College Websites

2023 Full Inspection Report

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

Leaders have developed highly ambitious curriculums that are designed to enable all learners, many of whom are from areas of deprivation or speak English as an additional language, to develop the knowledge and skills they need for their next steps. Leaders work to proactively improve the opportunities available to disadvantaged learners and increase their participation in education.

Leaders have successfully designed courses for younger learners which give them the skills and knowledge they need to move on to the next stage of their education, including higher education, and employment. Learners make substantial and sustained progress from their starting points. They successfully achieve their qualifications, with most learners achieving high grades. Almost all younger learners progress successfully to further or higher education or employment when they complete their course.

Leaders and managers have highly effective relationships with their subcontracting provider, Birmingham Ethnic Education and Advisor Service (BEEAS). Leaders and managers have put in place robust systems to oversee the quality of education that the subcontractor provides. Leaders and partners are actively involved in designing an adult vocational ESOL course that targets the hardest-to-reach members of the community, including refugees and migrants. Adult learners access lessons at venues in the heart of their communities to encourage participation. Consequently, these adult learners develop the skills they need to successfully integrate within their communities.

Leaders have developed a highly coherent structure for governance. The governing board includes very experienced practitioners who scrutinise leaders’ performance effectively. Governors provide robust challenge and actively support leaders and staff to achieve their strategic goals. For example, they challenge leaders to adapt information to better scrutinise performance, teacher retention and equality and diversity at the college.

Teachers expertly use a variety of teaching strategies and resources which help learners to remember what they have learned long term. Learners successfully link their prior learning to more complex concepts and can apply their skills fluently. For example, in A-level psychology, teachers introduce learners to new topics and materials before lessons. This helps them to deepen and build on what learners already know and can do. Teachers reinforce second-year learners’ recall of ‘attachment theory’ from their first-year learning. Teachers use questioning very effectively to check understanding and correct any misconceptions. Teachers check and correct learners’ understanding of key terms such as ‘relapse’ and help them to understand new ideas such as ‘reciprocation’

Teachers teach learners to use subject-specific technical vocabulary exceptionally well. Learners can use increasingly complex technical and subject-specific language through their academic writing and when speaking in lessons. For example, in A-level law, teachers introduce and consistently model the use of legal terminology in lessons. Learners frequently use terms such as ‘judicial change’ confidently and accurately and understand the difference between the legal terms ‘consolidation’ and ‘codification’.

Teachers skilfully use assessment to inform and plan their teaching. They plan regular assessment points throughout the year to ensure learners are making the progress of which they are capable. As a result, learners know what they need to do to improve and make considerable and rapid progress. Learners develop substantial new knowledge and skills and produce work to a consistently high standard.

Teachers are qualified and experienced in the subjects they teach. Leaders ensure teachers have access to extensive professional development opportunities to keep their teaching practices and subject knowledge up to date. This includes specific training on how to support learners with additional learning support needs and learners with high needs ahead of them joining lessons. As a result, the curriculums remain ambitious and are tailored to meet individual needs so that all learners make significant progress.

Learners with high needs study curriculums alongside their peers. They meet regularly with their key workers and learning support assistants. They benefit from well-planned support from staff and teachers which encourages them to become more independent. For example, learners with hearing impairments use digital hearing amplifiers in lessons. As a result, learners with high needs can actively take part in lessons and attain the same high levels of achievement as their peers. Learners successfully move on to higher levels of education when they finish their programme.

Learners receive impartial and useful careers education, information, advice and guidance. For example, staff give extensive support to learners with their applications to university. Learners can refine their personal statements and practise their interview skills. An increasing number of learners are moving on to degreelevel apprenticeships as an alternative to degree courses.

2017 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve further?

• Leaders should maintain a strong and relentless focus on strategies for improvement in outcomes for the small number of students taking AS and A levels in subjects such as physics, arts, and English who do not make the progress expected of them.
• Ensure that the accommodation used to teach adult learners in the college’s annex mirrors the spacious and high-quality facilities provided to students aged 16 to 19.

2014 Full Inspection Report

What does the college need to do to improve further?

• Amend the teaching of English GCSE so that it focuses on the specific skills that each student needs to develop.
• Introduce more work-related experiences to vocational courses and ensure that teachers plan learning and assessment activities that target the development of students’ practical skills.
• Ensure that teachers set a range of challenging tasks that enable students of all abilities to make rapid progress.

2013 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve further?

• Increase students’ progress and success rates through improving the quality of teaching and learning so that a greater proportion becomes at least good by promoting the sharing of the best practice between teachers.
• Improve lesson planning so that lessons better meet the needs of all students, ensuring that tasks set are challenging across the ability range and that students’ independent learning skills are more keenly developed.
• Develop and support teachers in using questioning more effectively so that all students have good opportunities to extend their thinking and to develop their reasoning and spoken language.
• Devise better arrangements for monitoring students’ progress and achievement, so that feedback, marking and target setting informs and supports students in their next steps in learning.
• Improve the consistency, rigour and effectiveness of self assessment and other quality assurance arrangements across all subject areas.
• Implement fully the revised arrangements for performance management of all staff, based on performance objectives which are demanding and measurable.

2006 Full Inspection Report

Areas for improvement

The college should address:

• Pass rates on ESOL courses
• Poor and deteriorating buildings
• Insufficient monitoring of the impact of additional learning support

2001 Full Inspection Report

What should be improved

• unsatisfactory retention and pass rates on some courses
• some poor accommodation
• lack of a comprehensive basic skills strategy
• lack of rigour in identifying and addressing weaknesses in some departments
• management of the college management information system (MIS).