Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary School-centred initial teacher training (SCITT)

Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary School-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) Initial Teacher Education inspection report

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Provider address Bournemouth Learning Centre Ensbury Avenue Bournemouth BH10 4HG

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Unique reference number Inspection number Inspection dates Lead inspector 5 – 9 March 2012 James Sage HMI Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 2 of 11

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achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work- based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It rates council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please

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telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. www.ofsted.gov.uk Reference no. 080190 Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 3 of 11

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Introduction

1. This inspection was carried out by Her Majesty’s Inspectors supported by a team of specialist inspectors in accordance with the Framework for the Inspection of Initial Teacher Education (2008−11).

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Introduction

2. The inspection draws upon evidence from all aspects of the provision to make judgements against all parts of the inspection evaluation schedule in the framework. Inspectors focused on the overall effectiveness of the training in supporting high quality outcomes for trainees and the capacity of the partnership to bring about further improvements. A summary of the grades awarded is included at the end of this report.

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Key to inspection grades

Grade 1 Outstanding Grade 2 Good Grade 3 Satisfactory Grade 4 Inadequate

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Explanation of terms used in this report

Attainment is defined as the standard reached by a trainee at the end of their training. Progress is judged in terms of how well a trainee has developed professionally from their starting point to the standard reached at the time of the inspection or at a suitable review point. Achievement is judged in terms of the progress made and the standard reached by a trainee at the time of the inspection or at a recent assessment review point.

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The provider

3. Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) is a consortium of 11 schools providing initial teacher education leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) to teach in the 11 to 16 age range. The consortium includes schools in the Bournemouth, Poole, Dorset and Hampshire areas and has close links with these local authorities. The course also leads to a post-graduate or professional certificate in education (PGCE) validated by the University of Bath. The university provides consultancy and quality assurance for the consortium. At the time of the inspection, 22 trainees were on the course training to teach one of the following subjects: design and technology; mathematics; modern foreign languages; or science (with biology, chemistry or physics). The subjects offered, all shortage subjects, are based on a clear analysis of local needs, helped by the strong links with the local

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The provider

4. The consortium is run by a management group that has representation from all schools in the consortium, the local authorities and the University of Bath, as Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 4 of 11

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The provider

well as the full-time programme manager. Lead subject tutors are drawn from experienced practitioners in the consortium schools.

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Key strengths

the quality of recruitment and selection procedures ensuring that trainees with the potential to become good teachers are taken onto the course, as indicated by the very high retention, successful completion and employment rates the coherence between the different elements of training, and between the contributions made by all trainers, with high-quality personal support to secure trainees’ progress and retention on the course the effectiveness of the quality improvement procedures and the full involvement of the partnership in swiftly and effectively dealing with almost all of the concerns raised in the previous inspection, with progress also made in the one aspect requiring some further improvement the close monitoring of trainees’ progress against individual expectations and the close relationship between subject lead tutors and school professional tutors in supporting individual trainee’s personal and

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Key strengths

professional development the contribution that the trainees make to their own progress through their commitment to and taking responsibility for their own development.

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Recommendations

6. In order to further improve trainees’ progress and attainment, the partnership should: set trainees more challenging targets based on their, and trainers’, clear understanding of the characteristics of good and outstanding trainees ensure that schools more effectively supplement central training sessions to give trainees a deeper understanding of how to teach a diverse range of learners support trainees in integrating their understanding of theories and principles of learning with their practical experiences of teaching, particularly with regard to the links between teaching, learning and students’ behaviour make more creative use of the partnership and other local schools to give trainees a greater breadth of experiences. Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 5 of 11

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

7. The consortium recruits trainees, many from the region, with the potential to become at least good teachers. Retention rates on the course are high and the provider ensures that trainees make good progress, with almost all finding teaching posts, many in the local area. Many former trainees, including those from the first 2006−07 cohort, are still in the teaching profession. The consortium clearly meets a local and regional need well.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

8. Recruitment and selection are outstanding. The consortium consistently meets all recruitment targets and recruitment and selection procedures have a good focus on identifying applicants with the potential to become good teachers. Many trainees already have prior experience of working with young people. The strength of these procedures is clearly evident in the very high successful completion and employment rates. Typically, no more than one trainee fails to successfully complete each year. No trainee failed to complete last year and all but one of those recruited this year are still on the course. Employment rates are significantly above the national and regional averages, and have been since the first cohort. Almost all trainees are successful in finding teaching posts, almost always in the region; those that do not usually spend some time undertaking supply work before eventually finding a post. The consortium

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

keeps careful track of former trainees and the high proportion still in teaching is impressive, as is their career progression. Many are in consortium schools and some are now mentors.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

9. At the time of the inspection, all trainees are making at least the good progress expected and a small number are doing better than expected. There are no discernable differences in the achievement of any groups of trainees or between trainees in the different schools used for placements. The progress made by trainees is consistently good across the partnership.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

10. Trainees make good early progress. A detailed needs analysis begins at interview and results in individual pre-course targets; for example, specific subject knowledge development, the need to attend a subject knowledge enhancement course or the need to spend some time in schools. Towards the end of October, once trainees have spent significant time in school, the consortium undertakes an individual ‘estimate of potential’. This well-timed early assessment gives a good benchmark to judge each trainee’s future progress. For those exceeding this estimate at later review points, the expectation is raised appropriately. Through this process, individual progress is monitored well. In addition, the consortium’s virtual learning environment (VLE) is used exceptionally well by the trainees and by all trainers to frequently and systematically monitor the quality of feedback and target setting, trainees’ own

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

critical reflections and records of their progress in schools.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

11. Trainees’ attainment has been consistently good for some years. There has been a gradual reduction in the proportion of trainees who are no better than satisfactory at the end of the course. The current cohort of trainees is on track to maintain this improvement, with fewer predicted to be satisfactory and more Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 6 of 11

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

to be outstanding. The inspection confirmed the accuracy of the provider’s assessment of trainees.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

12. Trainees take good responsibility for their own development, including their subject knowledge and application to their teaching, undertake generally perceptive critical reflection and set themselves clear targets. They are well placed to go on to achieve well; they have secured the basics of teaching and are developing an understanding of higher-order teaching skills and are beginning to apply them. They have developed good relationships with learners and set them high expectations, although, at this stage, they do not always achieve them. They use a good variety of teaching approaches. At this stage in the course, they have a secure understanding of the complexities of teaching disabled learners and those with special educational needs and account well for these students in their planning, but less obviously in their teaching. Most trainees have made the transition from thinking about their teaching to

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

evaluating learning, although they cannot always do this as well as they would like.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

13. Trainees plan thoroughly and include all of the key elements in their planning. However, they do not yet fully understand, for example: the links between expected learning outcomes and planning for assessment; the need to deconstruct a body of subject knowledge to plan steps in learning; how to ensure that their lessons meet the needs of the full range of ability; and the need to identify and overcome low levels of literacy and numeracy as potential barriers to learning. Partly as a result of the feedback they are given, trainees focus more on how to manage behaviour and less on how well their teaching will promote good behaviour. Trainees’ understanding of how to integrate their knowledge of how students learn in their subject, and how to apply their subject knowledge with their practical experience of planning, teaching and assessing learning, is underdeveloped at this stage in the course.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

14. Despite the lack of first-hand experience because of the nature of the region, as a result of improvements to the programme trainees have an awareness of the issues related to teaching a diverse range of learners, particularly those from a range of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. However, at this stage, the central training is not supported fully in schools to deepen this understanding. Additionally, there is scope for more creative use of the partnership and other local schools to give trainees a greater breadth of experiences in, for example, teaching students across a wider range of abilities.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

15. Trainees make at least the good progress expected because of the good quality of the training and the consistency across the partnership of schools. Trainees receive high-quality personal support, often handled sensitively to take account of personal circumstances; this ‘personalising’ of the training contributes well to the progress trainees make and to the very high retention. Good use is made of specialist resources to prepare trainees for teaching; for example, science laboratories, design and technology workshops and information and communications technology resources. All trainees receive consistently good quality feedback following lesson observations. All formal lesson observations result in a clear summative judgement with a good analysis of what went well Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 7 of 11

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

and what needs to be improved; trainees are set clear short-term targets. The best feedback also deals well with the trainees’ longer-term targets, with a clear focus on how this relates to the lesson, precise feedback on the progress made and specifying the next steps for the trainee. There is some variation in how well lesson observation feedback deals with subject-specific, as well as generic, aspects of teaching. All trainees also receive a great deal of helpful and coherent informal feedback and advice, which they all find their own way of recording to inform their personal reflections and target setting.

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

16. The provider’s system of VLE-based ‘trainee action plans’ (TAPS) is highly effective and shows that trainees receive an overall good balance of short- and longer-term targets. Trainees usually receive consistent messages about their progress and targets. They generally receive a good balance of specific feedback about particular QTS standards and a more holistic view of their progress as a teacher. TAPS is used well by all trainees to record their own reflections, the formal and informal feedback they receive, to set themselves targets and to record their progress. The frequency and quality of the monitoring of trainees’ progress by all trainers, subject leaders and the consortium managers through the VLE and TAPS is impressive. This careful monitoring means that interventions are timely and effective in supporting trainees’ progress. However, trainees, and trainers, need greater clarification about the characteristics of good and outstanding trainees to enable them to

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Overall effectiveness Grade: 2

set more challenging targets to further enhance the progress they make. In the early stages of the second school placement, opportunities are sometimes missed to raise further the expectations of trainees through more timely reference to the criteria associated with good and outstanding practice.

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Grade: 2

17. The provider has good capacity to secure and sustain further improvement. The consortium has made significant improvements against all of the points for action in the previous inspection report. Although there is more to be done in preparing trainees well to teach a diverse range of learners, all of these improvements are becoming well-embedded across the partnership. The inconsistencies in the training and assessment identified in the previous report have been dealt with so that all trainees are now making at least the progress expected of them.

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Grade: 2

18. There have been noticeable improvements in the quality and consistency of mentoring and target setting. This is now consistently at least good across the partnership, although with further improvements still required in the level of challenge in the targets set to promote trainees’ outstanding progress. There are robust and coherent systems for monitoring trainees’ progress and these are applied consistently across the partnership. This is supported well by developments and improvements to the VLE. There is a highly effective quality assurance system based on clearly defined roles and responsibilities. The role of the subject lead tutors, and the way they work with school professional Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 8 of 11

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Grade: 2

tutors, is a significant feature in improving the effectiveness of these procedures and the impact on trainees’ progress. The quality of the central science training has improved markedly; there is a well-designed programme fully understood by trainees and school-based science mentors. Trainees prepare well for the science training sessions and undertake a range of follow- up activities to ensure the lessons learned are applied to their teaching; they are supported well by mentors. As a result, science trainees make at least good progress.

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Grade: 2

19. Significant improvements have been made to the programme to develop trainees’ understanding of how to teach a diverse range of learners. There is a good series of well-planned sessions, some later in the course, making good use of available resources and expertise. However, there is still work to be done in schools to ensure that trainees develop a deeper understanding. As most of the partnership schools have a low proportion of students from minority ethnic backgrounds, the central team needs to do more to ensure that placement schools better support trainees in developing this deeper understanding.

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Grade: 2

20. There is a gradual and sustained, trend of improvement in trainees’ attainment. Other outcomes, such as retention and successful completion, employment rates and the proportion of former trainees still in teaching have been sustained at a high rate over a number of years. The developments in monitoring against individual expectations have led to much greater consistency in trainees’ making at least the expected progress. There is some evidence that more are now making even better progress, but this remains an area for further improvement.

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Grade: 2

21. There is a comprehensive and rigorous cycle of self-evaluation, improvement planning and monitoring the impact of actions that lead to better outcomes for trainees. The process is based on the systematic and rigorous analysis of data about recruitment, trainees’ progress and the final outcomes. Additionally, trainees and schools regularly undertake evaluation of all aspects of the course. A good balance of longer-term strategic and shorter-term improvement and action plans leads to the clear identification of the key priorities for improvement; these are understood across the partnership. Subject action plans usefully focus on a small number of key objectives. Several tiers of internal and external moderation ensure the accuracy of the assessment of trainees. These procedures also provide useful feedback to the improvement planning process.

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Grade: 2

22. Applications and recruitment data are analysed thoroughly by, for example, gender, ethnicity, age, degree classification and home location. Although the cohort is small, this analysis seeks to identify any gaps and/or trends and aspects of the provision that require improvement. Trainees’ progress is analysed against individual expectations and against the QTS standards; the outcomes are carefully analysed to clarify any areas where training needs to improve or give greater attention. The retention of so many former trainees in the partnership and wider region means that the provider tracks future career Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 9 of 11

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Grade: 2

progression well. The analysis also informs self-evaluation and improvement planning.

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Grade: 2

23. The nature of the partnership and the close involvement of schools in planning and delivery means that the subject and the professional development programmes are generally up to date with current developments. In three of the four subjects, lead subject tutors are supported by consultants from the University of Bath. However, there is some evidence of the need to expose trainees to practices outside of those in their placement schools, for example, by attaching trainees to a host school but with time each week spent teaching in contrasting neighbourhood schools, to give them greater breadth of experience. Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 10 of 11

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Summary of inspection grades 1

Key to judgements: grade 1 is outstanding; grade 2 is good; grade 3 is satisfactory; grade 4 is inadequate.

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Overall effectiveness

How effective is the provision in securing high quality outcomes for trainees? Trainees’ attainment How well do trainees attain?

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Overall effectiveness

Factors contributing to trainees’ attainment To what extent do recruitment / selection arrangements support high quality outcomes? To what extent does the training and assessment ensure that all trainees progress to fulfil their potential given their ability and starting points? To what extent are available resources used effectively and efficiently? The quality of the provision To what extent is the provision across the partnership of consistently high quality? Promoting equalities and diversity To what extent does the provision promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and eliminate harassment and unlawful discrimination?

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Capacity to improve further and/or sustain high quality

To what extent do the leadership and management at all levels have the capacity to secure further improvements and/or to sustain high quality outcomes? How effectively does the management at all levels assess performance in order to improve or sustain high quality? How well does the leadership at all levels anticipate change, and prepare for and respond to national and local initiatives? How effectively does the provider plan and take action for improvement?

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Capacity to improve further and/or sustain high quality

1 The criteria for making these graded judgements are in the Grade criteria for the inspection of ITE 2008-11; Ofsted November 2009; Reference no: 080128. Inspection report: Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset East Secondary SCITT, 5 – 9 March 2012 Page 11 of 11

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Capacity to improve further and/or sustain high quality

set out in the guidance ‘Complaints about school inspection’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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