If colleges want to improve, the leadership team must be honest and open about its weaknesses says Matthew Coffey. 

Ofsted’s How Colleges Improve report, published in September, was commissioned by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service to highlight how colleges can build on best practice and ensure the education they are providing is at least good or outstanding.

It found that successful colleges shared the same characteristics which centred on strong leadership and management and a clear vision and direction with genuinely collaborative approaches.

The determination and drive of senior leadership teams in making sure their visions and values became the culture and ethos of their colleges were evident in the colleges that were outstanding or improving quickly.

In outstanding and improving colleges staff at all levels were more willing to accept change and could easily describe what their college stood for.

As a result leadership teams were better placed to act decisively to tackle underperformance and secure improvement.

Good and outstanding colleges were not afraid of self-assessment processes even if they were critical as they understood it was integral to the college’s improvement.

In outstanding colleges internal communication with staff was excellent; great attention to detail was paid to both routine information as well as the dissemination of key critical messages.

Self-assessment included all key processes and areas of work, for example, work subcontracted to other providers. Self-assessment was accurate, evidence-based, involved all staff and brought about improvements.

One of the differences between underperforming colleges and more successful and improving colleges, as seen both during the visits and in the review of reports, was that the latter saw observing teaching and learning as an integral part of the process of improving quality, outcomes and assessment. It was not viewed as an end in itself to satisfy the requirements of Ofsted.

Outstanding colleges had a good reputation with not only staff and learners, but the community more widely, especially where colleges engaged with local employers.

While there was no single explanation as to why some colleges underperformed there were often many interrelated reasons and common features. Often, there was complacency, and lack of ambition, direction and vision from senior staff.

Too often leaders and managers were overly preoccupied with finance or capital buildings projects to the detriment of promoting good teaching and learning or developing the curriculum.

Self-assessment reports in weaker colleges were often over-optimistic”

Self-assessment reports in weaker colleges were often over-optimistic and lacked critical insight which brought about limited improvements.

This was often coupled with a defensive inward-looking approach, where colleges were slow to accept change or act when data showed decline.

In weaker colleges there tended to be a larger proportion of temporary staff. They were often not properly managed, either because internal arrangements for performance management were weak or because lines of accountability for staff employed through external agencies were unclear or absent.

Ofsted has a number of recommendations for both colleges and the government and these mainly focus on promoting the benefits of robust, accurate and open self- assessment in improving quality within the context of local accountability.

The main messages from the report can be summed up quite nicely by the principal of an improving college, who said: “To make progress, colleges, particularly the leadership, management and governors, must be honest and open about the things done badly.”

All in all we found that a defensive and inward-looking approach especially to self-assessment does not serve as a good base for improvement.

Matthew Coffey, Ofsted national director for learning and skills

You need to change the culture of your college if you want to move from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ says Tony Lau-Walker. And you don’t do this by first looking at the common inspection framework. 

When we were asked how Eastleigh College achieved its outstanding status this year the reply reflected Mo Farah’s comment after winning Olympic gold this summer — “it was a long journey and required constant graft and hard work”.

Moving from satisfactory or even inadequate to good is relatively easy for a determined senior management team, because it is about cutting out obvious dysfunctional performances within the curriculum and across the college.

Moving from good to outstanding, however, is a step change in both performance and expectations. Staff and managers need to want to do it and to believe that they can be outstanding. They need to change the culture of the organisation.

It is not about stopping doing things that are ineffective, but about doing things that stretch boundaries and innovate. It will engage staff in a dialogue about teaching and learning, and will give ownership of standards and targets at the lowest levels.

Eastleigh College’s approach to inspection was, initially, not to look at the common inspection framework (CIF), but to be clear about what was needed to make our efforts successful for our learners. We were critical of our efforts to meet learners’ needs, however harsh this meant our internal self-assessment grades were for particular teams.

Only when we were clear what worked for our learners did we seek to understand what the inspectors were looking for and how it fitted with what we did best.

Managing an inspection starts with clarifying the interpretation of the CIF and challenging staff with these standards — from governors through to classroom assistants. Our commitment was to critically affirm what we did well and build on it.

We acted on three pieces of advice. First, do not operate at an aggregated level with results and performance. While it is reassuring as an overview, it masks the things that need addressing. Second, action everything that needs addressing and ensure everything is followed up. Record these actions and, most importantly, their impact. Third, when observing lessons, focus on learning and learner engagement — this should inform the grade, even if it gives a less flattering grade profile to the college.

By understanding what inspectors were looking for and matching what we did to the framework of the CIF, rather than to the rumours and myths circulating in the sector, the inspection went smoothly.

Eastleigh volunteered to have a short-notice inspection as part of Ofsted’s pilot because we were confident, following our self-assessment, that we could evidence all aspects the CIF would examine. The framework has now been streamlined, inspectors call it flat-lining — the absence of a spiky profile — which may enable colleges that have the key things right to achieve ‘outstanding’.

The grade of teaching and learning has become more important, a natural progression for an organisation now seeking to raise the importance of learner experience  — hence the new Learner View website.

The criteria is more aspirational and more focused than before, placing emphasis on engagement, high expectations and motivation, which depicts a demanding classroom experience and committed teachers.

Outcomes for learners remains the lead criteria for effectiveness, but is now treated as a hygiene element, inevitability so as success rates rise and the sector is seen to be competent at achieving success with the learners that it serves.

Merging equality and diversity into both teaching and learning, and management, along with safeguarding, enables a more realistic assessment of these elements.

To prepare for the new CIF, colleges need to concentrate on what is right for their learners — the right learners on the right courses with the right support.

With a major investment of time and effort in staff development and a hypercritical self-assessment, the rest will follow and standards will rise.

Tony Lau-Walker is chief executive of Eastleigh College

The new common inspection framework (CIF) represents a substantial shift, not only in its structure and application, but in its core reasoning and message.

The new chief inspector has made a clear statement of purpose — too many learners are receiving provision that is satisfactory and inadequate, and the new framework is specifically designed to not only contribute to raising standards, but as an imperative to do it more quickly.

The inspection’s chief tool, the CIF, gives inspectors more flexibility to focus on the core aspects of teaching, learning and assessment that have a direct impact on the experience of learners.

The framework is much simpler, with the removal of the plethora of judgements found in the previous frameworks.

Gone are limiting grades for safeguarding and equality and diversity, however in its place is the new “requires improvement” judgement, replacing the former satisfactory grading.

The “requires improvement” grade has much stronger reputational implications for providers, however I believe it presents a great opportunity to accelerate the pace at which providers address areas for improvement.

To do this, two things must happen. Firstly, inspectors must quickly get to grips with applying the new framework.

Some well-trodden inspection practices must be discarded and inspectors will have to demonstrate they can make key judgements against the critical aspects of teaching, learning and assessment in a broader sense.

They will have to rely less on historical data as the main source of evidence, instead making judgements about the experience of current learners, with reference to outcomes where appropriate.

It is likely that inspectors will spend more time following groups of learners, sampling a wider range of activities, such as self study time and tutorials to judge how effective this time in helping learners progress.

This will challenge inspectors during the early stages of working to the new CIF, but the opportunity now exists to explore in much greater detail the experience of learners across all aspects of the provision they receive.

Secondly, learning providers will have to interpret the core message of the new CIF, and quickly recognise that it represents a step change from previous inspection practice.

Essentially, the grade for teaching, learning and assessment can be considered as being the new limiting grade.

Colleges and other providers that aspire to be outstanding must now have outstanding teaching learning and assessment — therefore it follows that providers who consider this aspect of provision to be satisfactory must now declare it as “requiring improvement”.

The ability to focus on this aspect of provision, and their success in creating and implementing strategies to improve teaching and learning will be the single biggest factor in future inspection outcomes.

The two-day notice period for inspections has been clearly introduced to prevent stage-managed activities.

Schedules for visits, interviews and observation activities will be more fluid and often subject to change.

They will be less detailed and inspectors will have to work more proactively to ensure they can find alternative sources of evidence for learning.

Inspectors will grade more than just traditional observations — they will grade any activity where learning is evident.

This may be activities in the workplace that don’t necessarily involve the provider. Colleges and training providers need to recognise this.

Previous incarnations of the CIF took time to settle, for inspectors and providers alike, and it will be interesting to see how the early implementation of the new CIF takes shape.

It is clear however that Ofsted is determined to raise the bar.

If inspection outcomes can accurately articulate the quality of provision and what needs to take place to improve it, and providers are able to interpret and implement plans to address areas for improvement then I believe the new CIF presents an opportunity to genuinely raise standards throughout FE and the learning and skills sector.

David Sykes, director at The Skills Network

A review of the FE teacher and trainer qualifications is one way the Learning and Skills Improvement Service is helping providers says Rob Wye.  

The Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) and Ofsted co-commissioned the How Colleges Improve report to ensure all of us in the sector gained a thorough understanding of what exactly is required if standards are to be raised.

It made three recommendations that LSIS should follow, which we are already implementing.

These are to continue to focus training and development on achieving effective governance and outstanding teaching, learning and assessment, to take steps to increase the involvement of underperforming colleges in LSIS’s programmes, and to promote the sharing of best practice between institutions in tackling common impediments to progress.

These three points coincide with LSIS’s key priorities for the sector — to equip the sector to achieve outstanding teaching and learning, to ensure the sector has excellent leadership, management and governance, and to mobilise effective and timely intervention both to avoid and resolve cases of failure.

As part of our commitment to our first priority, we are leading a review of FE teacher and trainer qualifications to ensure teachers are equipped with the professionalism required to achieve excellence.

We are supportive of any initiative that aims to improve professionalism in the sector, and gives the sector the recognition and profile that it deserves.

Finally, we are conducting the secretariat function for the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning led by Frank McLoughlin CBE.

The commission is committed to hearing from people with insights and experience from across the sector.

A number of seminars are being held, and the questions for each seminar and the summary reports will be made available online to encourage and enable as many people as possible to be engaged in this important work.

We believe the importance of outstanding leadership and management, underpinned by informed governance, cannot be underestimated.

Following the release of How Colleges Improve, Ofsted’s national director for learning and skills, Matthew Coffey, said: “Successful colleges always had strong leadership and management, and the importance of this cannot be underestimated.

“All the elements of this report are inextricably linked to the actions and behaviours of leaders and managers and the example they set.”

We are leading a college for leaders called The Leadership Exchange, which will help build on these themes and offer existing and aspiring principals, chief executives and managing directors the opportunity to connect with, and learn from, the best leaders within the FE sector and beyond.

Finally, LSIS’s improvement services are well-placed to deliver on the recommendations Ofsted made and we already have evidence of impact in these areas.

For example, Skills Funding Agency-funded colleges that have worked with us in order to achieve improvement have increased their Ofsted rating by one grade at their next inspection.

However, a college is not properly ready for inspection if it does not undergo honest and thorough self-assessment, which we can support.

It is our aim to work with the sector to improve the sector, enabling those providers with expertise to be the improvement providers supporting those organisations in need.

In addition, robust and honest self-review and reflection is a vital ingredient of any provider’s improvement journey.

Summing up, we have taken on board the recommendations made in How Colleges Improve, and will be embedding them in our work. We are committed to working with the sector to improve the sector, by collaborating with improvement providers to assist those organisations in need we will continue to deliver the support needed.

Rob Wye, LSIS chief executive

More than one nominee, up-to-date information, and actively seeking out views of students and staff is critical says college principal, Michele Sutton. 

I received a telephone call one Friday afternoon when I was driving from Bradford to Manchester. It was from an Ofsted inspector who started the conversation with: “I know this could be a long shot, but would you take part in a no-notice pilot inspection?”

I wanted to speak to our nominee, but she was on a business visit to India with the Association of Colleges (one of the issues to be considered — more later).

Eventually, we decided to go ahead. The outcomes would be unpublished and confidential, so we saw it as providing somewhere in the region of £60,000-worth of free consultancy.

There were no big surprises when the inspectors came because the focus was still very much on the impact on learning. However, there were far more observations in curriculum areas than in the past — an average of 12 to 15 — and it was from this activity that inspectors were led to other lines of enquiry.

We felt that we were ready, although a little apprehensive about how the operational details, such as rooms, class timetables, identification of areas not in scope, would be organised to our usual high standards with no notice.

But we managed  — and felt that the inspectors found this process more difficult than us. Teaching staff reported that they felt much less stressed compared with previous inspection regimes.

Keep as much information as possible online and easily accessible”

We learned a great deal. Rather than inspectors staying in their base rooms, we took them to where the evidence was held, which meant that they saw more of staffrooms and business support offices. And they spoke to students — lots of them — in all types of locations, not just in classrooms or pre-arranged meetings.

The unofficial limiting grade for teaching, learning and assessment will mean a change of focus for providers away from sole emphasis on success rates, while the new focus on performance management should lead to improved teaching, learning and assessment. Learner, parent and employer views also have much more prominence.

The new regime could have a major impact on inspection grades in the sector as it could give the impression that standards are falling when it is actually the inspection methodology that has changed.

The new common inspection framework (CIF) will mean many colleges moving to no-notice observations of teaching staff — many have already taken this step.

Our advice to colleges preparing for an inspection under the new CIF is to have more than one trained nominee (remember India), keep as much information as possible online and easily accessible across the institution, ensure a good version control is in place and ensure there is full understanding of the quality of any subcontracting arrangements.

It would also be wise to keep public course information up to date as inspectors will use it for information before they arrive, ensure that staff keep student tracking and monitoring up to date, preferably on-line, and keep the latest self-assessment report and an updated quality improvement plan on the provider gateway. And if there have been significant changes since the self-assessment was published  — for example, failing provision that has now improved — add an update to the self-assessment report.

Actively seek your stakeholders’ — students, parents, employers — views in a range of ways and then make sure that you tell them what you’ve done as a result of their feedback.

Keep your staff as fully informed as possible, before, during and after the inspection.

You need to encourage a different mind-set to ensure that you and your colleagues are always prepared should the inspector ring on a Thursday morning to tell you they will be there next Monday.

Michele Sutton OBE is principal of Bradford College

Just 11 months ago, Ofsted inspectors went into Berkshire independent learning provider B2B Engage and judged its provision to be satisfactory. The grading triggered a host of improvements that, as B2B’s operations director Rebecca Yeomans explains, resulted in an improved grading following a September inspection.

B2B wasted no time acting on the areas of improvement that were identified at our previous inspection of August 2011.

We held monthly quality meetings with input from a quality consultant to maintain the momentum of improvements, and it paid off in our subsequent inspection 11 months later.

We had been informed of the new Ofsted inspection via the two-day notice period on Thursday, September 13.

In order to maximise the scope of provision inspected, B2B provided the inspectors with a schedule of activities during the week of inspection.

But due to the nature of work-based learning, and the short notice of the inspection, it wasn’t possible to prepare a slick schedule for the inspectors (as we had when we had three weeks’ notice).

We were therefore advised to offer alternative observation opportunities for the inspectors that included activity such as the inspector shadowing a learner for a morning.

However, we emerged with a good grading having implemented a series of improvements following the previous inspection.

We began our improvement journey by implementing a more robust quality assurance (QA) schedule.

With a network of 10 subcontractors, B2B had to ensure QA activity which was targeted at both direct and subcontracted delivery.

Firstly, we trained senior managers as observers of teaching and learning practices, as well as renewing our observation policy and procedure.

We then prioritised a schedule of teaching and learning observations to identify what was happening first hand in the field.

By targeting the tutors and assessors that have direct contact with our learners, we were able to impact on delivery quickly.

Through conducting and moderating the observations, it became clear what areas of improvement and training needs were required among staff.

B2B also revised its subcontractor audit procedures, combining both quality and paperwork audits into one.

By merging the audits into a ‘mini Ofsted inspection’ format, we were able to get a better picture of how quality and compliance worked together, and how subcontractors were performing in all areas.

We then planned a schedule of quarterly training days for direct staff and subcontractors.

For direct staff we concentrated on specific elements of the learner journey, revisiting induction and initial assessment procedures, formal progress reviews, as well as teaching and assessment practice.

These included setting smart [specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely] targets, lesson planning and embedding key and functional skills.

For subcontractors, we provided a series of sessions on how to self-assess, quality expectations of B2B and how to improve the learner journey.

By training subcontractors on how to self-assess, we were able to show them how to identify their own areas which needed to be improved and what they could do to improve the quality of their own delivery and service. This was a driver for getting each and every subcontractor on board.

A further area for improvement was the regular use and analysis of data to allow informed judgements and progression on success and performance.

Although data was always analysed, it was not used sufficiently and effectively and was often something not all managers and subcontractors were aware of.

The review of data was therefore added to the agendas of all one-to-ones and team meetings, from senior management to team meeting level.

Further data was also requested of staff and subcontractors to track the progress of every learner. Progress data could then be analysed to identify ‘at risk ‘learners etc. These measures could be put in place to support achievements of that learner.

Rebecca Yeomans, operations director at B2B Engage and quality nominee during inspection