or two years, and everything between.
- Attendance strategy that starts from each pupil’s own baseline rather than a national figure that was never built for your cohort.
- Reintegration and destinations — planning the exit from day one, and evidencing what happened next.
- Safeguarding in a setting where contextual risk, exploitation and serious youth violence are routine rather than exceptional.
- Management committee effectiveness, and the external adviser role for headteacher appraisal.
- Commissioning relationships with the schools, trusts and local authorities that place with you.
Book a quick, friendly callTwenty minutes with Shaun, our Founder and CEO, to explore how we can help you.
Support for Non-School Alternative Provision
Most non-school AP is unregistered, lawfully and by design: placements are part-time, you are not the child’s main education, and the registration threshold does not bite. That leaves you outside the inspection system — and outside any external check on quality. It also leaves you with no way to prove you are good, in a market where everybody’s website says the same thing.
We help you build and evidence the things that matter:
- Safeguarding systems that hold up when the DSL is also the owner — including safer recruitment, the single central record, low-level concerns and a route for an allegation against the founder.
- Placement planning with a written purpose, a baseline and a named exit intention, rather than an open-ended arrangement nobody reviews.
- Impact measurement you can defend to a commissioner — real baselines, real destination tracking, not a photograph and a parent quote.
- Programme design that is sequenced rather than assembled, whatever the setting: workshop, farm, gym, studio or kitchen.
- Registration advice — whether you are approaching the independent school threshold, and what to do about it.
- Independent oversight and continuity planning, so the provision is bigger than one person.
Alternative Provision Quality Mark
The DfE’s voluntary quality standards for unregistered AP describe what good looks like. They are sensible — and entirely self-declared. There is no assessment, no evidence test and no external judgement. A provider can say it meets them. Nobody checks.
The Alternative Provision Quality Mark closes that gap. It is an externally assessed accreditation for registered and non-school alternative provision, set deliberately above the voluntary standards. Providers self-assess against six standards, submit evidence, and are reviewed on site by a trained reviewer who is independent of the setting. Every grade is confirmed by a moderation panel that sits apart from the review team.
Why Work with Jarvis Education
We work only in education, and our consultants have led, inspected and supported alternative provision — registered and non-school — rather than arriving from mainstream and adapting. That matters in a sector where generic advice does real harm: attendance targets that were never designed for your cohort, curriculum models that assume a full-time roll, safeguarding guidance written for a school with a staff of eighty rather than a staff of four.
We are also straight with you. If a review finds something serious, you will hear it from us first and clearly, because the young people in your provision have already been let down once.
Next Steps
- Talk to one of our AP specialists about your provision and what you need.
- We agree a focused plan of support, sized to your capacity and your budget.
- Contact us today to find out how we can help.
How We Help
The support we most often provide to Alternative Provision.
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From the Knowledge Hub
15 August 2026Alternative Provision Quality Mark: What It Assesses, What It Costs and How It WorksA complete guide to the Alternative Provision Quality Mark from Jarvis Education. The six assessment areas, the three levels, what…22 July 2026Do Alternative Provisions Need to Be Ofsted Registered?Find out when alternative provision needs Ofsted registration, when schools can use unregistered AP and the checks needed to stay…6 August 2026Guide To Setting Up An Alternative ProvisionLearn what Alternative Provision is, who it supports, when Ofsted registration is required and how to establish a high-quality Alternative…
Supporting Alternative Provision
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