Objections, answered
The questions you would ask on a call.
Answered the way they would be answered on that call. An objection conceded up front converts better than one dragged out under questioning.
Nobody has heard of RISEA. This certificate carries no weight with Estyn or with commissioners.
Correct, and we never claim it does. It is not an external accreditation and we say so on every page that mentions it, including the certification page itself, before anybody asks.
What it actually is: your staff trained and assessed against a documented, evidence-based standard for communicating with newcomers and ESOL learners. That is inspection-ready evidence of staff development and learner support, which is a real thing inspectors ask about. A signed self-assessment plus a written findings report is a more concrete answer than most organisations can give.
It is not a substitute for a regulator's opinion and it does not pretend to be one.
What does it cost, and how do I buy it?
£500, £1,500 or £3,000 a year, depending on tier. What each tier includes is published in full.
To buy it: email contact@riseainternational.co.uk with your organisation, the tier and your billing details. You get a written quotation within five working days that you can attach to a requisition. Raise a purchase order against it. Materials are supplied on receipt of the purchase order, not on payment.
All three tiers sit below the threshold at which a college or council needs to run a tender. There is no procurement exercise to survive.
This is one person. What happens if she is ill, or stops?
A fair question and the honest answer is that this is a genuine risk you are taking. There is no depth of cover behind me today.
What reduces it: what you licence is materials and a written standard, supplied to you as documents. You hold them. Your own staff deliver the training. If I disappeared tomorrow, your people would still have the materials they were trained on and the standard they were assessed against, for the term of the licence.
What it does not reduce: the annual audit and the certificate renewal depend on me. If that is unacceptable for your governance, Canon Aware at £500 — which is self-assessment based — carries less of that dependency than the audited tiers do.
Half of what you are selling is not built yet.
Some of it is not, and it is listed on the buyer information page rather than left for you to find. The training slides, workbook, evidence templates and badge are in production. The assessment framework is at version 0.1.
No paid audit will be run against a draft framework. If you buy Canon Aware now you are buying into something being finished, at a price that reflects that, and you should weigh it accordingly.
The materials themselves do exist. Chapter 1 is free to read in full, so that part you can judge today rather than take on trust.
We already fund ESOL provision. Why would we buy this as well?
You should not buy it instead of ESOL. It does not do the same job and it is not a replacement for funded provision.
Funded ESOL teaches language, and it teaches it well. What it does not cover is the unwritten social layer — the situations where a learner understood every word and still did not know what was meant. That gap is what this addresses, and it sits alongside classroom provision rather than competing for the same budget line.
The second half is about your staff rather than your learners. Reception, housing, safeguarding and line managers are having these conversations daily with no training in how to have them.
Are there case studies, or references I can speak to?
No. There are no completed implementations yet, so there are no case studies and no referees. There are also no testimonials on this site, and there will not be invented ones.
What there is instead: the actual material, published free and in full, and the citation base the work is built on, including sources that cut against our position. Judge the thing rather than the reviews of it, because for now the thing is all there is.
Would this make you a subcontractor under our funding rules?
No, and the wording on this site is careful about it because the distinction has real consequences for you.
DfE subcontracting funding rules define delivery subcontracting as delivery to a learner's programme of learning by a separate legal entity. RISEA supplies licensed materials and a standard. Your tutors teach, on your programmes, to your learners. Nothing is delivered to a learner's programme of learning by us.
The same rules explicitly exclude relationships with third parties providing services. The colleges page sets this out in more detail, with the source.
Can you advise our clients on their immigration position?
No, and nobody at RISEA will, ever. Advising a particular person on their immigration position is a criminal offence unless the adviser is regulated by the Immigration Advice Authority or is legally qualified.
Everything published is general information and signposting. Never “in your case”. The same line is held for legal and financial questions, and anything medical points people to NHS 111.
Why is there no phone number?
Because there is one person answering, and a phone number that rings out is worse than no phone number.
Email contact@riseainternational.co.uk and you get a reply from a named human within five working days — that is one of our published social value commitments, not a hope. If a conversation would be quicker, say so in the email and we will arrange a time.