College Websites

2024 Full Inspection Report

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

Since the previous inspection, leaders have continued to establish a high-performing culture that drives exceptional outcomes for all students and adult learners. Leaders oversee expertly designed training and effective support systems. This ensures that students are exceptionally well-prepared to complete their qualifications, with a very high proportion achieving the highest grades and progressing on to their desired next steps, including university placements, apprenticeships and employment. Teachers and support staff foster a learning environment where all students, including those with SEND and high needs, thrive academically and make substantial progress from their starting points. Adult learners also excel by building on their academic skills, such as research and referencing. A high proportion earn valuable qualifications that advance their career progression.

Leaders implement rigorous quality assurance and improvement processes. These lead to continuous development in teaching across the curriculum. Leaders and managers frequently meet with staff to review student performance, the quality of teaching, and curriculum effectiveness. This helps to identify and swiftly address areas for improvement. This results in timely interventions and curriculum enhancements. For example, leaders adjusted the sequencing in certain subjects after mid-year assessments showed knowledge gaps. They added review and revision sessions that significantly improved outcomes. This systematic approach drives high standards and accountability, ensuring that the college continually improves in line with its ambition to be exceptional.

Teachers plan very well-sequenced curriculums that build skills and knowledge over time. This approach ensures that students first gain foundational concepts, which teachers then reinforce and expand on as students make progress. Teachers structure lessons skilfully, enabling students to deepen their understanding and retain knowledge effectively, which supports them to make exceptional progress in their studies. For example, in A-level Mathematics, teachers begin with essential GCSE skills like algebra and factorisation, carefully revisiting these foundations to ensure students are confident and well-prepared before introducing more complex topics.

Teachers use highly effective teaching strategies that help students understand what they are being taught. For example, teachers frequently revisit key topics to reinforce learning. This approach helps students remember what they have been taught and become more fluent in using their knowledge. In A-level Economics, teachers engage students with interactive activities, such as a trading card game, to deepen their understanding of concepts such as price and market equilibrium, making the topics more memorable.

Teachers use frequent and highly effective assessment, both at the start and throughout the duration of courses, to identify and close gaps in students’ understanding. They assess what students know and can do at the beginning of their courses, so they can plan appropriate support and teaching strategies. Teachers use highly effective assessment activities throughout the course, such as through practice essays and in-class tests for adult learners on access programmes. This regular monitoring enables teachers to adjust their teaching to provide targeted support swiftly. For example, students attend scheduled workshops where they receive tailored assistance to address learning gaps, significantly boosting their confidence and academic achievement.

Managers and teachers very successfully set high standards of behaviour and attitudes. Students demonstrate consistently positive attitudes towards their studies. For example, in history, students develop the behaviours they need to succeed. They work well independently, completing extensive and demanding homework tasks that prepare them very well for their final assessments. Students have high rates of attendance and most are punctual to their lessons.

Teachers support students highly effectively to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need for success beyond college. They plan highly inspiring and interactive lessons that encourage students to explore challenging concepts and develop the resilience and confidence needed to succeed in their studies. For example, in A-level Law, teachers facilitate mock trials and court simulations, helping students develop their analytical thinking and public-speaking skills.

Leaders and staff work effectively with employers and universities to provide valuable, subject-specific enrichment experiences and trips, including work placements and industry-focused projects. For example, teachers in the business department organise an enterprise day, where students present business ideas to entrepreneurs and company owners. These industry professionals give students valuable feedback, supporting students to develop a strong understanding of professional expectations in business.

Teachers of adult learning programmes teach well-designed, aspirational curriculums. These include opportunities for career advancement, such as diplomas in early years and special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) leadership, as well as ESOL and leisure courses that develop a broad range of skills. For example, the college offers a variety of language courses, such as French, Italian, and German, where adult learners broaden their language abilities.

Staff provide students with high-quality mentoring from industry experts, former students and university representatives. For example, staff arrange role-play scenarios led by industry professionals and former students now working in industry. This highly effective approach not only fosters students’ ambitions but also gives them invaluable insights to help them apply what they learn to the real world.

The governing board includes members with a broad range of valuable expertise. Governors draw on this when they make decisions. They maintain high aspirations for staff and students. They provide effective oversight of quality assurance processes. This leads to high-quality, inclusive curriculums. Governors also work closely with leaders to ensure that staff have access to ongoing professional development, which promotes continuous improvement in teaching and student outcomes. This commitment to high standards ensures that students receive an outstanding quality of education.

2020 Full Inspection Report

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

Leaders and managers have designed and developed a challenging curriculum that enables students to achieve and often exceed expectations. They evaluate the curriculum regularly to ensure that it increases students’ chances of progressing to the best universities or gaining employment. For example, they introduced new vocational courses in law, medical science and criminology to the curriculum to enable students to enter careers in allied professions.

Teachers have responded well to the changes to the A-level curriculum. They have reordered the way that subjects are taught so that students do not forget what they learned in the earlier parts of the syllabus. Teachers make considered choices about what course specifications they follow to maximise the skills that students develop. In mathematics, for example, the specification includes greater emphasis on problem-solving, as this is what universities and employers want students to have.

Teachers are adept at building students’ knowledge of a subject through the delivery of well-planned sequential steps. In sociology, for example, students start their first year by studying the family, as this is something that they are familiar with. Teachers then introduce theoretical ideas to explain the concept of the family. By the second year, students can compare and contrast a wide range of theories and apply them to different sociological topics.

Teachers frequently revisit previous learning and core principles to reinforce students’ knowledge and link it to a new subject. For example, teachers in biology check that second-year students can recall the principles of meiosis before showing them how it relates to the concept of cell generation for growth and development.

Teachers assess students’ work constructively to identify the gaps in their knowledge and the areas that they need to improve. For example, in psychology teachers assess students’ use of description, application and evaluation in their written assignments to provide constructive feedback on how they should improve their approach to essay writing.

Teachers provide high levels of support for students outside of lessons. Students value the accessibility of drop-in workshops and the one-to-one support they receive. These high levels of individual support contribute to the very low number of students leaving their courses early and the high proportion who achieve better than-expected grades in their subjects.

Managers and teachers provide students with a wide range of enrichment activities that broaden the knowledge and skills they acquire in the classroom. Mathematics students, for example, compete with other groups of students in cyber challenges and a maths Olympiad organised through a local university.

Highly qualified and experienced careers staff guide students through the process of applying to higher education by helping them to research the best universities and supporting them with interview techniques. As a result, the number of students going to Russell Group universities is very high.

Staff support students to find valuable work experience related to their studies. However, managers have only just recently started to evaluate the impact of these experiences on the overall development of students’ skills and knowledge. It is still too early to see the impact of this change on the development of the curriculum. Since starting the apprenticeship provision in 2017, leaders and managers have ensured that apprentices receive good-quality off-the-job training that supports them well in their job roles.

Leaders and managers place a very strong emphasis on maintaining the well-being of their staff. They enable staff to take part in activities that provide a balance to their working lives, such as yoga and pilates and access to a dedicated teachers’ hub. Staff at all levels of the college benefit from high-quality professional development. As a result, staff feel very well supported and repay managers by promoting the college’s ambitious culture for all its students.

Governors use their extensive knowledge of the local area and their professional expertise to ensure that the college improves and responds to local employment opportunities. They have worked with senior leaders to maintain an inclusive curriculum and supportive ethos, while still maintaining expectations about high standards.

Senior leaders are very honest with governors about their successes and their areas for development. They respond to governors’ challenges to put things right. For example, since the recruitment of a new principal, the senior management team have instigated a revised staff survey, ‘love and ideas’. Positive staff feedback has enabled senior leaders to identify good practice and inform further areas for improvement.

2008 Full Inspection Report

Areas for improvement

The college should address:

• the consistency of target setting in progress review action plans to help students improve.

2004 Full Inspection Report

What should be improved

• the cramped accommodation in a minority of lessons.