Purple Ruler × London Borough of Barking and Dagenham + Evolution EducationEvolution Educationborough AP partner
A year in review & a borough-wide partnership · prepared for LBBD

A year of alternative provision across Barking & Dagenham — and the borough-wide next step.

This year, Purple Ruler has delivered 2,452 live lessons across the borough — most of it through Evolution Education, your local AP partner, and the rest direct into eight secondary schools, with 1,231 more lessons already booked. This document recaps what that looked like, school by school, and sets out the next step Bal, Mark and Jessica asked about: a single borough-wide alternative-provision framework that maps cleanly onto the council's Section 19 duty — one safe platform, one line of sight, one agreement.

Prepared forBal Gill · with Mark Aspel & Jessica McQuaid
Delivered viaEvolution Education + 8 LBBD secondaries
StatusLive across the borough · reference customer
AssuranceOfsted-accredited · DfE URN 152279
The year in one minute · for Bal, Mark & Jessica

What a year of Purple Ruler looked like in Barking & Dagenham.

Since we first met in 2024, Purple Ruler has gone from an introduction to a working part of the borough's alternative-provision landscape. We now reach roughly a third of LBBD's secondary schools, delivering live, teacher-led lessons to children who can't currently access mainstream — through Evolution Education's outreach network and through direct school placements. The relationship is recorded as won, the outreach response as successful, and the borough as one of our reference customers.

2,452
live lessons delivered across the borough this year
8
LBBD secondary schools reached — plus the Evolution centre
~2,364
of those lessons delivered through Evolution Education's AP outreach
1,231
further lessons already booked and scheduled ahead

Figures from Purple Ruler operational records for the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham: 2,452 lessons delivered to date (LA delivery record), ~2,364 of them via Evolution Education, and 1,231 future lessons on the forward book. Purple Ruler currently reaches ~34.8% of the borough's secondary schools. Attendance for AP / EBSA cohorts is reported as a re-engagement journey, not a single headline figure.

Where it landed · the borough delivery picture

Live delivery, school by school.

Most of the borough's volume runs through Evolution Education — the AP outreach engine that refers pupils in from across LBBD and monitors them on a shared dashboard. On top of that, several schools commission Purple Ruler directly, led by Jo Richardson Community School, which now runs the full spread of our models. Here is the year's delivery by source.

Live lessons delivered this year, by source

Evolution Education
~2,364
Jo Richardson
153
Eastbrook
102
Barking Abbey
50
Dagenham Park CofE
11

Direct-school counts are recorded delivered lessons per school; Evolution's figure is its outreach delivery across the borough (some pupils from the schools below are placed through Evolution rather than counted directly). Riverside, Robert Clack, The Warren and The Sydney Russell are engaged through the outreach network.

The eight engaged secondaries

SchoolModels liveRole
Jo Richardson Community SchoolAcademy · Blueprint · Compass · Distinctionflagship
Eastbrook SchoolAcademyengaged
Barking Abbey SchoolAcademyengaged
Dagenham Park C of E SchoolAcademyengaged
Robert Clack SchoolAcademyengaged
Riverside SchoolAcademyengaged
The Warren SchoolAcademyengaged
The Sydney Russell SchoolAcademyengaged

Jo Richardson is the borough's deepest partner — the one school already using all four Purple Ruler models. The rest run our managed Academy AP for non-attenders and excluded pupils.

Goals already on record across the borough

Across these enrolments the recorded aims are exactly the ones an LA holds under its statutory duty: reintegration, gap-filling, raising attainment, curriculum coverage, and rebuilding a relationship with education for children who have lost one.

  • Reintegration — moving pupils back toward mainstream, in stages
  • Gap-filling & attainment — keeping pupils on their school's curriculum and exam boards (AQA, Edexcel, OCR)
  • Access for non-attenders — EBSA, medical and anxiety profiles taught live, from home
  • Rapid placement — a child can be live within days, not half a term

Source: live Purple Ruler enrolment records (C02) and the LA delivery record. Pupil names withheld for data protection.

The engine · Evolution Education

Most of the borough's delivery flows through one local partner.

The single biggest reason Purple Ruler has scaled across Barking & Dagenham is Evolution Education — the Dagenham-based AP charity (Ofsted Voluntary Registration 2631164, Charity 1197957) that refers pupils in from across the borough and runs them on a shared AP dashboard. Around 2,364 of this year's lessons were delivered through that partnership. Evolution is now on its own journey to Independent School registration, and Purple Ruler is its academic delivery engine. That three-way model — LA commissions, Evolution operates, Purple Ruler teaches — is exactly the shape a borough-wide framework would formalise.

The Local Authority

Commissions & holds the duty

LBBD — Section 19, inclusion & SEND
  • Holds the statutory duty to educate children who can't attend
  • Commissions provision and sets the standard
  • Needs one line of sight across every placement
+
Evolution Education

Operates & wraps around the child

Local AP charity · Ofsted Voluntary Reg 2631164
  • Referral, placement & pastoral wrap-around
  • Sport, mentoring, SEMH & the relational model
  • Parent & school liaison on the ground
Purple Ruler

Delivers the live curriculum

Ofsted-accredited online education · DfE URN 152279
  • Live, teacher-led lessons across core & broader subjects
  • Groups of ≤6, or intensive 1:1 by need
  • Real-time attendance, visible as each lesson starts
  • Half-termly narrative progress reports & a safeguarding line to our DSL

A single joint data-sharing and safeguarding agreement at framework level sets this out once — no per-pupil paperwork to start a child. This is the structure already working in practice with Evolution; a borough framework simply makes it the default for every placement.

One level up · the council's Section 19 duty

One provision for every child the borough must educate.

A school commissions for the pupils in front of it. The Local Authority carries something wider: the Section 19 duty to arrange suitable education for every child of compulsory school age who can't attend a mainstream school — whatever the reason. That's the level this partnership steps up to. Purple Ruler already serves most of these cohorts in your borough today; a framework simply makes us a fast, consistent, quality-assured route for all of them.

🏠

Medical needs & EBSA

Children too anxious or unwell to attend — taught live from home, with a re-engagement journey built in.

⛔

Permanent exclusion & suspension

An immediate, full-curriculum placement from day one, so excluded pupils don't lose weeks of learning.

🔎

Children missing education

A rapid route back into structured, registered learning while a school place is found.

🧭

At-risk & managed moves

A stable online provision that holds a pupil's education steady through a transition between schools.

📘

EOTAS & EHCP packages

Education other than at school, and 1:1 SEND-informed delivery built from the child's EHCP.

🎓

NEET & post-16 re-engagement

Re-engagement and qualification routes for 16–19s who have dropped out of education or training.

🛡️

Looked-after & vulnerable children

Consistent teaching that follows the child, not the placement — useful where home is unstable.

🌍

New arrivals & young parents

Flexible, scheduled-around-life provision for new arrivals, young parents and youth-justice cohorts.

Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 places the duty to arrange suitable alternative provision on the Local Authority. The cohorts above are the statutory categories an LA tracks; Purple Ruler offers one consistent, Ofsted-accredited route across all of them, rather than a different provider per cohort. We have not put pupil numbers against each category here — those are the borough's to hold — but we are already delivering across most of them today.

Not a parking space · the reintegration matrix

Every placement is built to move a child back toward school.

The tool we walked through when we first met is the Reintegration Matrix — how we judge a pupil's readiness to return to mainstream, against three signals. It keeps AP honest: the goal is never to hold a child online, it's to move them back in stages, in line with the government's reintegration expectations.

1

Engagement

Is the pupil using camera and microphone, participating, responding in lessons? The first sign a relationship with learning is rebuilding.

2

Pacing

Is the pupil keeping up with their school's curriculum, so a return doesn't mean walking into a gap they can't close?

3

Emotional & social progress

Are the behavioural and emotional indicators pointing toward readiness for the demands of school life again?

Full online
stabilise & rebuild routine
→
Cameras / mics on
engagement climbing
→
60% home · 40% school
phased return begins
→
Back in mainstream
online provision phases out

The matrix helps schools and the LA judge when a pupil can begin splitting time between home and school, and eventually phase online provision out entirely — a defensible progression narrative for panels, parents and inspectors.

Live oversight · built for the LA layer

Three levels of sight — borough, school, provider.

Today, the borough's engagement data goes out as an automated weekly report. The next step makes it live and layered: each school sees only its own pupils, Evolution sees its outreach network, and — new at the top — the Local Authority sees every Purple Ruler placement across the borough at once. That's the oversight an LA needs to discharge its Section 19 duty with confidence.

LBBD · borough viewsees all placements
Jo Richardson
88%
Eastbrook
81%
Barking Abbey
84%
Evolution network
79%
🔓 every borough placement, one screen
Evolution · network viewits outreach pupils
Centre cohort
84%
School referrals
77%
🔒 its own network — not other schools'
A school · its viewits own pupils only
Pupil A
100%
Pupil C
90%
🔒 sees only the pupils it places

The weekly report live now

An automated attendance & engagement summary per pupil — AM/PM by day, weekly %, and any welfare-call notes — ready to forward to placing schools and the LA. Below is the live format, pupil names redacted for this public document.

Weekly Attendance & Engagement — Barking & Dagenham
Purple Ruler Remote Learning · week of Mon 18 – Fri 22 May 2026 · sample cohort
PupilMonTueWedThuFriEngaged
Pupil A · Y8✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓✓100%
Pupil B · Y9✓✓✓—✓✓✓✓✓✓90%
Pupil C · Y10✓✓✓✓✓✓✓—✓✓90%
Pupil D · Y11 (remote)——✓✓✓—✓✓——50%
Welfare call · Pupil D — re-engagement call made Fri; parent reports anxiety spike, 1:1 maths moved to a morning slot to rebuild routine. Flagged to Evolution & placing school.

AM/PM shown per day (✓ = attended, — = missed). The exact format forwarded each week — generated automatically, not by hand. Cohort and figures illustrative for this public document.

What the LA layer adds next step

  • One borough screen — every Purple Ruler placement across LBBD, live, without asking a school or provider for a report.
  • Real-time attendance — a pupil joining a lesson registers immediately; the LA can see who's not there the same morning.
  • Half-termly ARE-benchmarked reports per pupil, ready for panels and reviews.
  • Permissioned views — schools see only their own pupils; Evolution sees its network; the LA sees all. One data-sharing agreement sets it once.
  • Section 19 evidence — a standing record that suitable education is being arranged and is being attended.

Dashboard layering is roadmapped; the weekly report is live today. We never present a built feature that isn't shipped — the borough view is the next build, and we'll set its launch with you.

Independent assurance · Ofsted, October 2025

"Meets all the standards" — with SEND named a significant strength.

Commissioning Purple Ruler puts an Ofsted-accredited, DfE-registered provider (URN 152279) behind every borough placement. The October 2025 visit found we meet every standard across curriculum, teaching, welfare, safeguarding and leadership — and singled out our work with vulnerable, SEND and anxious learners, exactly the children an LA places in alternative provision.

All 8 standard areas met DfE URN 152279 · 000/1047 KCSIE & UK GDPR aligned
📄 Read the full Ofsted report →

A significant strength of Purple Ruler is the support staff provide for pupils with SEND… each pupil receives carefully tailored, individualised teaching. Staff help pupils to reignite their spark for learning.

Ofsted accreditation report, October 2025Online Education Accreditation Scheme
On the horizon · the future of the programme

Where this is heading over the coming year.

This isn't a static provision. Over the next year it grows in three directions Bal will want to see: Evolution becomes a registered Independent School, the curriculum broadens from a core to a full, balanced offer, and the data moves onto a permissioned platform where Evolution and the LA see everything they share, and each school logs in to its own pupils.

🏛️This coming year · after Ofsted

A registered Independent School in the borough

Evolution Education is working toward registration as an Independent School, with its Ofsted inspection this coming year as the gateway. For LBBD that means a permanent, locally-rooted, inspected alternative-provision setting on your doorstep — with Purple Ruler as its academic engine. Purple Ruler has already passed the same Online Education Accreditation Scheme (Ofsted, October 2025, "meets all the standards"), so we bring the inspection-ready curriculum and evidence that the registration needs.

📚2026–27 · curriculum

A broad, balanced curriculum — from three subjects to seven

Today we deliver the academic core. To meet the breadth a registered Independent School is held to, the offer widens into a full, balanced week — so a borough placement becomes a complete education, not just core catch-up. Sport, mentoring and vocational pathways stay Evolution's; we add the academic breadth around them.

Today · the core
✓ English✓ Maths✓ Science
→we broaden it

An accessible GCSE-style qualification (Citizenship or Health & Social Care) gives breadth without forcing a GCSE-heavy model the cohort isn't ready for. Each subject pitched at GCSE or Functional-Skills level by readiness.

🗂️Next build · the platform

One shared-data platform: an admin level and a school sub-level

The oversight above becomes a proper permissioned system. An admin level gives Evolution and the Local Authority the full, shared borough picture; a sub level lets each school log in and see only its own students. One source of truth, role-based access, set once by a single data-sharing agreement.

Admin level

Evolution Education + the Local Authority

See all the data they share — every Purple Ruler placement across the borough, attendance and engagement live, half-termly reports, and the Section 19 evidence trail. The view Bal and Mark need to discharge the duty with confidence; the view Evolution needs to run its network.

School sub-level

Each placing school

Each school logs in to a permissioned view of its own students only — attendance, engagement and reports for the pupils it has placed, nothing from other schools.

🏫 Jo Richardson · its pupils 🏫 Eastbrook · its pupils 🏫 Barking Abbey · its pupils 🏫 …each LBBD school · its own only

Roadmapped build — the weekly report is live today. We never present a built feature that isn't shipped; the admin / sub-level platform is the next build, and we'll set its launch with you.

The next step · one borough-wide framework

From eight separate threads to one borough agreement.

Today, the borough's Purple Ruler delivery sits in separate threads — Evolution's outreach, Jo Richardson's direct commission, individual school placements. Jessica's question in May was the right one: is there an open alternative-provision framework? The proposal is to bring it all under one — a single borough commissioning route, owned within Mark's inclusion area, that any LBBD school or the LA itself can draw on without a fresh procurement each time.

One agreement, every route

Evolution outreach, direct school placements, and LA spot placements all under a single framework and one data-sharing & safeguarding agreement — set once, not per pupil.

Draw down by need

Any borough school, or the LA, can place a child against the framework rates without re-tendering — so a place can go live in days when a child needs it.

One standard of quality & safety

The same Ofsted-accredited, safe-platform, quality-assured delivery for every cohort — observed against our 10-metric Academy teaching rubric, scored 1–3 per metric.

This is a recap-and-direction document, not a tender response — if a formal framework or mini-tender is the right route, we'll respond to it properly. The aim today is to agree, with Bal and Mark, that one borough-wide route is the sensible shape.

Commercials · flexible by design

Pay for the groups and sessions that run.

The rates are the ones we set out to the borough at the outset, and they hold across every route. Group teaching is charged per group, not per registered learner — a group of 6 and a group of 2 cost the same to run, so as pupils re-engage the per-pupil cost falls and the LA never pays for an empty seat. For rapid, single placements, the managed Academy model is charged per student.

bespoke group · ≤6
£29.17
per hour per group — on the school's curriculum & exam boards (≈ £4.86/pupil at six)
managed Academy · per pupil
£9
per hour per student — a ready-built timetable for rapid placement
intensive 1:1
£29.17
per hour — drawn down by need for the highest-acuity pupils
RouteWhat it coversHow the borough commissionsRate
Evolution outreach one agreementEvery AP placement referred through Evolution Education across the boroughUnder the single framework, billed the same wayfrom £9/hr
Direct school placementsA school's own pupils on the school's curriculum (Jo Richardson model)Drawn down per group against the framework£29.17/hr/group
LA spot placements by needIndividual Section 19 placements — CME, exclusion, medical, EOTASPer placement, live within daysfrom £9/hr
Intensive 1:1 / EHCPSEND-informed 1:1 for the highest-need pupilsPer session, reviewed each half-term£29.17/hr

Rates per the figures shared with the borough at the outset and the current Purple Ruler rate card; all commercials indicative and confirmed in a formal quote or framework response. A free week trial (up to 18 hours of lessons) remains available for any school or cohort new to a Purple Ruler model, so the borough can see the fit before committing.

Who's around the table · the working partnership

The people who've made this work across the borough.

This has been a genuinely distributed partnership — the Local Authority setting the direction, Evolution Education delivering on the ground, and eight schools placing pupils. The colleagues below are the ones who've built it.

London Borough of Barking & Dagenham
BG
Bal Gill
Inclusion & alternative provision · LBBD
Meeting host
MA
Mark Aspel
Head of Inclusion — the commission sits in his area
JM
Jessica McQuaid
Head of School Performance & Partnerships, Education
Evolution Education
ED
Eugene Dwaah
Chief Executive
LD
Lloyd Dwaah
Programme Lead
AD
Amy Dwaah
Head of Communication & HR

The eight engaged schools

Jo Richardson Community School Eastbrook School Barking Abbey School Dagenham Park C of E School Robert Clack School Riverside School The Warren School The Sydney Russell School

Contact details are held privately and not published here. Purple Ruler's day-to-day borough lead is Daniel Demarmels (CEO), with Nabintu Kahamire on partnerships.

A year delivered. A borough-wide step worth taking together.

This is the recap to take into our conversation, Bal — what we've delivered across Barking & Dagenham this year, and the single framework that would make Purple Ruler a fast, quality-assured route for every child the borough needs to place. Happy to walk through it whenever suits.

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📦 Commissioning & compliance pack → 📄 Ofsted report →
Ofsted-accredited · URN 152279 2,452 lessons delivered across LBBD
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Purple Ruler · Ofsted-accredited online education · DfE URN 152279 / 000/1047
Honeycomb Building, Edmund Street, Liverpool L3 9NG · learn@purpleruler.com · purpleruler.com

Prepared for the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham — for Bal Gill, with Mark Aspel and Jessica McQuaid — as a year-in-review and forward proposal. Delivery figures from Purple Ruler operational records: 2,452 lessons delivered across the borough (LA delivery record), ~2,364 via Evolution Education, 1,231 future lessons booked; per-school counts are recorded delivered lessons. Evolution Education: Ofsted Voluntary Registration 2631164 · Charity 1197957. Weekly-report cohort and dashboard figures are anonymised, illustrative examples; pupil names withheld for data protection. Pricing per the rates shared with the borough and the current rate card; commercials confirmed in a formal quote or framework response.