What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Leaders and managers should ensure that they strengthen further their focus on raising standards at the Yorkshire Coast College campus so that all learners enjoy the same high-quality experience.
Improve the quality of written feedback that learners receive so that it is consistently helpful in enabling learners to improve the quality of their written work.
Despite the fact that the achievement rate for FE FT students continues to be above target and above the sector average, the trend in achievement rates for the past three years is decreasing i.e. from 71.4% in 2015/16 to 70.1% in 2016/17 down to 68.3% in 2017/18.
In 2017-18, SRUC’s official return for care experienced students indicates relatively low numbers i.e. 7 declared at enrolment with 4 being successful. However internal figures suggest the actual rates are higher and that SRUC experienced a significant increase in the number of FE students declaring that they were care experienced i.e. 46, of which, 24 (52%) successfully achieved their qualifications. Unfortunately, a high proportion of these students withdrew from their programmes, which ultimately affected the success rates for the group, which is 5.2pp below the sector outcome (57.2%) for 2016-17. Reasons for the discrepancy in recording (and potentially the high withdrawal rates) warrants further investigation and follow up action.
What does the provider need to do to improve further
Teachers on 16 to 19 study programmes should plan and use learning activities that challenge the most able learners to extend their knowledge and understanding, so that they make the progress of which they are capable.
Leaders and managers should ensure that their evaluation of the quality of education and training accurately identifies the areas for improvement.
Leaders and managers must ensure that, where the quality of education and training is not of a high enough standard, they set precise actions and targets, so that they make the required improvements more rapidly.
Increase the oversight of the wider curriculum to identify gaps in what students and apprentices know about health and well-being and to increase participation in the wide range of enrichment opportunities available to them.
Ensure that the actions to improve the attendance of students enrolled on education programmes for young people are effective.
Ensure that a greater proportion of students on education programmes for young people benefit from meaningful work placements.
Improve the approach to the management of subcontractors to ensure that the college values are fully reflected in the implementation of the curriculum at all of these providers.
What does the college need to do to improve further?
Increase the success rates on the few underperforming college-based courses and in functional-skills qualifications. Raise the proportion of A* to C grades in GCSE in English and mathematics.
Ensure that all teaching and learning, in all subjects and during review weeks, are of a consistently high standard and challenge all students.
Be more consistent in setting more challenging and aspirational targets for students to ensure that they make even better progress.
Ensure that learning support assistants are deployed to classes where they are most needed and that they are used to maximum effect to benefit students.
Ensure that governors have the skills and knowledge to be able to challenge more rigorously areas of students’ achievement and teaching and learning.
Increase the proportion of students who take part in work experience related to the subjects they study and to their career aims.
Teachers should teach students more about the importance of how British values relate to their lives and living in London.
Teachers should use strategies to check that students are learning and building their knowledge in a subject. Where students are not doing this, teachers should ensure that they adapt their lessons so that all students are learning.
Use all available information about previous learning for students on college-ready programmes, and for adults and apprentices, to develop specific, individual knowledge and skills. Monitor closely the progress that students and apprentices make in developing these knowledge and skills.
Develop the assessment of students’ and apprentices’ knowledge and skills to ensure that young people, including those with education, health and care plans on college-ready programmes, and apprentices, know what progress they have made and what they still need to master.
Improve the usefulness of the feedback that teachers provide to young people and apprentices on their work, so they know what they need to do better.
Develop additional appropriate enrichment opportunities and careers advice and guidance for adults and apprentices, so that they have an improved understanding of their chosen sectors and opportunities for employment and further and higher education in these sectors, or more widely in their communities.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
All staff and governors should maintain the focus and momentum of quality improvement initiatives to consolidate progress and establish higher standards of provision.
Teachers should instil in all students suitable behaviour and attitudes to learning, to enable them to make better progress. In particular they should:
adopt a more consistent approach with students who are absent and late, or arrive to lessons without the required equipment
ensure that students remove any physical barriers that might prevent them engaging fully in lessons, in particular coats, hats, hoods and bags
adopt and enforce a cross-college approach and set of expectations as to how students maintain their folders and/or notebooks, to ensure that they compile an orderly and comprehensive record from which they can revise effectively.
Teachers should ensure that they plan lessons that engage and motivate students more, and cater appropriately for the wide range of abilities, so that all students are able to make good progress.
Managers should significantly increase the opportunities students have to do work experience, to support the development of their work-related skills.
Managers should focus resources in particular on those more poorly performing subject areas, to ensure that the staff teams have the development, guidance and support they need to raise standards in those areas.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Leaders and managers should ensure that they strengthen further their focus on raising standards at the Yorkshire Coast College campus so that all learners enjoy the same high-quality experience.
Improve the quality of written feedback that learners receive so that it is consistently helpful in enabling learners to improve the quality of their written work.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Raise pass rates on courses leading to national qualifications by making sure that learners are on the most appropriate courses and that they receive excellent feedback to help them progress.
Provide additional information and training to staff on how to include more opportunities for learners to develop their skills in English and mathematics.
Identify the resources in information and learning technology best suited to the learners and train staff to use the resources effectively and to share good practice.
Leaders, managers, and governors must improve the oversight of safeguarding by:
ensuring that designated safeguarding leads and officers undertake training to enable them to record and monitor incidents accurately
improving the training for staff to ensure they all use the central system to report and raise concerns consistently.
Leaders and managers should ensure that all teachers and assessors accurately assess learners’ starting points and use this information to inform their teaching Leaders and managers should ensure that teachers and assessors provide sufficient feedback to enable learners to achieve to the level of which they are capable
Leaders and managers should ensure that attendance in a few subjects, including English and mathematics, improves.
Leaders must evaluate fully the reasons why students leave their programme early. Leaders must take remedial action rapidly, so that more students remain on their programme and achieve their qualifications.
Leaders must act swiftly to improve the quality of education in a small number of A-level science subjects, so that students complete their qualifications and achieve the high grades of which they are capable.
Leaders should ensure that the personal coaching sessions that students receive meet students’ individual needs. Coaches need to work with students routinely to identify the broader skills they need to develop. Coaches must support students to develop these skills through better-quality teaching that interests all students.
Leaders must ensure that all students know the full range of options available to them on completion of their studies. Leaders must share information on apprenticeships and employment with all students, so they are better informed about their next steps.
Leaders and managers must ensure that young people studying on the traineeship programmes and apprentices take part in discussions with employers so that they are prepared fully for their work placements.
Leaders and managers must ensure that staff plan and teach mathematics lessons that include sufficient content to challenge learners so that they know and remember more and leads to improved levels of qualification achievement.
Leaders and managers must involve employers more in the planning and implementation of the traineeship programmes and apprenticeships so that employers know how to support learners and apprentices to increase their knowledge and improve their skills at work.
Leaders and managers must monitor closely the quality of education provided for adults so that they identify swiftly areas for improvement and take robust remedial actions to improve the quality of the provision.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Teachers and assessors, particularly in A-level provision and English and mathematics GCSE courses, should improve the quality of teaching learning and assessment by:
using the information from students’ starting points to develop learning that challenges the most able to make the progress of which they are capable
providing clear feedback to all students on what they need to do to improve.
Managers of English and mathematics GCSE courses should improve the progress of students by:
ensuring that teachers record the in-year attainment of all students and that staff and students have a shared and common understanding of the actions for improvement for students who fall behind
ensuring that they have a comprehensive understanding of the progress that students are making online and in the hub, and that these additional forms of study are leading to rapid progress
Leaders and managers should improve pupils’, students’ and apprentices’ attendance on the courses where rates are too low.
Leaders need to appoint expert staff to teach apprentices to ensure that they can make progress and achieve their qualifications in a timely manner.
Leaders need to improve the quality of feedback teachers provide to learners, to ensure that all learners, including apprentices and learners with high needs know how to improve their work.
Leaders need to ensure that staff accurately track the progress that all learners with high needs make on specialist programmes. They need to provide these learners with the advice and guidance they need to plan their next steps in education and work.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Leaders and managers should continue to implement their well-conceived strategies to further improve the proportion of students who achieve their qualifications.
Managers should ensure that more students and apprentices are able to improve their skills in English and mathematics and achieve their GCSE qualifications, in line with their specific targets.
Leaders and managers should further improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in the small minority of lessons where students make insufficiently rapid progress by ensuring that:
teachers provide sufficient challenge to the most able students, so that they make good progress and achieve or exceed their target grades
all students and apprentices are set aspirational targets, taking into account their starting points.
Managers should continue to increase opportunities for external work experience placements for vocational students, particularly for those at level 2, so that they are able to learn about and experience work in their vocational area. This should include increasing the number of supported internships for students in receipt of high-needs funding.
Managers should take effective steps to ensure that students’ attendance improves further, across all subjects, to increase their opportunities to make good progress.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Managers should identify areas for improvement swiftly and accurately to arrest the decline in learners’ achievement of qualifications.
Teachers should set learners specific, measurable and increasingly challenging targets, and monitor their progress towards achieving these rigorously, to ensure sustained improvements in learners’ achievements over time.
Teachers should make sure that activities enable learners of all abilities to achieve the highest grades of which they are capable, especially in provision for 14- to 16-year-old learners and vocational study programmes.
Teachers should ensure that learners understand the importance of English and mathematics as part of their programme and they should support learners to attend lessons and achieve qualifications in these subjects.
Managers and teachers should ensure that apprentices complete and achieve their functional skills qualifications more quickly. Across the whole of their apprenticeship programme, teachers should set targets for the skills and knowledge apprentices need to develop and closely monitor apprentices’ progress in completing these.
Ensure that the quality of teaching and learning is consistently good across the college so that the proportion of students and apprentices who achieve their qualifications increases significantly.
Make sure that students benefit from effective teaching in their English and mathematics lessons and that they maintain good attendance in these lessons.
Improve the curriculum for students in receipt of high needs funding on the discrete programme to ensure that it is suitably personalised and ambitious and involves work-based experience.
Ensure that students understand the risks of radicalisation and extremism at college, at work and in their everyday lives.
Make sure that students benefit from a well-planned and continuing careers education curriculum that will help them to plan their future pathways.
Promote the planned enrichment activities to ensure that students participate in wider learning that will enable them to broaden their horizons and interests and become active citizens.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Ensure the continued improvement of teaching, learning and assessment, so that most is outstanding, and little requires improvement. Do this by building on the existing best practice of teachers, especially in outstanding areas of performance, in meeting the needs of all learners in lessons, and paying particular attention to providing sufficient challenge for more able learners. Help teachers to become fully accomplished in the use of information technology, to support learning as well as possible in lessons.
Ensure college-wide improvement in teaching, learning and assessment in foundation English and mathematics, and increase learners’ successful completion of qualifications in these subjects, by providing all teachers with the necessary skills and confidence to help learners improve. In particular, make sure that teachers improve learners’ understanding of the relevance of English and mathematical skills by integrating them into vocational studies, and by emphasising their importance in achieving qualifications, employment and places in higher education. Further ensure that teachers fully exploit naturally occurring opportunities in lessons to reinforce the relevance of English and mathematics, and that they always provide constructive feedback to learners on these aspects of their written work.
Ensure the continued and consistent improvement of learners’ successful completion by rigorous application of existing detailed quality improvement plans, both for level 2 courses for adults and for those AS-level subjects where success rates are low. In particular, build on the college’s best practice, in relation to initial advice and guidance for learners, and to personalised action plans for learners, after their probationary period.
Although the College’s student population has an overall gender balance that is 50:50 male-female, courses in specific subjects such as Hairdressing, Beauty, Construction and Care do not all reflect this balance. Further action is required to address this and make progress towards meeting national targets.
Although attainment rates are very high across all student categories and subjects, well above regional targets and generally at or above 70% across the various groups, there is further potential to improve outcomes to maintain consistently very high attainment rates across all groups and subjects.
The College should monitor the effectiveness and impact of its new approaches for Learning Support and Extended learning support. In line with national policy, the College should monitor the effectiveness and impact of the new British Sign Language Plan.
Although outcomes for students are already very high across diverse groups of students, the College would benefit from drawing on best practice from the wider UK college sector to further enhance outcomes.
Leaders must ensure that all apprentices who require English and mathematics as part of their course receive high-quality teaching to help them develop these skills swiftly and achieve the qualifications within the planned time frame.
Leaders must ensure that teachers identify swiftly the gaps in learners’ and apprentices’ knowledge – including in English and mathematics – and use this information to plan teaching, so that learners catch up and make the progress that they should.
Leaders must ensure that adult learners receive helpful information and guidance about their next steps to ensure that they are able to make informed decisions about their future careers.
Ensure that all learners who have high needs receive the individual support to enable them to flourish.
Leaders must ensure that, where provided, teachers’ written feedback is sufficiently helpful to enable learners to improve their work.
Leaders must ensure that all learners and apprentices have the knowledge to protect themselves from extremist activity in their local communities.
Leaders should ensure that teachers have high expectations of students to attend their lessons punctually. They should establish a consistent approach to rectifying poor punctuality so that students understand what is expected of them in all taught sessions.
Teachers in vocational subjects should plan to improve students’ English and mathematical skills so that they understand how to apply these confidently within the vocational context. Teachers should ensure that students with high needs improve their skills in English and mathematics throughout their programmes.
Managers and teachers should take further action to improve students’ attendance at English and mathematics lessons.
Leaders and managers should ensure that employers in health and social care apprenticeships and in subcontracted provision have a good understanding of the requirements of apprenticeship programmes. They should monitor carefully that apprentices receive their entitlement to off-the-job training.
Managers should ensure that students with high needs, adult students and apprentices receive detailed and helpful feedback on their work, so that they know what they need to do to improve.
Ensure that a higher proportion of learners who have high needs and for whom employment is an appropriate next step progress into paid work when they leave the college.
Improve the attendance of learners where it is too low.
Ensure that assessors help apprentices in health and social care to develop the new knowledge that they need to be successful at work and in their apprenticeship.
Improve assessment in the few areas where it is not good enough so that lecturers have an accurate understanding of the knowledge that learners are missing and can use it to inform future teaching activities.
What does South West College need to do to improve further?
The College needs to:
continue to implement the strategy to enhance the quality of teaching, training and learning and to provide the lecturers, including part-time lecturers, with appropriate professional support to develop further their pedagogic skills.
