A principal will keep his job despite his college dropping two Ofsted grades to inadequate.

The education watchdog’s verdict on Tresham College of Further and Higher Education means it is the 12th general FE college to have been handed the lowest possible rating since last September.  

The latest report, published today but based on an inspection from June 7 to 10, also rated Tresham grade four in five out of seven headline fields – leadership and management, teaching and learning, outcomes, study programmes and apprenticeships.

Only one field – adult learning programmes – was awarded a good, while personal development, behaviour and welfare was graded as requires improvement.

But a spokesperson for the college told FE Week that, despite the damning report, Tresham principal Stuart Wesselby will remain in post.

FE Week understands that the report took longer to be published than the usual six weeks for a grade four, as the college tried and failed to challenge the verdict.

The report on Tresham, which had an Education Funding Agency allocation of £13.3m and a Skillls Funding Agency allocation of £5.7m in 2015/16, found that the “principles of study programmes are not being met” with “too few students” able to undertake a “meaningful and relevant work placement”.

Learners on study programmes, who make up the majority of the college’s 4,700 students, “make inadequate progress towards their learning outcomes” with the proportion “who achieve the grades expected of them” also inadequate.

Attendance at GCSE English and maths lessons was also “too low”, the report said, with students’ development in these areas “poor”.

Consequently, achievement rates on study programmes were “too low and have declined steadily over the past three years”, the report said.

Apprenticeship achievement rates, particularly for 19- to 23-year-olds, were also “too low”.

In addition, the report said: “A significant proportion of current apprentices are making slow progress, largely because assessments and reviews of their work are too infrequent.”

Poor target setting, insufficient written feedback, and a lack of coordination between workplace learning and college-based training were also blamed for apprentices’ lack of progress.

The small number of A-level students at the college also “performed very poorly”, the report said.

In contrast, “highly motivated” students on the college’s adult programmes “develop useful skills to prepare them for work and further study” as a result of “highly effective” teaching and well-planned lessons, the report said.

A Tresham College spokesperson told FE Week that Mr Wesselby was “extremely disappointed” by the Ofsted verdict, particularly on outcomes, which was based on results from 2014/15.

The college had already put in place a number of improvements which were predicted to lead to better outcomes in 2015/16, but these had not been taken into account by Ofsted, the spokesperson said.

She added: “Mr Wesselby has the full backing of the college’s governing body to remain as principal of Tresham.”

The spokesperson also confirmed that the college is scrapping its A-level provision from September due to falling student numbers.

Tresham College is expected to be involved in the South East Midlands area review, part of wave five of the reviews, which is due to start in November.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said “We are considering Tresham College’s recent Ofsted inspection in line with our intervention processes. 

“Under this approach, any college rated inadequate will be assessed by the FE commissioner.”

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2 Comments

  1. The Ofsted inspection framework and methods are no longer fit for purpose. The calibre of HMIs leading inspections is also sometimes questionable – yet they are holding a lethal weapon. The Ofsted judgements are no longer a reliable measure of quality at a college, but a judgement on the impact of a plethora of ill thought through reforms coupled with year on year funding cuts. This consequence as bound to occur. Otherwise, how is it that, all of a sudden, a large number of GFE colleges are failing to measure up when for many decades they have done reasonably well. The impact of the plethora of reforms has had the most profound impact on GFE colleges as they have a much more extensive offer than independent training providers and, unlike sixth form colleges, have had to deal with the GCSE resit expectations. Is it any surprise that Ofsted’s ‘weighing of the pig’ approach has resulted in the reporting of widespread malnourishment? We could have saved the government the expense of this and predicted this ‘no brainer’ outcome. The new government ministers should seriously look at the impact of trying to reform all parts of the system simultaneously and work to provide some much needed stability instead, focusing on one thing at a time. They should also look to fund further education on a par with schools and universities instead of fooling themselves into thinking funding cuts do not have an impact on quality. More money should go into helping colleges to implement and embed the required changes rather than reporting their predictable failure to do so in the present environment. Now that would be tax payers’ money well spent.

  2. LRoding

    We’ll done for expressing surprise, and probably disappointment, that a Principal hasn’t been sacked! If we are going to take a football manager approach to employment stability for Principals, perhaps we should also apply it to hacks and the editorial team of FEWeek. One hopeless article and you’re out…..I suspect that FEWeek would be severely depleted were that to be the case.