What does the Southern Regional College need to do to improve further?
The College needs to:
take a more strategic approach to the longer term planning for the curriculum, to ensure that it continues to fully meet the needs of learners, industry and the wider community;
improve the use of technology to support and enhance the quality of teaching, training and learning across the College;
further improve the quality of teaching and learning in the provision for the essential skills; and
address the satisfactory quality of the provision in transportation operations and maintenance (motor vehicle).
Ensure that all teachers on adult English and mathematics courses plan a sufficiently demanding curriculum that challenges learners to achieve high grades in their qualifications.
Ensure that the curriculum for apprentices, particularly those in engineering and health and social care, develops their knowledge, skills and behaviours quickly.
Ensure that adult learners on English and mathematics courses and apprentices in engineering attend their courses regularly.
Ensure that learners and apprentices develop a good understanding of radicalisation and extremism and how it applies to them.
Improve the quality of education for apprentices by:
identifying the starting points of apprentices more accurately, so that skills trainers can plan and teach programmes that enable apprentices to develop substantial new knowledge, skills and behaviours
developing more effective links with employers so that they are fully involved in the planning of on-the-job training
ensuring that managers provide more rigorous scrutiny of the progress that apprentices make in the development of their knowledge, skills and behaviours
providing all apprentices with the opportunity to receive careers advice.
Ensure that all teachers and learning support assistants have secure knowledge in the subjects they teach and in which they provide support.
Increase the attendance of learners at English and mathematics lessons.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Ensure students are set specific and measurable targets to enable them to make excellent progress and achieve higher grades, especially adult male students.
Improve the quality and consistency of feedback on marked written work so that students know what they need to do to improve.
Provide a broad range of challenging activities in lessons to meet the differing needs and abilities of students and help them to achieve their full potential.
Ensure teachers’ action plans following lesson observations contain specific and timely interventions to promote rapid improvement in teaching, learning and assessment practice.
Ensure all students aged 16 to 18 with the appropriate prior attainment have the opportunity to take GCSE English and mathematics in order to improve their employment prospects.
Ensure all teachers routinely promote diversity in lessons to enable students to understand wider cultural values.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Leaders and managers need to rapidly improve the proportion of learners who pass their qualifications by ensuring that:
significantly more learners achieve the high-grade passes that their prior attainment suggests they are capable of, rather than just passing their qualifications
teachers and managers closely monitor the progress of learners and intervene appropriately when learners fail to meet their deadlines
managers support teachers to improve their teaching practice quickly so that more learners stay at college and enjoy their learning
learners of all ages attend their classes.
Improve the monitoring of learners’ next steps to better understand the impact courses have on the lives and future careers of learners.
Provide good-quality careers advice for learners so that they can make informed and timely choices about their next steps.
Ensure that learners with high needs develop their independent living skills to enable them to participate fully in college life and their community.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Improve further the quality of teaching, learning and assessment to ensure that teachers inspire and motivate learners to achieve their very best, enabling a higher proportion of them to achieve their qualifications, particularly younger learners at levels 1 and 2.
Ensure that teachers help learners to develop their skills in English and mathematics by providing them with strategies to improve the specific skills in which they are not yet proficient.
Improve further learners’ attendance and punctuality at lessons by setting high expectations for attendance, intervening swiftly when learners do not attend and supporting learners to attend most of their lessons.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Ensure that more learners make swift progress in improving their skills and achieving their qualifications in English and mathematics, by:
focusing managers’ and teachers’ actions more effectively on improving the support provided for functional skills
ensuring that all learners attend their classes in English and mathematics regularly and punctually
continuing to make improvements to the teaching, learning and assessment of GCSEs and functional skills.
Make sure that teachers set, monitor and review precise and ambitious targets for learners and apprentices that enable them to make rapid progress, particularly for the most able.
Reduce the variability in achievement between different groups of apprentices, by monitoring the performance of these apprentices carefully, identifying reasons for non-achievement and taking prompt action to address these.
Strengthen teachers’ regular use of a wide range of assessment techniques in lessons. Ensure that teachers use these to check frequently on students’ learning and progress and reshape their lessons appropriately to accelerate the pace, increase the level of challenge and deepen understanding where appropriate.
Promote students’ development of English and mathematics by reinforcing correct use of language, technical vocabulary spelling, reading, writing and use of mathematical skills in subject-based lessons. Ensure that teachers correct spelling and grammar consistently in written work.
Sharpen the effectiveness of students’ short-term targets in individual learning plans to help them accelerate the progress they make.
Make full use of opportunities to develop students’ learning about cultural differences.
Ensure the management of apprenticeships is more effective by monitoring their progress rigorously, strengthening the link between training and assessment and ensuring employers and learners understand the programme fully
Leaders should ensure that employers are routinely involved in the planning of on- and off-the-job training and reviews of their apprentices to support apprentices to make the progress of which they are capable.
Leaders should identify what apprentices already know and can do at the start of their programme and use this information to ensure they plan a challenging and individualised curriculum.
Leaders should review the curriculum for learners with high needs on the ‘choices’ programme to ensure it is challenging and prepares them for future learning or work.
Leaders should ensure that they put appropriate actions in place to ensure learners with low attendance attend college regularly.
Continue the sustained improvements that have already been made to the success rates for functional skills English and mathematics qualifications.
Analyse data in greater depth to identify where learners should be achieving better grades and intervene swiftly to improve performance.
Increase the thoroughness of progress monitoring for learners to ensure that targets are challenging and that learners know what they need to do to succeed and are supported to achieve their full potential.
Ensure that all managers identify and are familiar with key headline data and targets relevant to the provision that they manage.
Provide more support to enable teachers to challenge poor behaviour or inappropriate use of language. Ensure that the diversity within the community is celebrated more routinely and consistently well in teaching sessions.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Leaders and managers should use data more effectively to analyse the progress, performance and achievement of all students so that they can quickly identify any areas of concern and take rapid action to bring about improvements.
Leaders should take steps to close the gaps in the achievements of different groups of students who do not follow study programmes at level 3. In particular, they should ensure that:
students on study programmes at levels 1 and 2 and adults who have a recognised learning difficulty and/or disability receive the support that they need so that they achieve as well as their peers
the proportion of male students who achieve improves.
Governors and leaders should take effective action to resolve the remaining differences in the quality of provision and the outcomes for students at the two campuses by ensuring that good practice is shared effectively and areas of underperformance are dealt with swiftly. In particular, they should ensure that the proportion of students who remain on their courses at the Stockton campus continues to improve.
Leaders and managers should ensure that the starting points for all apprentices are accurately assessed and are used to inform learning plans that challenge apprentices and support them to make the progress of which they are capable.
Leaders and managers should identify apprentices’ English and mathematics skill levels promptly at the start of their apprenticeship and provide relevant training to support their continued development.
Leaders and managers should continue to refine the monitoring of apprentices’ progress to ensure that all apprentices make good progress towards completing their apprenticeship by the expected completion date.
Leaders should ensure that learners in receipt of high-needs funding are able to participate in a broader range of work experience activities, to enable them to gain a wider understanding of opportunities available to them in the world of work.
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 rapidly improve the curriculum and support for all learners with high needs and ensure that staff use effective strategies and interventions so that learners achieve their potential.
Governors must focus their support and challenge to better hold leaders to account so that they ensure improvements to the quality of education for learners and apprentices.
Leaders must ensure that all learners and apprentices are supported to retain what they have been taught about understanding the signs of and risks associated with radicalisation and extremism.
Leaders must ensure that they identify and respond effectively to the skills needs of stakeholders, developing the curriculum offer and providing appropriate high-quality education and training where required.
Ensure that staff communicate effectively with employers throughout the apprenticeship programme so that they know the progress that apprentices are making and can support them to achieve within the planned timescales.
Make sure that the quality of teaching in mathematics is of a consistently high standard so that the proportion of learners achieving their qualifications improves.
Improve learners and apprentices’ attendance in English and mathematics lessons in line with college expectations.
Increase the contribution employers make to the planning, development and teaching of the curriculum, in particular in electrical installation and childcare programmes, so that the taught curriculum meets the specific needs of these sectors.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Improve the effectiveness of lesson observations by ensuring that that they include clear judgements on learning and assessment, and that they lead to effective action for improvement.
Make more effective use of the results of initial assessment to plan lessons that meet all learners’ needs.
Improve the use of learning technology including interactive whiteboards, to enliven lessons, involve learners more fully in their learning, and promote learning through a wider range of audio and visual resources.
Make better use of the self-assessment process and report by identifying strengths and areas for improvement in more detail, and ensuring that the report leads to a more ambitious action plan that drives quality improvement, particularly in teaching, learning and assessment.
Improve arrangements to ensure the security of staff and safety of learners, especially younger learners and vulnerable adults, by carrying out a thorough assessment of risks and taking all reasonable steps to minimise these risks, particularly in the café and reception area.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Implement fully, actions to ensure that teachers promote good or better progress for all learners within and outside lessons by ensuring teachers:
have consistently high expectations of all learners to encourage them to achieve their full potential
focus specifically on skills development rather than the completion of tasks, providing feedback of a consistently high quality to learners on the standard of their work, so that they know more precisely what they need to do to improve their performance
measure learners’ progress more frequently and thoroughly, and use challenging targets to help learners achieve their potential.
Reinforce clearly the expectations of vocational teachers in developing English skills across all subjects and support them to become confident and expert in these. Improve further learners’ English and mathematical skills through skilful use of vocational examples in learning and improve the teaching and learning of English by the specialist team.
Develop further the offer and increase the uptake of work experience so that all learners on vocational courses have a real experience of work.
Improve the way in which managers use the full range of data available to them to self-assess more accurately the relationship between outcomes data and the quality of teaching and learning.
Improve attendance rates, particularly in English and mathematics lessons for adults and for a minority of study-programme learners, by ensuring that teachers promote the importance of attendance effectively and managers follow up absenteeism assiduously to ensure that all students attend their lessons regularly and promptly.
Leaders and managers should address the weaknesses in teaching, learning and assessment in the subject areas where performance is persistently low. Teachers and assessors should plan learning carefully by taking into account the starting points of their students and apprentices so that learning activities challenge them and extend their knowledge, skills and understanding.
Leaders and managers should ensure that assessors and employers carefully review the progress that apprentices make on electro-technical programmes, and joinery and accounting courses and swiftly make the necessary interventions where they do not make the expected progress.
Leaders must ensure that all apprenticeship programmes are designed to ensure that apprentices develop significant new knowledge, skills and behaviours over the course of their programmes and that their learning is linked well with their role in the workplace.
Leaders must ensure the work that all learners and apprentices are given to complete is sufficiently demanding to provide them with the opportunity to achieve their best.
Leaders must ensure that governors receive appropriately robust information on all incidents related to safeguarding to allow them to hold leaders to account effectively.
Leaders must ensure that all learners’ and apprentices’ understanding of topics related to life in modern Britain is well developed and that they know how to protect themselves from extremist activity.
Leaders must focus on tackling the below-target attendance across the college, with a sharp focus on the minority of courses where attendance is particularly low.
Leaders must ensure that all learners and apprentices receive useful information on the potential careers available to them upon completion of their course to enable them to make an informed decision about their next steps.
Ensure that teachers challenge those students who arrive late for their lessons and encourage those students with poor attendance to attend their lessons more frequently.
Support all teachers to plan the delivery of their subject and curriculum in a way that enables students to build on their prior knowledge, retain and recall previous learning, and make rapid progress.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Maintain the current trend of improving outcomes for learners by continuing to apply rigorous performance management and quality improvement processes.
Increase the proportion of lessons that are outstanding by:
sharing the very best practice in teaching and learning and ensuring that this is then consolidated in lessons across the curriculum
ensuring that all learners gain the skills to learn independently.
Create productive links with more local businesses to extend progression routes into employment for learners.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
Increase the attendance of learners, including those attending English and mathematics lessons.
Improve teaching and learning, by:
ensuring that all teachers help learners to learn at a pace that is right for them
providing feedback to learners on their work that helps them to improve their skills.
Increase the proportion of learners who achieve a grade 4 or above in English and mathematics, and who pass their level 2 functional skills examinations in these subjects.
