No college wants to be faced with an Ofsted downgrading but that’s exactly the situation we were confronted with almost a year ago. I won’t lie, it hurt.
Yet here we are 12 months on and in what many would call a ‘remarkable turnaround’, SCCB has been recognised as the most improved further education institution in the UK, following publication of the latest National Achievement Rates Tables (NARTs).
For 16-18 full-time education and training provision, SCCB secured an improvement rate of 13.3 per cent. That’s something to be proud of!
Whilst some may argue that ‘the only way was up’, we’d rather focus on the fact that our achievement rates have enjoyed such a significant improvement.
Yet this is about more than statistics. It’s about the journey our whole college community – everyone from the governors, to teaching staff, management and students, and everyone else in between – has been on, and the invaluable lessons we’ve all learned along the way. Lessons, we believe, that stand as an example to other colleges in a similar situation.
Following our Ofsted inspection (in which we were rated as ‘requires improvement’), we made it our mission to not just improve, but to become the best college in the country.
Of course that doesn’t happen overnight, and it very much remains the goal that we’re all working towards.
However, setting that level of aspiration served as the starting point for a series of steps that we’ve worked through – and in many instances, continue to work through – that helped to cement our focus and commitment and to justify the investment that would drive forward our path to improvement.
From the outset this has been a collective experience across the entire SCCB community. We’re a college spread across eight distinct campuses which means that silos of information or communication could so easily occur. We couldn’t allow that to happen.
We’ve strategically refocused all areas of the college so every department aligns with the overarching goal of creating a high-performance culture.
This has been complemented by significant investment in staff development, the implementation of a robust quality assurance programme to better support teaching and learning, and a steadfast focus on the learning experience in the classroom.
However, the step we took that I believe made the greatest impact is one that stemmed from a position of humility. Our college wasn’t delivering what it needed to, and we needed to improve that quickly.
This experience wasn’t unique; other colleges have gone through similar and turned a corner. We knew there were lessons to be learned.
With support from the Association of Colleges, we engaged with around 25 colleges across the country from which we believed valuable lessons could be learned.
Key figures from throughout our college’s leadership and management teams spoke with counterparts nationwide to discuss best practice across a broad range of topics that included attendance, work experience and employer engagement.
This approach required us to take an often-difficult look at ourselves but was absolutely the right way to proceed.
All the college staff we met demonstrated support and a willingness to share their own experiences.
Among those who deserve special mention for taking the time to not only speak with managers from SCCB on MS Teams but also welcome them to their own colleges are Zoe Lewis at Middlesbrough College, Dr Fazal Dad at Blackburn College, and Tony Mangan at Moulton College. We also took away valuable guidance and learnings from the teams at Leeds Luminate, Chichester, Hull, Burnley and Kirklees.
Our journey is ongoing, and we’re determined to not lose any of the momentum that we’ve gained over the past year. There is an air of optimism at SCCB and we’re looking forward to continued improvement in the months ahead.
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