The accreditation process will be ‘light-touch’ and developmental in nature. Support will be available to schools throughout the accreditation process.

Schools new to Opening Minds will receive an initial ‘walk through’ visit, a subsequent two-day training visit at an RSA Opening Minds Training School for up to 3 teachers, and a further two visits to assess and advise on progress

For schools already engaged in Opening Minds accreditation would involve two visits from a training school which would culminate in accreditation. As explained above a school’s application would be assessed both by reference its policies and by observing classroom practice to ensure that Opening Minds was being used in an appropriate and effective pedagogical manner.

Training schools will be supportive in enabling schools to meet the accreditation criteria and will openly share their assessment of progress towards accreditation using a traffic light system:

• Green = school meets this criterion
• Amber = school well on the way to meeting this criterion but some development still needed (the nature of development needed would be explained and confirmed in writing)
• Red = school does yet meet this criterion and a significant amount of development still needed on this issue (the nature of development needed would be explained and confirmed in writing)