Windsor Learning Partnership
‘ofsted watch’
A failed College of Food interview at the tender age of 16 had a defining effect on Paul Eeles, chief executive of Emfec (called, once-upon-a-time, the East Midlands FE Council). Having left school “with just a clutch of CSEs”, he was at the specialist college — now a part of University College Birmingham — hoping […]
Profiles
New regional scrutiny committees will consider complaints about Ofsted from September as the education watchdog acts to address transparency criticisms. The eight bodies, each made up of an Ofsted official not involved in inspections along with an “external” provider leader put forward by “appropriate national representative bodies”, will rule on internal reviews of complaints about […]
News
Ofsted is ending its system of graded lesson observation. It’s a subject that leant itself to the theme a conference on June 17 at the University of Wolverhampton’s Centre for Research and Development in Lifelong Education (Cradle). Dr Lorna Page was there and outlines the event. The first national conference dedicated to the issue of […]
Opinion
Former Education Secretary Lord Baker is celebrating the first outstanding grade from Ofsted for his university technical college (UTC) project with a glowing inspection report for UTC Reading. The report on the UTC, which opened in 2013 specialising in science and engineering for 14 to 19-year-olds and is listed as a school by the education watchdog, is […]
Colleges which are good at “what they do on a daily basis” should not prepare for inspection under Ofsted’s reformed regime, the watchdog’s head of FE and skills has said. Ofsted director Lorna Fitzjohn told delegates at the launch of the new common inspection framework (CIF) and short inspections regime that those FE providers already […]
In light of the Chancellor’s announcement he wanted to see £900m of in-year savings split evenly between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Department for Education (DfE), Mick Fletcher considers how FE might be affected — and how to lessen that effect. What we know is that the two education departments, […]
Ofsted’s decision to scrap graded lesson observations for FE inspections has been described as the “right way to go” by Principals’ Professional Council (PPC) chair Sue Rimmer. A spokesperson for the education watchdog said on Friday (May 22) that it had consulted with FE providers and “conducted numerous pilot inspections to test the changes” before […]
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) and University College Union (UCU) have welcomed Oftsed’s decision to scrap graded lesson observations for FE inspections from September. An Ofsted spokesperson said that it had “consulted with FE and skills providers” and “conducted numerous pilot inspections to test the changes” before deciding to go ahead with […]
Garage chain Kwik Fit today returned to its former outstanding status with publication of its latest Ofsted report, having previously dropped to a grade three rating. The employer provider, which had a January Skills Funding Agency allocation of £1.6m, had made “considerable improvements” since inspectors’ October 2013 visit, the result of which meant Kwik Fit had […]
