What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Governors should establish a stable leadership team that creates an aspirational culture and ambitious curriculum where students and apprentices thrive and achieve.
- Design programmes for students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities well so that they are prepared effectively for adulthood.
- Ensure that teachers plan a curriculum that challenges students to achieve high grades in their qualifications.
- Ensure that the curriculum for apprentices, particularly those on engineering and construction frameworks, develops their knowledge, skills and behaviours quickly.
- Improve careers information, advice and guidance so that these are clear, accurate and meaningful so that students and apprentices understand the range of options available to them to meet their aspirations.
- Ensure that students attend their courses regularly.
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
- Senior leaders and managers should ensure that they routinely provide governors with accurate and useful reports on students’ and apprentices’ progress. Senior leaders and managers should use these reports to identify any slow progress and intervene swiftly to ensure that a higher proportion of students and apprentices make the progress of which they are capable.
- Teachers and managers should better use the results of assessments completed by students and apprentices at the start of their programmes to plan learning that meets the specific requirements of students and apprentices and supports them to achieve their full potential.
- Teachers and managers should devise and implement strategies to increase attendance at college, reduce the number of students and apprentices who leave their course early and increase the proportion of students and apprentices who achieve their qualifications.
- Governors and senior managers should ensure that self-assessment is accurate and that it concisely identifies the strengths and weaknesses in the provision to inform improvement plans. Managers should identify clear and specific targets to improve the provision based on more accurate self-assessment and monitor progress towards their achievement rigorously.
- Managers and teachers should improve the quality of teaching in English and mathematics. They should ensure that students make good progress in developing the skills that they need for employment, and that a higher proportion of students taking GCSEs in English and/or mathematics achieve A* to C grades.
- Managers should develop and implement strategies to increase the proportion of adult students who progress to further education, higher education or employment.
What does the college need to do to improve further?
- Ensure that apprentices’ on-site reviews have sufficient emphasis on the progress they are making and that assessors and employers provide the support that apprentices require to complete their training.
- Move students more rapidly towards achieving their English and mathematics GCSE qualifications by raising the aspirations of both teachers and students.
- Focus lesson observation judgements and feedback on the quality of learning. Ensure that subsequent staff training builds upon existing good practice.
- Develop all teachers’ skills so that they use information about students to plan more effectively for their differing needs.
- Increase the impact of course-level self-assessment by ensuring that it is conducted with the same rigour and focus upon learning as it is at cross-college level.
What does St Helens College need to do to improve further?
- Improve retention and success rates on all programmes by evaluating and refining current improvement processes that are starting to impact positively on learners’ performance.
- Monitor attendance better and take decisive action to bring about improvement in some subject areas.
- Support teachers to improve teaching and learning to ensure all learners achieve their full potential.
- Support teachers to develop effective and interactive learning resources that utilise the good ILT available in classrooms.
- Better evaluate support initiatives to ensure they are targeted appropriately and are effective in improving learners’ attendance and outcomes.
- Improve implementation planning and evaluation processes to secure continuous improvement.
- Strengthen quality improvement processes and rigorously monitor their impact on learner outcomes.
Areas for improvement
The college should address
- the need to achieve consistency in high quality teaching and learning across the college
- the need to continue to improve success rates on long courses
- the insufficient rigour of the validation of judgements made through the self-assessment process.
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What should be improved
- integration of the teaching of key skills within programmes of study
- the standard of teaching of theory lessons in some areas
- the co-ordination of both English and mathematics across the college
- retention and pass rates for students aged 16 to 18 at level 3
- the quality of work-based learning
- accommodation in some areas
- the take-up of learning support.
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