Meeting the Demands of the Ofsted Annual Report 2015-2016

THE OFSTED ANNUAL REPORT 2015/16
#ConcrewTraining provides a wide range of good practice workshops designed to help #managers, #teachers and #trainers to understand and meet the challenges facing them in their quest to become an outstanding Provider.

• The bullet points below are extracts from the latest #Ofsted annual report.
• They highlight where improvement is needed
• The report and headline findings can be found here.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

• The overall performance of general #FE #colleges continues to decline.
  
• A large majority of FE Colleges that previously required improvement or were inadequate did not become good.
  
• Too few #apprenticeships deliver professional, up-to-date knowledge and skills in the  sectors that need them most and too many are of poor quality.
  
• 37% of the apprenticeship programmes we inspected this year were found to be less than good.
  
• General FE colleges continue to struggle to meet all of the requirements of study programmes
  
• University technical colleges - Out of the 15 inspected five required improvement and two were inadequate.

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LEADERSHIP and MANAGEMENT NEEDS TO IMPROVE

• Half the colleges inspected this year had leadership and management that was less than good
  
• Of the 82 general FE colleges inspected in 2015/16, 28 (34%) were judged to require improvement and a further 12 (15%) were judged inadequate for overall effectiveness.
  
• Almost half of these colleges have performed poorly for many years.
  
• All of the colleges judged inadequate this year were characterised by systemic weaknesses in leadership and/or governance.
  
• Strengthening leadership capacity within sector remains a priority
  
• There is not enough #leadership capacity within the FE sector to  enable improvement.
  
• The effectiveness of leadership and management was judged to be good or outstanding in only 52% of general FE colleges. 

TEACHING NEEDS TO STRETCH AND CHALLENGE STUDENTS MORE

• A key weakness for nearly all colleges graded as requires improvement or inadequate was that teaching did not challenge students enough.
  
• Too many technical and vocational courses inspected last year were simply not demanding enough.
  
• The problem of insufficiently stretching work was acute for the most able students on technical and vocational courses.
  
• Study Programmes - in almost all, teaching that was not demanding enough, resulting in slower progress and lower standards
  
• Assessors were not good at setting apprentices’ targets. They did not ensure that apprentices understood and developed a wider range of personal skills, necessary to be effective in the workplace, beyond those needed to complete an assessment.
  
• Apprentices were not adept at organising themselves to make the best use of time and meet deadlines. 

MATHS AND ENGLISH OUTCOMES NEED TO IMPROVE

• Study Programme too few students achieved passes at a higher grade when retaking GCSE English or mathematics
  
• Just over a quarter of students by age 19 are not achieving a grade C or higher in GCSE mathematics and more still in English.
  
• In providers that required improvement or were inadequate, inspectors found a range of weaker characteristics in the development of apprentices’ skills for employment. Almost all these providers were failing to improve apprentices’ English or mathematics skills, or helping them to achieve these qualifications. 

SAFEGUARDING, PREVENT AND BRITISH VALUES

• Around a third of the providers did not train staff effectively.
  
• Not enough practical action was taken to reduce potential risks
  
• In nearly half the providers, not enough had been done to ensure that learners were protected from the risk of radicalisation and extremism when using information technology (IT).
  
• Over a third of providers were not working in partnership with the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) to assess and minimise IT risks.
  
• The weakest providers, predominantly independent learning providers had not implemented any aspect of the ‘Prevent’ duty and six providers had no arrangements in place to check the suitability of people coming to the provider to make presentations to learners.
  
• #Learners were easily able to access inappropriate websites and were at risk of being exposed to or accessing dangerous extremist materials
  
• Ofsted made a series of recommendations designed to strengthen providers’ implementation of the ‘Prevent’ duty.  These included commitment to ensure that inspections from September 2016 focus more strongly on the impact of providers’ work on learners’ and apprentices’ understanding of potential risks.
  
• In FE and skills, independent learning providers in particular may have engaged subcontractors to help them deliver their programmes, but had not always checked the suitability of contractors, their staff or sites. They did not appear to appreciate that in delegating course delivery, they could not give up responsibility for students’ well-being and safety, as well as their progress and learning.
  
• About 40% of independent #schools and over a third of maintained schools that were ineffective for safeguarding also did not prepare pupils well enough for life in modern Britain.

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