College Websites

2024 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider do well and what does it need to do better?

Leaders, managers and staff are passionate about promoting social mobility. They are highly aspirational for students and adult learners, many of whom come from highly disadvantaged backgrounds, to achieve and succeed. This is reflected in leaders’ actions to increase the number of level 1 and 2 courses and so provide students with clear pathways into higher levels of study. In the same way, leaders are committed to supporting students, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), to remain in education.

Leaders, managers and staff work exceptionally well to support students to engage with their learning positively and develop a strong work ethic. They work tirelessly to break down barriers to learning. Where students face significant challenges during their time in college, leaders have made sensible and sensitive changes to programmes in year to ensure that these learners continue in learning. While this has had an adverse impact on retention rates, the impact on students is transformative and most move on to positive destinations as a result.

Well-qualified and experienced teachers use initial assessment carefully to plan learning that recognises students’ often low starting points. In GCSE English, staff analyse initial assessment activities to set individualised targets and provide specific support to students. Teachers plan learning skilfully so that students’ knowledge and skills build in fluency and complexity over time. In A-level accounting, students become increasingly adept at a range of accounting techniques and analysis for a range of businesses, and able to calculate more complex cash flows as a result. Teachers provide very strong support to help students and adult learners to remember and consolidate their learning. For example, in access to higher education courses, teachers use memorable historical cases to explain the impact of brain injuries on patients.

Teachers present information clearly and succinctly. Teaching activities are selected with care so that they are very suitable, well-paced and, consequently, highly engaging. In A-level sociology, teachers use past examination papers expertly to help students develop their analysis and application of sociological concepts.

Teachers provide clear and motivational guidance to help students and adult learners improve their work. For example, GCSE English students strongly benefit from feedback related to exam strategies. Students are more aware of how to answer different questions and how much time they should spend on each one. They are more confident they will get the grade they need when they sit the exam. Consequently, students and most adult learners produce increasingly high standards of work and are proud to share it.

Teachers make excellent use of the high-quality, up-to-date resources to add significant value to students’ learning. For example, adult learners studying access to higher education courses use referencing successfully from early in their courses due to the highly supportive and clear resources that teachers provide.

Students with high needs make outstanding progress and achieve their goals successfully because of the highly ambitious and progressive pathways that leaders have created. Teachers and support staff work together exceptionally well to make sure that students and learners access their learning easily. Managers coordinate support staff, resources and therapies expertly so that students’ needs are consistently met. Students studying foundation learning become competent and confident in money management, accessing the community and tailored personal development subjects such as parenting. They develop a deep understanding of important topics such as equality and diversity and how to apply their learning to their lives and work. They receive highly effective and individualised careers education, information, advice and guidance that helps them to move on to their desired next steps.

Students in T-level education and early years benefit from a highly purposeful curriculum. Leaders worked closely with the Southampton City Council early years advisory teams and early years settings to ensure that students have the skills to work with a range of children, including those with SEND. They rapidly develop essential knowledge in safeguarding and health and safety. Students value the opportunities to practise and develop their knowledge and skills through highly appropriate placement settings

Adult learners make good progress. Adult learners on early years courses use their knowledge of pedagogical theory to improve their practice. They become increasingly confident to embed mathematics into their activities with children. Leaders’ vision for the local community is demonstrated in the close support given to access to higher education learners, who apply to universities successfully and support skills shortages in nursing and mental health care. Most adult learners who complete their courses achieve well, and many go on to positive next steps.

Staff are exceptionally supportive of the college’s mission and its commitment to inclusivity. They are very positive about leaders’ consideration of their workloads and well-being. Staff describe the frequent and close communication they enjoy with leaders. Leaders have a consistently strong focus on staff development, which is very appropriate and useful. For instance, staff recently completed very useful training in trauma-informed practice, which is helping relevant students to access and remain in learning.

Senior leaders and governors have a strong focus on providing exceptional teaching, learning and support. They have an exceptionally strong knowledge of their college, and their students and adult learners. The close collaboration of leaders, managers and college staff has had a significant impact on the quality of education programmes for young people and those with high needs.

2021 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve?

• Leaders and managers need to improve further students’ attendance.
• Leaders and managers must ensure apprentices benefit from well-planned, high-quality off-the-job training and develop their mathematics and English skills beyond the requirements of the apprenticeship.
• Leaders and managers need to further increase the range of, and participation in, enrichment activities to broaden students’ personal interests and support their well-being.

2018 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by training teachers to plan and teach lessons that help students to excel. Ensure that teachers take enough account of students’ prior learning, starting points and potential.
• Ensure that teachers’ feedback to students on their work identifies accurately and precisely the skills, knowledge and behaviours they need to improve. Monitor the quality and impact of teachers’ feedback and set them targets for improvement when it is not of a high enough standard.
• Share the good practice that already exists so that teachers consistently expect the highest standard of their students and teaching inspires and motivates them.
• Improve the numbers of students who achieve their qualifications by identifying accurately the reasons why they underperform. Rapidly put in place actions to mitigate these, particularly in subjects where students have underperformed for several years.

2017 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve further?

• Set targets for learners’ achievements, attendance, retention and progression, which clearly identify the aspirational outcomes that governors and senior managers want to achieve. These targets should be reflected in improvement plans at all levels and closely monitored by governors and managers to ensure that they bring about rapid improvements to the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.
• Set and monitor aspirational targets for individual learners and ensure that current performance is regularly and accurately assessed. Managers should use the new monitoring systems to identify learners who are underperforming and ensure that effective and rapid support leads to progress in line with expectations.
• Leaders should improve the monitoring and risk assessment of visiting speakers.
• Improve teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • identifying effective quality improvement strategies and ensuring that good practice in management and teaching, learning and assessment is shared across all subjects and the impact is measured
  • ensuring that observations and learning walks evaluate the standards that learners are achieving, the progress they are making and the quality of feedback to learners. Managers should report the findings to governors in a form that allows effective challenge.
• Ensure that managers develop more links with local businesses, so that learners benefit from access to work placements, work experience, or work-related activities and are better prepared for employment and their next step.
• Improve attendance by swiftly supporting learners who do not achieve minimum attendance targets, reinforcing expectations with regard to good attendance and improving the consistency in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.

2013 Full Inspection Report

What does the college need to do to improve further?

• Improve students’ progress further by:
  • making better use of value-added data to identify courses where students’ progress is less than good, and reviewing all aspects of the teaching, learning and assessment in those courses to identify precisely what needs to be improved
  • ensuring that data, including challenging target grades for students, are used effectively by all teachers and managers throughout the year to monitor individual students’ progress rigorously, and intervening swiftly where evidence of underperformance is found
  • increasing the proportion of outstanding lessons by ensuring that lesson observers identify the precise characteristics of the very best teaching and learning, and building upon current strategies to share best practice and raise teaching standards further
  • ensuring that on all courses students are given work that is sufficiently demanding, both in lessons and for independent study. Improving the consistency and quality of teachers’ feedback on marked work, so that all students are clear about what they need to do to improve their work and achieve challenging targets.
• Develop a comprehensive and systematic approach to improve students’ English and mathematics through the curriculum on all courses. Increase the proportion of students achieving grades A* to C at GCSE in these subjects by identifying and removing the barriers to improvement.

2008 Full Inspection Report

Areas for improvement

The college should address:

• low success rates
• insufficient progress by least able students
• unsatisfactory attendance by students on level 2 courses
• enabling more students to think for themselves in lessons
• insufficient focus on feedback and action planning to help students improve.

2004 Full Inspection Report

What should be improved

• retention rates on some courses
• attendance on GCSE courses
• access and use of computers in and out of lessons
• social areas for students
• access to parts of the building for students with restricted mobility
• arrangements for supporting all students with additional learning needs
• evaluation of students’ destinations.