England’s sixth biggest college has fallen from good to inadequate in Ofsted ratings.

City of Bristol College was visited mid-February and has emerged with a grade four result.

College leaders have told of their disappointment with the result, but said they were not “shying away” from the challenges it posed.

The Ofsted report gave the 30,000-learner college inadequate grades in each of the headline fields apart from leadership and management, where it was seen to be in need of improvement.

Inspectors found that “quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate and varies considerably within and between faculties and subject areas.”

The college — England’s sixth biggest with its turnover of £67.5m for the year ending July 31, 2011 — was previously inspected in 2010, when it achieved a good grading.

But, according to the latest Ofsted report, its teachers now paid “insufficient attention to the individual needs of learners and do not challenge learners of different abilities to achieve their potential”.

The report also described learners’ attendance as “very low” and added: “Annual staff appraisal does not use enough management information to measure performance accurately and rarely identifies underperformance.”

However, it also paid tribute to the efforts of new leadership at the college, which has around 2,200 staff.

It said there was “wide commitment by staff to the new vision and mission from the new senior managers and governors which focus strongly on improving teaching and learning and outcomes for learners.”

The report continued: “An impressively positive cultural change, instigated through highly effective communication, is enabling staff to become more responsible and accountable for learners’ outcomes.”

Principal Lynn Merilion, who took up post at the college for the start of the current academic year, said: “Of course the overall grade rating of four is disappointing for us, but the grade is a reflection of where we were.

“Ofsted recognised that we have started the process of change and I’m confident that within the next few years our college will be graded outstanding.”

Among the changes currently under way at the college has been a management restructure in which a new deputy principal in Cliff Shaw, from Yeovil College, has been already appointed.

Four new governors, including chair Dr Richard Eke, have also been appointed, while financial savings from the loss of around 30 posts are to be invested in teaching and learning improvements.

“We have already started to address improvements to make sure that all students receive the excellent teaching, learning and support they deserve,” added Ms Merilion.

“Since joining the College I have been listening to students, parents, staff and other stakeholders and we have a clear vision of where we need to improve and how we will get there.”

Louise McMillan, who joined the college as vice principal around a year ago, added: “Everybody in the college is disappointed by the grade four.

“The term ‘inadequate’ is a hard one and it’s hard to to take when you’re proud of the institution you work for, however, if any one of our learners fails then we fail, and we take that very seriously — we’re not shying away from the Ofsted grade.”

The latest inadequate grading from Ofsted has emerged less than 24 hours after the government announced plans for a new FE Commissioner to challenge failing colleges.

The 30,000-learner City of Bristol College has fallen from a 2010 good grading following inspection last month.

The college, which was the sixth biggest in England, with a turnover of £67.5m for the year ending July 31, 2011, according to the Skills Funding Agency, has released a statement on the grading.

However, the report itself has not been published by Ofsted yet.

Principal Lynn Merilion said improvements were already under way.

FE Week will be covering the report, including further reaction from the Bristol college, in full when it has been released.

City of Liverpool College fell from a 2009 outstanding grade to inadequate around three weeks ago.

Principal Elaine Bowker said there was a “strong commitment [at the college] to tackling any weaknesses”.

The government has said the FE Commissioner, who will be able to call for failing colleges to be shut down, was expected to be in place for September.

UPDATE: Read the FE Week follow-up article here.

Proposals for the FE Guild have been criticised as a “bad April fool” by the NUS after it emerged there could be no student representation on the board.

A draft guild implementation plan, seen by FE WEEK, suggests seats on the board for the Association of Colleges (AoC), the Association of Employment and Learning Providers and the Association of Adult Education and Training Organisations (AAETO), which operates under the name HOLEX.

The plan compares the guild to the York-based HE Academy, which does have learner representation on its board, but there are no plans for a recognised student voice on the guild board.

Toni Pearce, vice president of the NUS and spokesperson on FE, said: “The attempt to remove student representation from the sector would risk undermining the guild’s credibility from the start.

“It goes without saying that we intend to resist this patronising and regressive attempt to erode the learner voice.”

Referring to guild aims outlined in the draft document, she added: “For the guild to define its measure of success ‘genuine improvement in learner outcomes and experiences’ and then seek to remove national student representation reads like a bad April fool.”

The proposals for the guild have been defended by the AoC, which has been contracted to develop the guild. Its chief executive, Martin Doel, said: “The need to engage with learners is a very firm commitment in the implementation plan.

“The steering group considered the best way of achieving this and did not feel that having a single representative as a director on the board was the most effective way to achieve the level of engagement needed.”

He added: “An early task for the implementation team, working with the steering group is to decide how the student voice is best heard.”

The draft plan acknowledged the importance of learner views on the guild, but proposed that “learners specifically be part of the wider sector engagement processes, rather than part of the governance arrangements”.

But Ms Pearce dismissed this as an attempt “to fob students off” which “merely adds insult to injury”.

The plan further outlines a proposed budget and home for the guild, predicting the total core infrastructure and overhead costs to deliver a year’s activity at £2.8m, based on 32 full time staff — in London.

The plan says: “It should be emphasised that this is a very early estimate… If and when approval for the next phase of development is secured a more detailed, costed activity model will be developed.”

The implementation plan said Central London property costs were around £70 per square foot, in Birmingham they were £44 and in Coventry they were £27.

However, a Central London base was recommended as “the guild is a small organisation and as such any saving or cost between locations is more marginal”.

The plan continued: “Using reasonable assumptions it was calculated that the maximum saving on locating in the Midlands was under £60,000 once additional travel time and other costs had been included.

“This is marginal given the overall size of the guild so it can be concluded that this factor is not as important as proximity to key stakeholders.”

A “phased approach” to funding of the guild was also proposed, with a direct grant from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills covering the guild’s first two years, with a top slice, or levy, of the overall skills budget funding the third year. The guild would aim to be self-funding after that, it adds.