Inspection Report Recommendations
Wiltshire College - Good
2022 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Improve the quality of the curriculum, work placements and specialist support for learners with high needs.
- Ensure that young learners attend their English and mathematics lessons and ensure that the actions taken lead to greater achievement in these qualifications.
- Make sure that all learners and apprentices receive coherently planned and well-taught personal development as part of their curriculum, including effective careers guidance for all adult learners and learners with high needs.
- Involve employers more comprehensively in the design and implementation of all curriculums.
William Morris Sixth Form College - Good
2023 Full Inspection Report
What does the school need to do to improve?
- There are limited opportunities for students to participate in extra-curricular activities. Some students are not involved in school activities beyond their lessons. Leaders should ensure that they implement their plans to increase the range of enrichment opportunities so that all students broaden their interests and develop new skills and talents beyond the subjects they study.
- Some students do not attend school as regularly as they should. Leaders’ recently revised systems for encouraging regular attendance are in the early stages of showing impact. Leaders should ensure that processes for following up student absence are fully embedded so that students’ overall attendance improves.
Westminster Adult Education Service - Good
2022 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Leaders and managers should ensure that teachers on all programmes consistently check that learners remember what they have been taught.
- Leaders and managers should ensure that teachers on all programmes give effective feedback and targets so that all learners know how to improve.
- Leaders and managers should ensure that learners are effectively informed and have good recall of the dangers of radicalisation and extremism.
West Thames College - Outstanding
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider do well and what does it need to do better?
Leaders and managers have high expectations of learners and apprentices. They are ambitious for them to do well. They are determined and committed to ensure that learners and apprentices reach their potential and progress seamlessly to their next steps. Their relentless focus on quality improvement permeates through all levels of staff. Teachers and staff share this ambition and determination. They fully engage in and implement the rigorous quality standards set by leaders to ensure there is a consistent approach to high-quality teaching and assessment. This leads to consistently high achievement rates for young learners, adult learners and learners with high needs. Most learners and apprentices move on to the next level of course, higher education or employment.
etc.
West Suffolk College - Outstanding
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider do well and what does it need to do better?
Leaders have a strong vision to promote social mobility through high-quality training, education and support. They actively seek to work with the most disadvantaged individuals and groups to ensure nobody is left behind. They are highly ambitious for their students and apprentices.
etc.
West London College - Good
2025 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Improve learners’ attendance and punctuality on the courses where it is too low.
- On ESOL courses, adapt teaching and checking of learners’ understanding so learners with lower English language skills learn how to use the new vocabulary taught.
- Implement strategies to help young learners understand and meet the expectations for their behaviour and conduct.
- Set meaningful targets for learners with high needs, linked to their EHC plans, and accurately monitor learners’ progress towards achieving their targets.
Thurrock Adult Community College - Requires Improvement
2023 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Leaders must improve tutors’ use of learners’ starting points in the planning and teaching of the curriculum to ensure that tutors take account of what learners know and can do before they start learning.
- Leaders must increase the proportion of adult learners that achieve their qualifications.
- Leaders must design an apprenticeship programme that meets the principles of an apprenticeship programme and ensure that it is suitable and tailored to apprentices’ job roles.
- Leaders must ensure that apprentices’ line managers have an input into the order and content of the apprenticeship programme so that effective links can be made between on-and off-the-job training.
- Leaders must ensure that apprentices stay on their programme and successfully achieve their apprenticeship in a timely manner.
- Leaders must ensure that apprentices receive sufficiently broad and impartial careers guidance so that they know how they can use their skills to progress to their intended next steps.
- Leaders must ensure that adult learners have a good understanding of the local risks of radicalisation and extremism in the areas in which they live and work.
Telford College - Good
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Identify and implement actions to increase the proportion of learners who achieve grades A* to C for their A-level qualifications.
- Ensure that all learners and apprentices receive clear, developmental feedback so they understand how to improve their work and achieve merit and distinction grades.
- Use the results of apprentices’ initial assessments to improve teaching English and mathematics so they can achieve their functional skills qualifications.
Suffolk New College - Good
2022 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Ensure that staff communicate effectively with employers throughout the apprenticeship programme so that they know the progress that apprentices are making and can support them to achieve within the planned timescales.
- Make sure that the quality of teaching in mathematics is of a consistently high standard so that the proportion of learners achieving their qualifications improves.
- Improve learners and apprentices’ attendance in English and mathematics lessons in line with college expectations.
- Increase the contribution employers make to the planning, development and teaching of the curriculum, in particular in electrical installation and childcare programmes, so that the taught curriculum meets the specific needs of these sectors.
Stoke-on-Trent College - Good
2022 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Leaders and managers should ensure that the starting points for all apprentices are accurately assessed and are used to inform learning plans that challenge apprentices and support them to make the progress of which they are capable.
- Leaders and managers should identify apprentices’ English and mathematics skill levels promptly at the start of their apprenticeship and provide relevant training to support their continued development.
- Leaders and managers should continue to refine the monitoring of apprentices’ progress to ensure that all apprentices make good progress towards completing their apprenticeship by the expected completion date.
- Leaders should ensure that learners in receipt of high-needs funding are able to participate in a broader range of work experience activities, to enable them to gain a wider understanding of opportunities available to them in the world of work.
Swindon & Wiltshire Institute of Technology - Requires Improvement
2025 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Increase the proportion of young learners who achieve their qualifications and the proportion who achieve their target grades.
- Increase the proportion of young learners and learners with high needs who take part in high-quality work experience placements, so that those who plan to move into employment are suitably prepared.
- Monitor the progress that young learners make closely and intervene swiftly where progress slows.
- Provide useful and effective careers information advice and guidance for all learners and apprentices.
- Provide useful, pertinent and accurate information to governors so that they can challenge and support senior leaders more effectively.
Southport College - Requires Improvement
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Set clear and measurable actions to improve the quality of education for apprentices.
- Ensure that staff are aware of apprentices’ and adult learners’ knowledge and skills prior to starting their course or apprenticeship, so that they can plan challenging curriculums for all.
- Swiftly improve attendance for learners and apprentices.
- Increase the proportion of learners who achieve the highest grades of which they are capable.
- Reduce the level of disruption experienced by learners and apprentices arising from turnover in college staffing.
- Provide an improved offer of careers advice and teaching of wider personal development topics for apprentices and adult learners.
King George V College - Requires Improvement
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Set clear and measurable actions to improve the quality of education for apprentices.
- Ensure that staff are aware of apprentices’ and adult learners’ knowledge and skills prior to starting their course or apprenticeship, so that they can plan challenging curriculums for all.
- Swiftly improve attendance for learners and apprentices.
- Increase the proportion of learners who achieve the highest grades of which they are capable.
- Reduce the level of disruption experienced by learners and apprentices arising from turnover in college staffing.
- Provide an improved offer of careers advice and teaching of wider personal development topics for apprentices and adult learners.
South Staffordshire College - Good
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Increase attendance to English and mathematics lessons to ensure learners can make rapid and sustained progress through their qualifications.
- Ensure all adult learners and apprentices have access to careers education, information, advice and guidance and fully understand, where appropriate, the professional institute memberships that their qualifications will bring.
- Ensure younger learners are sufficiently challenged during lessons to build on their knowledge and skills and make the progress of which they are capable.
- Ensure teachers of learners with high needs plan their teaching and adapt their learning resources to meet the needs of individual learners.
- Ensure all learners and apprentices understand the risks associated with radicalisation and extremism – including localised risk.
South Essex College - Good
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Ensure that students benefit from high-quality English and mathematics teaching so that they can pass their GCSE examinations.
- Ensure that apprentices develop a good understanding of personal development topics beyond the vocational curriculum.
- Ensure that students on supported internships know what they need to do to further develop their skills and knowledge.
- Ensure that students understand the benefits and participate in an enrichment curriculum that supports the development of their wider skills and interests.
South Central Institute of Technology - Good
2024 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Develop the skills and confidence of staff teaching apprentices and students aged 16 to 18 to teach the challenging and difficult subjects in the personal development curriculum, such as sexual harassment and healthy relationships.
- Ensure that students aged 16 to 18, but only those for whom it is appropriate, have the opportunity to participate in meaningful and worthwhile external work experience placements.
- Improve the teaching of GCSE mathematics so that students improve their confidence with this subject and the proportion that achieve at least a grade 4 in their examinations increases.
- Improve the specificity of apprentices’ development targets and the quality of feedback on their written and practical work.
South Bank Colleges - Good
2025 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Support apprentices to make expected progress and achieve their apprenticeship standards.
- Fully implement planned actions to improve attendance in subjects where it is too low.
- Improve the uptake of personal development activities.
- Implement planned actions to improve the number of learners who achieve their information technology qualifications and who achieve grade 4 or better in English and mathematics GCSEs.
Somerset Skills & Learning - Good
2022 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Leaders and managers must ensure that young people studying on the traineeship programmes and apprentices take part in discussions with employers so that they are prepared fully for their work placements.
- Leaders and managers must ensure that staff plan and teach mathematics lessons that include sufficient content to challenge learners so that they know and remember more and leads to improved levels of qualification achievement.
- Leaders and managers must involve employers more in the planning and implementation of the traineeship programmes and apprenticeships so that employers know how to support learners and apprentices to increase their knowledge and improve their skills at work.
- Leaders and managers must monitor closely the quality of education provided for adults so that they identify swiftly areas for improvement and take robust remedial actions to improve the quality of the provision.
Sir John Deane's Sixth Form College - Outstanding
2022 Full Inspection Report
No areas for improvement
Shrewsbury Colleges Group - Outstanding
2025 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider do well and what does it need to do better?
Leaders, managers and staff are deeply committed and ambitious for the success of their students and apprentices. Staff take into account students’ specific needs when planning and designing curriculums. Staff are empowered and encouraged by supportive managers to improve their work continually through rigorous collaborative quality processes. This ensures a culture of high standards in teaching and high aspirations for student outcomes. Staff celebrate the exceptional achievements of their students and apprentices.
etc.
Sheffield College - Good
2022 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Increase the oversight of the wider curriculum to identify gaps in what students and apprentices know about health and well-being and to increase participation in the wide range of enrichment opportunities available to them.
- Ensure that the actions to improve the attendance of students enrolled on education programmes for young people are effective.
- Ensure that a greater proportion of students on education programmes for young people benefit from meaningful work placements.
- Improve the approach to the management of subcontractors to ensure that the college values are fully reflected in the implementation of the curriculum at all of these providers.
Saint Dominic's Sixth Form College - Outstanding
2025 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider do well and what does it need to do better?
Leaders, managers and teachers have developed a highly ambitious curriculum that demonstrates their high expectations and vision for all students to achieve their highest potential. Staff provide students with exceptional support and care to help them achieve these high aspirations and ambitions. They ensure students take advantage of outstanding opportunities to expand their knowledge far beyond the basics of their qualifications. They provide students with free useful textbooks, encourage students to participate in external academic competitions such as the Olympiad, provide high-quality mentoring for disadvantaged students and set them challenging work in lessons and beyond. Students are fully prepared for the university courses and apprenticeships they intend to progress to.
etc.
Saint Charles Catholic Sixth Form College - Good
2025 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Implement fully actions to increase the proportion of students who achieve their qualifications.
- Correct students’ spelling, punctuation and grammar errors consistently.
Ruskin College - Good
2023 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Improve the consistency of use of assessment in community learning programmes to recognise and record learners’ progress and achievements.
- Identify and provide appropriate continuous professional development opportunities for teaching staff to improve their pedagogical skills.
- Improve leaders’ and trustees’ knowledge of the progress and achievements of learners studying community learning programmes.
Runshaw College - Good
2025 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
- Provide clear and accurate feedback to apprentices on what they need to do to improve their knowledge, skills, and behaviours.
- Increase the proportion of students who make substantial progress from their starting points and achieve the highest grades.
- Further strengthen measures to reduce staff’s workload.