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Inspection Report Recommendations


Selby College

2017 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further
  • Teachers on 16 to 19 study programmes should plan and use learning activities that challenge the most able learners to extend their knowledge and understanding, so that they make the progress of which they are capable.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that their evaluation of the quality of education and training accurately identifies the areas for improvement.
  • Leaders and managers must ensure that, where the quality of education and training is not of a high enough standard, they set precise actions and targets, so that they make the required improvements more rapidly.


Sheffield College

2019 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that the pace of improvement quickens, particularly in the quality of education that most learners and apprentices experience.
  • Leaders and managers should gain a much better understanding of how studying at the college influences the next steps and future careers of learners and apprentices. They should ensure that this information is comprehensive enough to inform the design of courses so that learners are better prepared for their next steps.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that learners who have high needs and who study vocational courses receive the support that they need from both teachers and specialist support workers.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that those responsible for planning apprenticeships take appropriate account of all aspects of apprentices’ development, not just the parts that the college staff directly influence.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that the proportion of learners and apprentices successfully completing their course improves rapidly.


Shipley College

2013 Full Inspection Report
What does the college need to do to improve further?
  • Increase the success rates on the few underperforming college-based courses and in functional-skills qualifications. Raise the proportion of A* to C grades in GCSE in English and mathematics.
  • Ensure that all teaching and learning, in all subjects and during review weeks, are of a consistently high standard and challenge all students.
  • Be more consistent in setting more challenging and aspirational targets for students to ensure that they make even better progress.
  • Ensure that learning support assistants are deployed to classes where they are most needed and that they are used to maximum effect to benefit students.  Ensure that governors have the skills and knowledge to be able to challenge more rigorously areas of students’ achievement and teaching and learning.


Shooters Hill Sixth Form College

2019 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Increase the proportion of students who take part in work experience related to the subjects they study and to their career aims.
  • Teachers should teach students more about the importance of how British values relate to their lives and living in London.
  • Teachers should use strategies to check that students are learning and building their knowledge in a subject. Where students are not doing this, teachers should ensure that they adapt their lessons so that all students are learning.


Shrewsbury Colleges Group

2019 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Leaders must develop as a matter of urgency a sufficiently detailed and effective safeguarding risk assessment to cover the college’s estates; they should review these risks regularly to ensure that effective controls are in place and vulnerable students feel safer.
  • Leaders and managers must ensure that communication between themselves, pastoral and teaching teams is effective. They must identify quickly those students who have poor attendance and who are at risk of not achieving or are vulnerable, and be sure to put the appropriate support mechanisms place.
  • Leaders should ensure that all students on study programmes know about their entitlement to work experience and so can take up this opportunity.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that apprentices and employers understand the process of end-point assessment and how to achieve pass, merit or distinction grades to enable apprentices to achieve their potential.
  • Leaders and managers should develop target setting in apprenticeships to ensure that all apprentices are supported to develop in all areas of the apprenticeship, including their behaviours.
  • Leaders and managers need to speed up improvements to make sure that a greater proportion of apprentices’ achievement is constantly high.
  • Governors should make sure that senior leaders are making identified quality improvements quickly enough.


Sir George Monoux College

2018 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • All staff and governors should maintain the focus and momentum of quality improvement initiatives to consolidate progress and establish higher standards of provision.
  • Teachers should instil in all students suitable behaviour and attitudes to learning, to enable them to make better progress. In particular they should:
    • adopt a more consistent approach with students who are absent and late, or arrive to lessons without the required equipment
    • ensure that students remove any physical barriers that might prevent them engaging fully in lessons, in particular coats, hats, hoods and bags
    • adopt and enforce a cross-college approach and set of expectations as to how students maintain their folders and/or notebooks, to ensure that they compile an orderly and comprehensive record from which they can revise effectively.
  • Teachers should ensure that they plan lessons that engage and motivate students more, and cater appropriately for the wide range of abilities, so that all students are able to make good progress.
  • Managers should significantly increase the opportunities students have to do work experience, to support the development of their work-related skills.
  • Managers should focus resources in particular on those more poorly performing subject areas, to ensure that the staff teams have the development, guidance and support they need to raise standards in those areas.


Sir John Deane's Sixth Form College

2008 Full Inspection Report
Areas for improvement

The college should address:

  • progress in a very small number of subjects at GCE AS level
  • low ratio of computers to students
  • limited space especially in the library and for personal study.


Skegness TEC

2017 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that they strengthen further their focus on raising standards at the Yorkshire Coast College campus so that all learners enjoy the same high-quality experience.
  • Improve the quality of written feedback that learners receive so that it is consistently helpful in enabling learners to improve the quality of their written work.


Solihull College

2016 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Ensure that planning for learning consistently and fully meets the needs of individual learners; and make sure that it provides learning of an appropriate pace and level of challenge for learners of all abilities.
  • Ensure that all teachers provide precise and informative feedback to learners, which clearly explains how they can improve their work, accelerate their learning and reach their potential.
  • Review and reinforce ways of improving attendance in all subject areas, particularly on GCSE and functional English and mathematics courses, so that learners improve their skills and gain qualifications in these essential subjects.
  • Make better and more coordinated use of information about learners’ progress and destinations when evaluating the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, and the relevance and suitability of courses, to assist with the continuing improvement of the provision.


Solihull Sixth Form College

2020 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Leaders must evaluate fully the reasons why students leave their programme early. Leaders must take remedial action rapidly, so that more students remain on their programme and achieve their qualifications.
  • Leaders must act swiftly to improve the quality of education in a small number of A-level science subjects, so that students complete their qualifications and achieve the high grades of which they are capable.
  • Leaders should ensure that the personal coaching sessions that students receive meet students’ individual needs. Coaches need to work with students routinely to identify the broader skills they need to develop. Coaches must support students to develop these skills through better-quality teaching that interests all students.
  • Leaders must ensure that all students know the full range of options available to them on completion of their studies. Leaders must share information on apprenticeships and employment with all students, so they are better informed about their next steps.


Somerset Skills & Learning

2017 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Improve the small minority of weaker lessons by ensuring that teachers include activities in lessons which challenge learners to extend their skills and knowledge further.
  • Collate and analyse attendance data rigorously to identify why some learners do not attend. Devise effective, targeted strategies to improve the attendance of these learners.
  • Make learners fully aware of the risks posed by radicalisation and extremism by improving the range and quality of activities used to increase learners’ understanding of these risks.


South & City College Birmingham

2018 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Teachers and assessors, particularly in A-level provision and English and mathematics GCSE courses, should improve the quality of teaching learning and assessment by:
    • using the information from students’ starting points to develop learning that challenges the most able to make the progress of which they are capable
    • providing clear feedback to all students on what they need to do to improve.
  • Managers of English and mathematics GCSE courses should improve the progress of students by:
    • ensuring that teachers record the in-year attainment of all students and that staff and students have a shared and common understanding of the actions for improvement for students who fall behind
    • ensuring that they have a comprehensive understanding of the progress that students are making online and in the hub, and that these additional forms of study are leading to rapid progress
  • Leaders and managers should improve pupils’, students’ and apprentices’ attendance on the courses where rates are too low.


South Bank Colleges

2019 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Ensure that staff place a greater emphasis on developing learners’ English and mathematics skills in order to support them in their studies and prepare them for employment or further study.
  • Improve learners’ attendance at lessons by ensuring that they understand the importance of frequent attendance.
  • Provide better support to apprentices so that the proportion who achieve their qualification within the agreed timeframe improves.
  • Ensure that staff use the information they have on learners’ prior knowledge and attainment to plan and teach lessons to meet their individual learning needs.
  • Teachers need to ensure that learners know what progress they are making and what they need to do to improve.
  • Leaders and managers should continue to implement their strategies to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.


South Devon College

2017 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Managers should identify areas for improvement swiftly and accurately to arrest the decline in learners’ achievement of qualifications.
  • Teachers should set learners specific, measurable and increasingly challenging targets, and monitor their progress towards achieving these rigorously, to ensure sustained improvements in learners’ achievements over time.
  • Teachers should make sure that activities enable learners of all abilities to achieve the highest grades of which they are capable, especially in provision for 14- to 16-year-old learners and vocational study programmes.
  • Teachers should ensure that learners understand the importance of English and mathematics as part of their programme and they should support learners to attend lessons and achieve qualifications in these subjects.
  • Managers and teachers should ensure that apprentices complete and achieve their functional skills qualifications more quickly. Across the whole of their apprenticeship programme, teachers should set targets for the skills and knowledge apprentices need to develop and closely monitor apprentices’ progress in completing these.


South Eastern Regional College

2011 Full Inspection Report
The main areas for improvement are the:
  • student retention rates across a significant minority of the full-time professional and technical courses inspected;
  • student achievement rates for a minority of the part-time courses inspected;
  • quality assurance and improvement planning processes; and
  • analysis and interpretation of data to inform quality improvement planning.


South Essex College

2017 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Managers should provide clear guidance to learners and parents on the levels of attendance expected by the college and take swift action to help learners overcome barriers to attending regularly. Teachers should ensure that learners fully understand the importance of attending all lessons and should expect learners to attend regularly and punctually.
  • Teachers should plan their lessons to ensure that learners, wherever possible, develop new skills and knowledge relevant to their aspirations and employment as well as those necessary to pass a course.
  • Teachers should set work for learners that allows them to excel and achieve at the highest grades of which they are capable, and encourage learners to produce consistently work of the highest standard.
  • Teachers’ feedback to learners should explain clearly how they can reach higher standards.
  • Managers should ensure that courses which aim to prepare adults and learners with high needs for employment provide the opportunities they need to develop relevant skills, including work-related activities and/or work experience. Teachers should ensure that learners understand fully the demands of the industries and employment sectors that their courses prepare them for.


South Gloucestershire & Stroud College

2014 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Ensure the continued improvement of teaching, learning and assessment, so that most is outstanding, and little requires improvement. Do this by building on the existing best practice of teachers, especially in outstanding areas of performance, in meeting the needs of all learners in lessons, and paying particular attention to providing sufficient challenge for more able learners. Help teachers to become fully accomplished in the use of information technology, to support learning as well as possible in lessons.
  • Ensure college-wide improvement in teaching, learning and assessment in foundation English and mathematics, and increase learners’ successful completion of qualifications in these subjects, by providing all teachers with the necessary skills and confidence to help learners improve. In particular, make sure that teachers improve learners’ understanding of the relevance of English and mathematical skills by integrating them into vocational studies, and by emphasising their importance in achieving qualifications, employment and places in higher education. Further ensure that teachers fully exploit naturally occurring opportunities in lessons to reinforce the relevance of English and mathematics, and that they always provide constructive feedback to learners on these aspects of their written work.
  • Ensure the continued and consistent improvement of learners’ successful completion by rigorous application of existing detailed quality improvement plans, both for level 2 courses for adults and for those AS-level subjects where success rates are low. In particular, build on the college’s best practice, in relation to initial advice and guidance for learners, and to personalised action plans for learners, after their probationary period.


South Lanarkshire College

2019 Full Inspection Report
Areas for development
  • Although the College’s student population has an overall gender balance that is 50:50 male-female, courses in specific subjects such as Hairdressing, Beauty, Construction and Care do not all reflect this balance. Further action is required to address this and make progress towards meeting national targets.
  • Although attainment rates are very high across all student categories and subjects, well above regional targets and generally at or above 70% across the various groups, there is further potential to improve outcomes to maintain consistently very high attainment rates across all groups and subjects.
  • The College should monitor the effectiveness and impact of its new approaches for Learning Support and Extended learning support. In line with national policy, the College should monitor the effectiveness and impact of the new British Sign Language Plan.
  • Although outcomes for students are already very high across diverse groups of students, the College would benefit from drawing on best practice from the wider UK college sector to further enhance outcomes.


South Staffordshire College

2018 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Governors must hold the new senior leadership team thoroughly to account for the improvement of teaching, learning and assessment, ensuring that this leads to rapid and sustainable improvement in learners’ and apprentices’ progress and achievement.
  • Leaders and managers should rapidly improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment to address the inconsistencies across curriculum areas, subjects and teachers, by:
    • ensuring that managers use information about learners’ progress, standards of work, and the outcomes of lesson observations to identify accurately what individual teachers and assessors need to do to improve their performance and the outcomes for learners
    • identifying those vocational teachers who are already doing this well and ensuring that they have regular opportunities to share their approaches with colleagues.
  • Leaders should improve learners’ attendance and increase the proportion of learners and apprentices who achieve their qualifications, closing gaps in achievement by different groups of learners, by:
    • ensuring that teachers take into consideration learners’ starting points when planning individual targets, assignments and activities
    • ensuring that teachers provide helpful feedback and set challenging targets for their learners and apprentices, so that they can improve the quality of their work and make good progress.
  • Managers should increase the proportion of learners who make good progress in developing their English and mathematics skills, by:
    • improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in English and mathematics sessions
    • supporting teachers in vocational, English and mathematics courses to set work which enables learners to apply and develop their skills.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that the curriculum for learners with high needs supports learners’ progression into employment through the provision of work-related programmes, including supported internships.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that more learners complete a relevant external work placement which prepares them for their progression into work.


South Thames Colleges Group

2020 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Leaders should ensure that teachers have high expectations of students to attend their lessons punctually. They should establish a consistent approach to rectifying poor punctuality so that students understand what is expected of them in all taught sessions.
  • Teachers in vocational subjects should plan to improve students’ English and mathematical skills so that they understand how to apply these confidently within the vocational context. Teachers should ensure that students with high needs improve their skills in English and mathematics throughout their programmes.
  • Managers and teachers should take further action to improve students’ attendance at English and mathematics lessons.
  • Leaders and managers should ensure that employers in health and social care apprenticeships and in subcontracted provision have a good understanding of the requirements of apprenticeship programmes. They should monitor carefully that apprentices receive their entitlement to off-the-job training.
  • Managers should ensure that students with high needs, adult students and apprentices receive detailed and helpful feedback on their work, so that they know what they need to do to improve.


South Tyneside College

2019 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Ensure that a higher proportion of learners who have high needs and for whom employment is an appropriate next step progress into paid work when they leave the college.
  • Improve the attendance of learners where it is too low.
  • Ensure that assessors help apprentices in health and social care to develop the new knowledge that they need to be successful at work and in their apprenticeship.
  • Improve assessment in the few areas where it is not good enough so that lecturers have an accurate understanding of the knowledge that learners are missing and can use it to inform future teaching activities.


South West College

2014 Full Inspection Report
What does South West College need to do to improve further?

The College needs to:

  • continue to implement the strategy to enhance the quality of teaching, training and learning and to provide the lecturers, including part-time lecturers, with appropriate professional support to develop further their pedagogic skills.


Southend Adult Community College

2014 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve further?
  • Continue efforts to improve success rates and the progress learners are making.
  • Ensure that all teachers develop learners’ English skills sufficiently within their teaching.
  • Improve teaching learning and assessment so that they are good or better in all curriculum areas by:
    • ensuring that teachers provide sufficient stretch and challenge to all learners
    • ensuring that initial and on-going assessment results are used consistently well to inform lesson planning
    • focussing more clearly on the quality of the learning during teaching observations.
  • Bring greater rigour to the recording of safeguarding actions and outcomes.


Southern Regional College

2014 Full Inspection Report
What does the Southern Regional College need to do to improve further?

The College needs to:

  • take a more strategic approach to the longer term planning for the curriculum, to ensure that it continues to fully meet the needs of learners, industry and the wider community;
  • improve the use of technology to support and enhance the quality of teaching, training and learning across the College;
  • further improve the quality of teaching and learning in the provision for the essential skills; and
  • address the satisfactory quality of the provision in transportation operations and maintenance (motor vehicle).


Southport College

2020 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Ensure that all teachers on adult English and mathematics courses plan a sufficiently demanding curriculum that challenges learners to achieve high grades in their qualifications.
  • Ensure that the curriculum for apprentices, particularly those in engineering and health and social care, develops their knowledge, skills and behaviours quickly.
  • Ensure that adult learners on English and mathematics courses and apprentices in engineering attend their courses regularly.
  • Ensure that learners and apprentices develop a good understanding of radicalisation and extremism and how it applies to them.


Southwark College

2018 Full Inspection Report
What does the provider need to do to improve?
  • Governors should finalise the reforms to the structure of governance and local boards and ensure that they provide more effective challenge and support to NCG and divisional leaders.
  • Leaders should improve the quality of training on apprenticeship programmes and increase the proportion of apprentices who achieve their qualifications by:
    • ensuring that all apprentices receive an appropriate amount of off-the-job training
    • ensuring that all apprentices are on programmes where they will learn new skills
    • setting targets and actions for apprentices so that they are clear about what knowledge and skills they need to acquire.
  • Leaders should take action to increase the proportion of learners who attend and are on time for lessons.
  • Leaders should implement more precise actions to bring about improvements to learners’ experiences and outcomes and ensure that they monitor the impact of these actions more closely.
  • Teachers should provide more challenging learning activities to learners, particularly those on study programmes, so that a higher proportion make good progress relative to their prior attainment.
  • Teachers should develop learners’ skills in English and mathematics further so that a higher proportion of learners achieve GCSE and functional skills qualifications in these subjects.
  • Staff should increase the proportion of learners who attend external work placements as part of their preparation for employment, particularly at Newcastle College.

Report Recommendations