Ofsted | FE Week

Insufficient progress for inadequate college

A college that nose-dived from ‘outstanding’ to ‘inadequate’ in March has been slammed by Ofsted again for making insufficient progress. Following its second monitoring visit since the education watchdog’s damning report, Mid-Cheshire College was deemed to have made ‘insufficient progress’ in improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and with ensuring learners make good progress and […]

Jaguar Land Rover red-faced by ‘poor’ Ofsted rating

Jaguar Land Rover, the British car manufacturer regularly lauded by ministers for its apprenticeship scheme, has been hit with a shock grade three rating after an Ofsted inspection. The Indian-owned firm received a ‘requires improvement’ score across the board for its dealership apprenticeship programme, for which it is an employer provider. The report will raise […]

Exclusive: AoC India to close after 25 colleges quit

A college partnership network set up by the Association of Colleges to provide UK vocational education and training programmes to India is to close after losing over three quarters of its members. AoC India was established in 2012 as a partnership of 33 FE colleges, but after being left with just eight members this year […]

How will the new apprenticeship standards be quality assured?

We recently hosted a roundtable discussion on the benefits of the levy and our new hospitality standards, organised by our weekly trade magazine and attended by a dozen human resources directors from major national contract catering and hotel chains. I was impressed by how these HR professionals have embraced the levy as a tool to […]

Ofsted considering climbdown over logo use

Ofsted could be heading for an embarrassing U-turn over its surprise decision to threaten providers with legal action over their unauthorised use of its logo to advertise ‘good’ inspection ratings. Last week, FE Week revealed that several training providers had been threatened out of the blue with court action by the education watchdog, for the […]

NCG finally gets ‘good’ Ofsted after four month standoff

The nation’s largest college has won its battle with Ofsted with the awarding of a grade two overall – more than four months after it was inspected. Today’s long overdue report comes two weeks after FE Week reported that the college group had been disputing the ‘requires improvement’ grade it was due to have been […]

Ofsted chair stepping down with immediate effect

Ofsted chair David Hoare is stepping down from his position with immediate effect, the education watchdog has confirmed. An Ofsted spokesperson told FE Week this morning that senior non-executive board member James Kempton has agreed to take on the role of chair on an interim basis — while the education secretary Justine Greening starts the […]

Profile Nadhim Zahawi, education secretary

Nadhim Zahawi is England’s new education secretary, FE Week profiled Zahawi back in 2016 when he served the then Prime minister, David Cameron, as apprenticeship ambassador.