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Burton & South Derbyshire College

2017 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Managers should improve teaching, learning and assessment in English and mathematics to ensure that learners and apprentices develop these skills successfully, achieve their qualifications and are able to apply them well in the workplace.
  • Managers should develop sufficient high-quality work experience and supported internship opportunities for all learners with high needs to ensure that they are able to acquire essential skills for future employment and independent living.
  • Teachers should use information on learners’ starting points more effectively to set challenging work that matches closely to learners’ individual needs so that they are able to achieve at the level of which they are capable.
  • Teachers should provide learners with useful feedback that helps them to recognise what they need to do to improve and achieve their challenging targets.
  • Managers should ensure that teachers are skilled in preparing learners for assessment and examinations.
  • Governors and leaders should ensure that they continue to monitor and improve poorly performing courses so that all learners and apprentices are able to achieve their qualifications and progress to their chosen destinations.

2016 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • To improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, leaders should:
    • ensure that governors hold leaders and managers to account for the rapid improvement of teaching, learning and assessment
    • require managers to make better use of college tracking and monitoring systems to monitor learners’ progress closely, so that they can tackle underperformance swiftly
    • ensure that teachers monitor learners’ progress in lessons and over time
    • require teachers to use information about learners’ starting points and current progress to plan teaching and learning that meet the individual needs of all learners, particularly the most able
    • ensure that teachers improve target-setting, so that learning targets focus on improving learners’ skills and their personal development needs
    • improve the quality of teachers’ feedback on written work, so that learners understand what they need to do to improve and how to make better progress
    • raise the quality of teaching standards by identifying and sharing existing good practice, and developing further teachers’ planning and assessment skills
    • ensure that sufficient learning resources exist in each subject, so that all learners are able to develop further their independent learning skills.
  • To improve the quality of provision and outcomes for learners in English and mathematics, leaders should:
    • urgently review the arrangements for providing effective learning in English and mathematics
    • equip teachers with the skills to provide learners with good teaching and learning; monitor closely the performance of teaching staff; and take action quickly to improve performance where necessary
    • ensure that all teachers understand the importance of developing learners’ literacy and numeracy skills, and ensure that they make plans to develop these employability skills on all courses
    • ensure that target-setting for learners includes the development of English and mathematics skills on all courses and not just in English and mathematics lessons; and monitor the progress of learners more rigorously, taking action where necessary to support those at risk of underachievement.
  • To improve self-assessment, leaders should:
    • ensure that self-assessment draws on accurate information about the quality of teaching, learning and assessment
    • effectively identify the teachers that need support to improve, and how that support will be provided, including clear measures of success; and monitor and evaluate the impact on learners’ progress and achievements.

2011 Full Inspection Report
What does Burton and South Derbyshire College need to do to improve further?
  • Increase success rates on AS and vocational advanced level provision by ensuring that all learners have the potential to succeed and are fully aware of the academic demands of their chosen subjects and that teaching and learning meet their needs.
  • Increase the success rates of male learners by determining the key factors which disaffect them, taking appropriate actions to address these issues and by sustaining their interest, progression and achievement.
  • Increase functional skills success rates, especially in English, by ensuring the relevance of the teaching and learning to vocational areas and by ensuring that learners study at a challenging but appropriate level.
  • Increase the rigour and the impact of the lesson observation process so that more lessons are good or better and that lesson planning and strategies for differentiation improve.
  • Increase the rigour of the monitoring of learners’ progress against individual targets in order to identify sooner which learners are at risk and to implement appropriate support and challenge.
  • Ensure curriculum area self-assessment reports are sufficiently critical and note areas for improvement by including evaluations of the outcomes of different groups of learners and the quality of work-based learning provision.
  • Improve the planning, promotion and collaboration with employers and community groups to encourage an increase in participation of learners from minority ethnic groups on apprenticeship programmes.

2007 Full Inspection Report
Areas for improvement

The college should address:

  • low retention rates
  • satisfactory levels of attendance
  • inconsistency in the quality of marking and individual learning plans (ILPs)
  • achievement of key skills
  • insufficient promotion of equality and diversity within the curriculum.

2004 Inspection Report
What should be improved
  • low retention rates at level 2
  • unsatisfactory provision in catering
  • unsatisfactory achievements in some construction work-based learning and craft programmes curriculum areas

Report Recommendations