Bales College was first registered as a co-educational school in 1989 by the present proprietor and is based on a single site near Kensal Green in North West London. The college was founded in 1966 and formerly known as the Modern Tutorial College. The college is registered to provide for up to 56 students aged between 13 and 18 years of age with boarding/residential provision for those of sixth form age. Currently there are 93 students on roll, of whom 43 are of sixth form age and eight are boarders. Most students join the college having started their secondary education at other schools with around a quarter of students coming from overseas. Many join to retake their GCSE and A-level qualifications seeking to improve on their previous results. A small minority of students speak English as an additional language with a few of these in the early stages of learning English. There are currently no pupils with a statement of special educational needs. The college’s motto is ‘perseverance’ and it aims to ‘provide students with an academically rigorous, socially responsible education which will see them develop into inspirational young people’. The college makes use of a local sports centre for teaching physical education. The last full inspection of the education provision was in September 2010 when the quality of education was judged as satisfactory but welfare, health and safety were found to be inadequate. An inspection of further education residential (known as boarding) provision in October 2011 also found that arrangements for students' welfare were inadequate. A joint boarding and education progress monitoring visit took place in March 2011 when inspectors found the school had made limited progress in addressing the concerns raised and a number of education regulations and national minimum standards for residential provision in further education colleges remained unmet. A further progress monitoring inspecting of boarding took place in April 2012 when the school’s progress in addressing the areas of concern was judged to be satisfactory, however, several national minimum standards remained unmet and further recommendations were identified. Since the last full inspection of the college and boarding staffing changes include the official appointment of the boarding supervisor and, in June 2013 the appointment of two vice principals. The proprietor is also the headteacher.