Purple Ruler × Mercia Academy — Online Provision for Your Students

Where Mercia Academy is starting from

Two priorities, one flexible provision

From our conversation, two clear needs stand out — and Purple Ruler is built to support both, online, around your timetable.

Students who can't access mainstream right now

For learners out of school — medical, anxiety-based non-attendance, or those on a local-authority placement — we provide live, structured teaching that keeps them learning and connected, with a clear route back into school.

Raising academic achievement, KS4 into KS3

To support your whole-school focus on academic achievement, we deliver targeted intervention on your schemes of work — securing passes for grade 3–4 students and stretching grade 5–7 students further, in a different delivery to your own classroom teaching.

The four models

Four ways we deliver — matched to your cohorts

One framework, four delivery models. You can mix them by cohort, and a student can move between them as their needs change. Everything outside Academy is priced per teaching hour, not per student — so up to six students share the same hourly rate.

Academy

£139/student/wk

Ready-built timetable, English · Maths · Science, 15 hrs/wk, groups ≤6. Weekly — close access with a week's notice.

Blueprint

£29.17/hour/group

Built on your schemes of work & your students' times, ≤6 per group. From £4.86/student/hr at six. Your headline model

Compass

£29.17/hour

SEN-informed 1:1 or small group, built around EHCPs and individual accommodations.

Distinction

£29.17/hour

Academic stretch & exam preparation for raising attainment, groups ≤6. Raising achievement

Lessons can be structured to whatever duration suits the learner — 30, 45 or 60 minutes — at a pro-rated share of the hourly rate. There is no minimum number of hours, and no minimum term: set a course to run for a single half-term and it closes when the students reach the end. Schools are not charged VAT.

Which model for which Mercia cohort

The student / cohort	Best-fit model	Why it fits
Students out of school — medical, anxiety-based non-attendance, LA placements needing an immediate provision	A Academy	A ready-built, structured timetable across core subjects that rebuilds a learning routine quickly, with learners in small national groups of six.
Internal intervention on your own schemes of work — flexible hours, during or outside the school day	B Blueprint	Built to your scheme of study and exam boards, your students' availability, ≤6 per group. You decide the hours; nothing is generic.
Raising attainment — grade 3–4 securing passes, grade 5–7 stretching higher, KS4 priority filtering into KS3	D Distinction	Reverse-planned from target grades with exam content prioritised — extra academic intervention in a delivery distinct from your classroom.
Higher-need SEND / EHCP learners needing individual accommodations	C Compass	SEN-informed 1:1 or very small group, with every accommodation shared with the assigned teacher so the student feels safe and builds confidence.

Category B — your headline model

Blueprint: your provision, taught by us

Blueprint is the model we shape entirely around Mercia Academy. You give us your schemes of work, your students' available times, and any learning needs or EHCPs; we build a bespoke course and teach it live, ≤6 to a group, at £29.17 per hour however many students are in the room.

How it works for you

Taught on your scheme of study and exam boards — not a generic curriculum.
One to six students per group; the hourly rate is the same whether two or six attend.
You set the hours — one hour a week, one hour per subject per day, whatever fits.
You add and remove students yourself, directly from your dashboard.
As program lead you get progress and gaps fed back to you — and you can steer us toward exam content or gap-filling as the course runs.

The Blueprint quality standard

Every Blueprint lesson is observed and scored live against a 10-point standard (each point scored 1–3, for a maximum of 30) — its North Star is behaviour and engagement.

1 Differentiation & age-related expectations

2 Behaviour management on your systems

3 Learner profiles & alignment

4 Understanding checks (CCQs / ICQs)

5 Engagement & interaction

6 Lesson structure (six-step)

7 Teacher energy & rapport

8 Professionalism

9 Low / no participation handled well

10 Student feedback report

10–15 immediate support16–22 developing23–27 established28–30 exemplary

Category D — raising achievement

Distinction: targeted intervention that moves grades

You told us the school is focused this year on academic achievement — raising its profile across Key Stage 4 and filtering down into Key Stage 3. Distinction is built for exactly that: extra academic intervention, in a delivery distinct from your own classroom, reverse-planned from each student's target grade.

Built around the grade you want to move

Grade 3–4 students — secure the pass: target the precise gaps between them and a grade 4/5.
Grade 5–7 students — stretch higher with exam-board-accurate teaching and mark-scheme modelling.
Groups of up to six, English, Maths, Science and beyond — matched by where students actually are, not by class.
Pacing reverse-planned from the exam date; QLA and mock data drive every session.

The Distinction quality standard

Distinction is observed and scored against a 6-point standard (each scored 1–3, for a maximum of 18) — its North Star is the curriculum: did the grade move.

1 Adaptability — every minute used with precision

2 Understanding — diagnose & close misconception

3 Presentation — exam-board accurate modelling

4 Professionalism

5 Engagement — practise over passive listening

6 Content & curriculum — reverse-planned from target

Castle Rock, in your own trust, uses Distinction for subject tutoring

What you asked to see most

How your trust already uses Purple Ruler

Mercia is the one Lionheart secondary we have not yet partnered with — we work with the rest of the family already, and each school has chosen the models that suit its own cohorts. Here is how some of them use us, and we are happy to connect you directly with colleagues who have run Blueprint and Distinction.

Academy → Blueprint

The Pioneers' Centre

Used the Academy model for students not in mainstream, then built her own Blueprint course — slightly fewer instructional hours, but more seats and the flexibility to move students in and out of a timetable she controls.

Distinction

The Castle Rock School

Uses Purple Ruler predominantly for subject tutoring — the Distinction model — to add academic intervention alongside their own teaching.

Blueprint

Newbridge & Humphrey Perkins

Run live Blueprint groups built on their own schemes of work — the same model we would shape for Mercia.

Across the trust, most schools use two or three of the four models depending on the cohort they are supporting — and we recently completed work with Martin High and Sir Jonathan North too. The best guide to what works for Mercia is your own colleagues, and we will share as many contacts as would be useful.

Oversight & reporting

A dashboard that gives you the full picture

Once a course is set up, you get an admin dashboard with complete oversight of every student learning with us — at home or on your school site.

What you can see and do

Active students and everyone who has accessed the provision overall.
Attendance status lesson by lesson, plus each student's overall attendance.
Individual session reports — content covered, engagement, strengths and areas to develop.
Internal teacher notes, the full attendance record, and the teachers' single central record.
Add or remove students yourself, and raise safeguarding or placement tickets directly.

Attendance that counts where it matters

For students accessing lessons on site in a hub, attendance can be recorded in your own registers, just like any in-school intervention. For home learners you always see whether each lesson was attended, and where attendance dips we make proactive contact — often it is simply a log-in issue we can resolve with the family.

And because you are the program lead, progress and the gaps our teachers identify are fed back to you, so you can steer the course — toward exam content or gap-filling — as it runs.

A simple way to start

A week of Academy lessons, on us

As you plan for next year, we would be glad to offer Mercia a week's worth of Academy lessons as a trial — so you and your team can see exactly how delivery works and decide which cohort of students to put forward first.

See live teaching, the dashboard and the reporting first-hand.
Get a feel for the right cohort and the right model for Mercia.
No commitment — a look before you decide anything.

What we will set up together next

A short Academy trial week for a group of your students.
A full written recap of all four models and the cohorts they suit.
Introductions to Lionheart colleagues who use Blueprint and Distinction.
A walkthrough of the dashboard and the enrolment process.

Why Purple Ruler

Ofsted-registered, SEND-strong, safe by design

"Purple Ruler meets all the minimum standards for online education." — Ofsted, October 2025 (meets all standards across all eight sections).

"A significant strength … the support staff provide for pupils with SEND — each pupil receives carefully tailored, individualised teaching."
"Staff help pupils to reignite their spark for learning … a calm and nurturing online environment."
Delivering live since 2016 — 100,000+ students across 33 countries; 350+ secondary schools and 44 local authorities.

Safeguarding & data protection

All teachers vetted and KCSIE-trained, with a single central record visible to you.
Named DSL and safeguarding ticketing built into your dashboard.
A Data Protection Impact Assessment and Letter of Assurance provided for the school.
Commissioning & Compliance Pack — insurance, policies and key contacts — shared on request.

Online provision, built around your students and your schemes of work.