The proportion of general FE colleges that hold Ofsted’s top two grades took a big dip last year while independent training providers improved.
Official statistics published this morning show that 84 per cent of general FE colleges sat with a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ judgment as of August 31, 2024 – 7 percentage points lower than in 2023.
Sixth form colleges meanwhile lost their 100 per cent record, dipping down to 95 per cent.
But independent training providers welcomed news of an uptick.
Last year, the proportion of those holding a grade one or two fell to 71 per cent – the lowest since Ofsted’s education inspection framework was introduced in 2019. This has now improved to 77 per cent.
Overall, the quality of the whole FE sector went up in Ofsted’s books. As of August 31, 2024, 82 per cent of all further education and skills providers were judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ – an increase of 4 percentage points compared with last year.
The stats were released today ahead of the watchdog’s annual report, which will be laid in Parliament on Thursday. Overall effectiveness grades will be scrapped next year, but Ofsted’s ‘state of the nation’ measure will continue for FE until then.
What happened with GFEs?
In 2023/24, Ofsted inspected 53 general FE colleges, of which 45 had been judged ‘good’ at their previous inspection.
Of these 45, 13 declined to ‘requires improvement’. Overall, 75 per cent of the general FE colleges inspected this year were judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ for overall effectiveness.
By the end of August 2024, 149 GFEs had an overall Ofsted grade, and of those, 125 (84 per cent) had the top two grades. This figure was 91 per cent in 2023.
The Association of Colleges has been approached for comment.
Enhanced inspection results
Enhanced inspections of colleges launched in September 2022 to include an assessment of how well the college is contributing to addressing skills gaps in the local, regional, and national economies.
The outcome of this assessment is not subject to a separate report but is included as a part of the overall inspection. Inspectors dish out one of three ratings for the skills contribution section – limited, reasonable or strong.
Out of the 104 general FE colleges inspected to date with this judgment, six were making a ‘limited’ contribution to meeting skills needs.
A further 59 were found making a ‘reasonable’ contribution, while 39 were making a ‘strong’ contribution.
SFCs lose 100% record
For the past two years all sixth form colleges held Ofsted’s top two grades.
But during 2023/24, two lost this rating. Cirencester College fell to a grade 3, and Newham Sixth Form College was hit with a grade 4.
Newham recently merged with its neighbouring general FE college so will have its inspection grade wiped in next year’s results.
‘Significant step forward’ for ITPs
Ofsted inspected 247 independent learning providers (including employer providers) in 2023/24.
Of those, 121 (49 per cent) had their first full inspection, of which 94 were judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, and 27 were rated ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.
Overall, there were 895 ITPs that held an overall grade with Ofsted as of August 31, 2024. Of those, 684 have the top two grades.
Simon Ashworth, deputy chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said his membership body was “very pleased to see the significant step forward in ITPs achieving ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ inspection outcomes compared to the previous twelve months”.
He pointed out that over the last couple of years, aggregated outcomes for ITPs have been “weighed down by weaker outcomes for many new providers that should never have been given access to the market in the first place”, which has “taken a long time to wash through”.
Ashworth added that while there is a role for high-quality and robust new entrants, lessons “must be learned” by the Department for Education when considering the transition to the growth and skills levy and the “introduction of additional funded programmes expected next year”.
Other provider types
There were 34 inspections of adult community education providers in 2023/24, which includes local authority services and the institutes of adult learning. Nearly all, 32, were graded ‘good’ or better. There was one ‘inadequate’ and one ‘requires improvement’. That brought the overall headline grade down by 1 percentage point to 96 per cent ‘good or better’ for that part of the sector.
Today’s data shows that 89 higher education institutions had an overall Ofsted grade by the end of August. Of those, 83 (93 per cent) were judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, an increase of 5 percentage points compared with August 31, 2023.
Independent specialist colleges continued their improvement journey.
Of the 110 with an Ofsted grade, 88 (80 per cent) held the top two grades, an increase of 3 percentage points. Just two independent specialist colleges are judged ‘inadequate’.
Results for prison education are dire and have continued to plummet.
As of August 31, 2024, there were 116 prisons and youth offender institutions (YOI) with an inspection grade. Overall, just 18 per cent were judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’. This is a decrease of 9 percentage points compared with 2023 and a fall of 18 percentage points compared with 2022.
The overall proportion of prisons and YOIs judged ‘inadequate’ at their most recent inspection was 42 per cent.
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