A structured, in-person review of your boarding provision, run against the National Minimum Standards for Boarding.
The audit runs as a structured desk review before the visit, one to two days on site, and a written report within about a week. The exact scope is agreed with you before work starts.
Your team completes a structured self-evaluation against the National Minimum Standards and uploads your policy and record pack through a secure portal. That material is read against the NMS and KCSIE — and against your most recent inspection report — to surface gaps, points where policy and practice may have drifted apart, and the questions worth asking on each standard.
Structured conversations with staff, age-appropriate conversations with boarders, walkrounds of boarding houses and pupil-facing spaces, and checks of live records. Each standard is tested against several independent sources — a policy on the shelf counts for little until enough conversations confirm it is understood and lived.
As evidence comes in, a picture builds for every standard through the visit: where it is solid, where it is thin, and where accounts don't line up. The conversations still to come are re-planned around the gaps, while there is still time on site to close them.
Before I leave, a short presentation to the Head and senior team — the emerging strengths and the priority areas — so nothing in the written report comes as a surprise.
A written report organised by NMS standard, or thematically — your choice — with every finding tied to its evidence and a prioritised action plan your SLT and governors can act on immediately. An honest read on where you would stand if the inspection were tomorrow.
Policies and records are uploaded to a private area for your engagement alone — reachable only by me and the colleagues you invite. Where the review uses AI to cross-check documents against the standards, that runs on Anthropic's commercial API, which does not use the content to train its models. Nothing is shared with any other school, and everything you upload is deleted once the engagement closes.
Want to run this yourself? The same audit tool is available to licence separately.
An honest look at how pastoral care actually functions day to day — from first-night routines for new boarders to how concerns move through your reporting lines.
Beyond compliance: how safeguarding is understood, discussed, and modelled by staff at every level, not just recorded in a policy folder.
A training plan built around your calendar and staff turnover — covering induction to boarding leadership.
A confidential sounding board for heads, deputies, heads of boarding, and houseparents — from someone who has held those roles and understands what the job actually asks of you.
I've spent more than twenty-five years in UK boarding education — as a teacher, a housemaster, a deputy head, and, from 2023 to 2026, as Director of the Boarding Schools' Association.
Previously, I spent fourteen years at Wellington College across several roles — Head of Physics, Housemaster, and Deputy Head, and three years as Head of Senior School at the Stephen Perse Foundation in Cambridge. Further back, I ran a science department at a school in Bamenda, Cameroon through VSO. I have also worked at Whitgift School, Croydon, and Clifton College.
My consultancy and audit services draw on that whole span: experience directly working in schools, and the 100+ audits and school visits I made to boarding schools around the world during my time at BSA.
I am Chair of Trustees at the Circle Trust, Wokingham — a multi-academy trust of 12 schools — and safeguarding governor at Lord Wandsworth College, Long Sutton.
Tell me a little about your school and what's prompting the enquiry — an upcoming inspection, a leadership change, or ongoing advisory work. I'll reply directly.