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2024 Full Inspection Report

Leaders and managers have a very clear rationale for the programmes that they provide. They offer a highly ambitious curriculum which successfully meets the needs of their students, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds, and which is responsive to local and national skills priorities. Leaders realise this ambition by ensuring that students achieve outcomes that enable them to progress to the next stage of their education and career.

Teachers plan and sequence the curriculum highly effectively to enable students to develop their knowledge and skills over time. They ensure that students acquire sound concepts that they can develop further and apply in their studies. Students build their knowledge gradually and become increasingly confident in applying it in their subjects. For example, students in A-level mathematics build on their skills from GCSE at the beginning of their course before developing their knowledge of calculus and statistics. Students in psychology first learn about psychological approaches, research methods and academic writing conventions. They then apply their knowledge and skills in real-life situations relating to issues such as stress, addiction and mental health.

Teachers are highly skilled and use effective teaching strategies. This includes skilful questioning, carefully managing discussions and using thought-provoking questions. Teachers set weekly independent learning tasks (ILTs), which students use routinely to consolidate their learning after each lesson. Each ILT features links to online content or articles where students can read an alternative explanation of the theories that they have learned in lessons. Students are motivated to complete their ILTs, which help them to feel more prepared and increasingly confident for future lessons and their examinations.

Teachers support students very well to prepare for the demands of their examinations. They carry out frequent retrieval activities at the start of lessons that remind students what they know and help to prepare them for examinations. Teachers modify the amount of waiting time that they give to students when asking questions in lessons, so that students experience the time constraints typical in examinations.

Students produce a high standard of work, in which they take pride. They use academic referencing confidently and extensively in their work and frequently use citations and examples to demonstrate their understanding. They are highly motivated to achieve high grades in their coursework and overall qualifications.

Teachers assess students frequently and accurately, and in ways which reflect examinations. They set a range of weekly and termly homework tasks, which give students opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding while building their confidence in tackling examination questions. Teachers use the results of assessment to plan learning to enable students to address their knowledge and skill deficits. They provide very helpful feedback, which helps students to understand how to improve.

Teachers embed English and mathematics very well into their teaching to develop students’ skills. Students in applied information communications technology lessons develop their mathematics skills in real-world scenarios. Teachers in all subjects support students to improve their writing and communication skills. Students recognise the value of these skills to their success now and when entering the world of work.

Teachers are well qualified and have extensive expertise in their subjects. They maintain current industry knowledge through their work with employers, awarding bodies and professional networks. Teachers benefit from helpful training and professional development, including training in behaviour management, open questioning and live marking.

Most students benefit from work-related learning that prepares them for the transition to university and helps them to understand the range of jobs that their qualifications can enable them to aspire. For example, sports students work towards additional qualifications in areas such as indoor climbing and they shadow experienced climbers in the workplace. Law students benefit from talks from lawyers to inform them of the career paths and opportunities available to them. Geography students receive talks from town planning staff to inform them of job opportunities in the local council. However, on a few programmes, students have limited opportunities to interact with employers or to experience the world of work.

Leaders and managers work very effectively with partner organisations and stakeholders. For example, managers work in collaboration with the local general further education college to ensure that students are able to transfer to more relevant educational opportunities if their own provision is not the right pathway on enrolment or beyond.

Leaders and managers are aware of the workload and well-being of their staff. Staff feel able to approach leaders and managers to share any concerns that they may have. Staff feel supported by leaders in navigating any personal matters that may impact on their teaching roles.

Teachers provide good support for students with high needs and additional learning needs. They provide specialist software to help these students analyse data more easily and to write efficiently in timed conditions. Students benefit from appropriate arrangements to help them manage the demands of examinations, such as supervised rest breaks and extra time. As a result, students with high needs and additional learning needs make good progress in line with their peers.

Leaders and managers ensure that students receive effective careers information, advice and guidance to inform their next steps. Staff discuss subject choices in line with students’ career aspirations prior to enrolment and use taster sessions and induction events to confirm the choices that students make. Students learn about various progression pathways, including undergraduate degrees and apprenticeship opportunities, and can access ongoing careers support at any point from the careers team and their tutors.

Leaders and managers have in place an effective board of governors. Board members draw on their experience from industry, finance and education to provide effective challenge and support to senior leaders at the college. They provide prudent oversight over the financial position of the college, with the result that they can invest in improving teaching and learning resources to the benefit of students.

2019 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve?

• Ensure that teachers challenge those students who arrive late for their lessons and encourage those students with poor attendance to attend their lessons more frequently.
• Support all teachers to plan the delivery of their subject and curriculum in a way that enables students to build on their prior knowledge, retain and recall previous learning, and make rapid progress.

2018 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve further?

• Governors and leaders must ensure that plans to bring about improvements are clear, identify precise targets for improvement, and state clearly who will be held accountable for achieving them.
• With leaders of the college, governors must review and improve the information that they receive about all aspects of college performance, in particular that relating to students’ progress and achievement, so that they can challenge and support leaders effectively to bring about necessary improvements to the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and students’ outcomes.
• Leaders and managers must take action to ensure that teachers are held to account for the progress that students make in the subjects they teach, so that:
  • teachers plan high-quality learning activities that support and challenge a much higher proportion of students to achieve their potential
  • the proportion of students who achieve high grades in A-level subjects improves significantly.

2014 Full Inspection Report

What does the provider need to do to improve further?

• Improve aspects of teaching and learning by:
  • consistently setting high expectations for all students, so that they make consistently good progress and achieve high grades
  • giving clear instructions to all students so that they know what they have to do to be successful
  • making better use of opportunities in lessons to develop mathematical skills appropriate to the subject they are studying
• giving students time to discuss equality and diversity in lessons so that their knowledge and awareness increases.
• Improve the form and content of the college self-assessment report to ensure that there is adequate coverage of all aspects of the college’s work supported by sound evidence. Ensure that the elements of areas for improvement are sufficiently detailed so that specific actions can be identified to support rapid improvement in provision.

2012 Full Inspection Report

What does Thomas Rotherham College need to do to improve further?

• Improve the proportion of students who achieve high grades and fulfil their potential by reviewing the content of lessons, learning materials and assessment activities in the lower-performing subjects. Raise standards by ensuring that the outcomes of this review lead to a consistent improvement in the breadth and depth of students’ learning in these subjects.
• Make better use of data in quality assurance and self-assessment to develop strategies to identify swiftly and intervene effectively where the performance of individuals and groups of students is below expectations. Ensure that such interventions lead to consistently high success rates in all subjects.
• Improve arrangements for the performance management of teachers and managers. Strengthen accountability arrangements so that all staff recognise fully their responsibility for performance in their area.
• Improve the rigour and consistency of target-setting at all levels, and ensure that ambitious targets for all aspects of the college’s work are linked coherently to strategic priorities and communicated unambiguously throughout the college. Implement rigorous procedures for monitoring progress against these targets.
• Ensure that college leaders are successful in creating a shared culture of continuous improvement across the college that is focused relentlessly on raising expectations.

2009 Full Inspection Report

Areas for improvement

The college should address:

• low success rates on a minority of subjects
• insufficient measures to improve the quality of teaching
• the quality of curriculum management
• the promotion of equality and diversity within the curriculum
• the lack of compliance with safeguarding requirements.

2004 Full Inspection Report

What should be improved

• low pass rates on advanced subsidiary-level (AS-level) courses
• achievement of high grades
• the overall quality of teaching and learning
• the use of individual learning plans to set targets and monitor student progress
• the rigour of self-assessment
• arrangements for quality assurance
• the sharing of good practice
• governors monitoring of students' performance and experience
• the college response to Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA) and the Race Relations (amendment) Act 2000.