Oaklands College Inspection Recommendations

Oaklands College

Leaders must develop robust and accurate processes to identify weaknesses in their apprenticeship provision. They must then take decisive action to ensure that employers and apprentices benefit from high-quality training which is relevant to their job roles.
Leaders must ensure that apprentices and adults benefit from ongoing high-quality careers advice and guidance, so that they understand and know how to achieve the job roles and careers they seek upon completion of their courses.
Leaders must ensure that learners on the supported internship course benefit from meaningful work experience placements that reflect their needs and interests. Learners must be enabled to develop the skills they require to gain sustainable jobs that interest them.
Leaders must ensure that learners who require occupational and physiotherapy services have access to them in a timely way and become independent learners.
Leaders must ensure that apprentices understand how the radical views and extremist behaviour of others may impact on their personal and working lives. Apprentices need to understand that the work they do may result in them being at risk from terrorist activity.

Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and outcomes for learners by putting in place actions to ensure that:
- teachers have high expectations of what their learners can achieve, and routinely challenge learners and apprentices to deepen their knowledge and understanding
- teachers provide effective learning activities that stretch and motivate learners and enable them to make good progress with their studies
- all staff challenge learners on study programmes and those on English and mathematics courses to develop work-ready attitudes, including attending their lessons regularly and on time.
Improve the rigour of performance management to ensure that:
- managers hold staff to account effectively where learners’ outcomes and progress are not good enough
- leaders set and record precise actions to improve staff performance and they review them regularly.
Improve the monitoring of learners’ progress, and put in place challenging and timely targets that help struggling learners to catch up with their studies.
Urgently ensure that learners and apprentices understand how to keep themselves safe from the risks of radicalisation and extremism.
Provide governors with relevant information so they are able to support and challenge leaders effectively to strengthen the quality of the provision.

Review the planning and sequencing of course delivery, especially in plumbing, to ensure that learners develop knowledge, understanding and practical skills in a more meaningful, logical and systematic way.
Plan assessment visits more effectively to ensure that employers’, learners’ and assessors’ time is used more efficiently and that the required portfolio evidence can be collected.
Enhance communication with employers by ensuring a timely response to any feedback received.
Build on the progress made in improving curriculum management to drive further improvements in course management, to enhance the planning and coordination of courses and to improve the quality of provision.

Ensure learners complete all the required components of the apprenticeship frameworks within the agreed timescale by monitoring rigorously all aspects of qualification requirements against planned assessment dates.
Share best practice in assessment practice, tracking, monitoring and in portfolio building so that all staff use a more consistent and high quality approach in each vocational area.
Complete learners’ reviews at frequent intervals and within the contractual requirements, so that all learners know the extent of their achievement. Ensure that targets set are specific and have a completion date so that all learners know what to do to progress and achieve.
Clarify roles and responsibilities of staff and ensure that managers monitor staff performance against clearly defined criteria.
Implement robust quality assurance arrangements to ensure the effective monitoring of subject area performance, the accuracy of records and the efficient and effective deployment of staff.

Urgently implement the planned actions to secure improvement to employer responsive provision in the construction sector subject area. Ensure learners’ progress reviews set clear targets for learners to achieve and improve learners understanding of health and safety and equality and diversity.
Raise success rates on key skill courses and on short courses by improving course management and monitoring arrangements, and by developing staff assessment skills and expertise with regards to these qualifications.
Urgently complete equality impact assessments and develop greater consistency in the promotion and reinforcement of equality and diversity within curriculum areas.
Increase achievement rates on long courses by providing more detailed advice about how students can further improve their learning and ensuring the pace of learning in all lessons enables learners to be engaged, motivated and challenged so they make good progress.
Raise success rates on Train to Gain and work-based learning programmes by implementing robust procedures to monitor the progress of learners. Ensure that planned teaching and assessment activity take place and that progress reviews inform learners of the actions they need to complete for them to achieve in a timely manner.
Make the management information system less difficult to use and more accessible to managers so they are able to analyse data in greater detail and use the information to target improvement more effectively.

The college should address:

ineffective arrangements for developing learners’ key skills
insufficient teaching which is good or better
insufficient use of ILT in teaching and learning
insufficient opportunities for enrichment
unsatisfactory accommodation in a minority of curriculum areas
inadequate review of the performance of learners of minority ethnic heritage in curriculum areas.