Bath College Inspection Recommendations

Bath College

Improve the teaching of theory lessons to motivate and enthuse learners to make more rapid progress by:
- providing a wide range of relevant activities, and introducing new concepts and information at a suitable pace to deepen learners’ understanding, knowledge and skills
- developing learners’ English and mathematical skills in vocational settings
- frequently checking learners’ understanding of what they are learning.
Ensure that staff across the college make thorough use of the information they have about their learners to plan and set work that challenges them to make rapid progress, and achieve the highest grades of which they are capable.

Accelerate the sharing of outstanding practice in teaching, learning and assessment to improve outcomes for students still further.
Ensure that planning for teaching, learning and assessment in lessons is always rigorous and precise, so that learning activities are more consistent in meeting the needs of individual students fully and in providing appropriate levels of pace and challenge.
Integrate opportunities for students to participate actively throughout lessons by using a range of strategies to stimulate their thinking, involvement and contribution from an early stage.
Build on teachers’ training in incorporating equality and diversity themes into teaching, learning and assessment, to enable all students to gain a better understanding of equality and diversity beyond their immediate experience.
Make sure that teachers know and understand how to prepare for, and teach, functional skills in English and mathematics, so that:
- students are consistently motivated and interested and can apply their knowledge and practise the techniques in the context of their vocational learning
- students achieve well and improve their capabilities for gaining employment or progression.
Develop a more complete management overview of performance in functional skills to enable more thorough monitoring and evaluation of performance across the range of subject areas.

Improve success rates by ensuring that all lessons are appropriately demanding for individual students. Ensure that students are involved throughout lessons and that the learning of all students is checked effectively.
Improve the standard of students’ work by more consistently relating feedback on their written work to criteria for gaining merits and distinctions.
Ensure that the curriculum best meets the needs of students and employers by improving links with employers and creating more opportunities for students to have work experience.

Improve students’ success rates, progress and the standards they achieve through consistently good teaching and learning.
Improve the quality of lower performing areas by sharing good practice with higher performing areas more effectively.
Ensure that lessons meet the individual needs of students by providing appropriate interest and challenge to stimulate students’ ambition well. Incorporate ILT into lessons appropriately.
Improve the lesson observation process by having subject specialists take part in the observations of lessons. Monitor observation records and action plans for improvement to ensure they are all specific and well focused.
Further develop links with employers to provide work-experience opportunities in curriculum areas where it is underdeveloped.

The college should address:

unsatisfactory key skills provision
too much dull teaching
poor target setting and monitoring of progress
narrow range of provision at levels 1 and 2
inconsistent practice in tutorials
some poor accommodation and information and learning technology (ILT) resources
ineffective use of lesson observation scheme to raise standards in teaching and learning
underdeveloped strategic approach to employer engagement
ineffective governance.