Condover College Limited

Published date 16 June 2011 Inspection Number 363248 Unique reference number: 131857

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Name of lead inspector: Sue Harrison HMI

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Type of provider: Independent specialist college

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Address:

Grafton Centre Montford Bridge Shrewsbury Shropshire SY4 1HF Telephone number: 01743 850271

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Focused monitoring visit report

Focused monitoring visit: Condover College, 11 May 2011. 1 of 3

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Context and focus of visit

Condover College Limited is registered as an industrial and provident society. It is a small independent specialist residential college providing for learners aged 18 years and over with severe learning difficulties. Most have additional complex needs including visual impairment, profound physical disabilities, hearing loss, communication difficulties and challenging behaviour. There are currently 20 learners. Education programmes are delivered within a purpose-adapted facility that opened in 2007. The college aims to provide a transition between school and adult life that is designed to maximise potential and independence.

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Context and focus of visit

The college was inspected in May 2008 and was judged to be inadequate. It was reinspected in May 2009 and judged to be satisfactory. Areas for improvement were: the recording and tracking of learners’ long-term progress; planning of learning to better match individual needs; the need for professional development to be more focused on teaching and learning; and curriculum opportunities and transition planning. A monitoring visit in December 2009 found that the college was making reasonable progress in curriculum and transition planning but insufficient progress in all the other areas. There have been three changes to the Head of Education since the 2008 inspection. The current Head of Education took up post in February 2011. The report focuses on the themes outlined below.

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progress

The rigour of self-assessment has not improved sufficiently since the last monitoring visit. The self-assessment report for 2009/10 lacked sufficient specific targets to drive improvement in the current year. The evidence to support judgements was not clear enough, and some aspects of provision appeared as both strengths and areas for improvement. More recently, the college has drawn up a post-inspection action plan, which has a much sharper focus on issues to address and clear identification of who is responsible for actions to be taken and deadlines for completion. This approach is already beginning to improve the quality of provision for students but it is too early to see its impact on all areas for improvement. Focused monitoring visit: Condover College, 11 May 2011. 2 of 3

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progress

Changes to students’ individual learning plans since the last monitoring visit make much clearer the specific long-term goals for students, against which progress can be monitored. These are backed up by medium-term goals, which are used to inform specific learning objectives. Staff training has taken place to underpin this development and staff are much clearer about the purpose and structure of individual learning plans. As a result, students’ progress is starting to be captured more effectively. Not all staff are fully confident in how to measure progress for students with the most complex learning difficulties and/or disabilities. The Head of Education is working with individual staff on practical examples of how this can be achieved.

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progress

Lesson plans contain learning objectives for individual students, but there is still too much variability in the extent to which these are used effectively in the delivery of lessons. In weaker lessons, there is still too much emphasis on learners carrying out the same task. In some cases students work on different tasks but their individual needs are not taken into account sufficiently to help them achieve their full potential. In one lesson observed during the visit, students were all asked to carry out the same counting and sequencing task. In another, the seating positions of two students hampered their attempts at an exercise in sharing the use of an electronic whiteboard. Where the level of challenge is not appropriate for the individual learner, this sometimes leads to loss of interest, or over-prompting by staff for students to produce the ‘right’ answer. Joint lesson observations with the Head of Education

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progress

showed that the college is aware of this and is starting to remedy it through increased sharing of good practice from the better lessons.

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progress

Since the last monitoring visit, the college has taken effective steps to ensure all staff leading the delivery of sessions have teaching qualifications. It has also increased the number of teaching staff and improved induction and mentoring for new staff. In addition, a speech and language therapist is now employed four days a week. This has enabled more therapy sessions for individual students, and has increased staff Focused monitoring visit: Condover College, 11 May 2011. 3 of 3

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progress

awareness of the communication needs of learners. Staff attend training sessions led by the speech and language therapist, and also sit in on sessions for individual students. Students are benefiting from increased staffing levels, and from greater use of effective communication strategies. The college recognises the need to develop this work further, and to increase the specialist qualifications of staff. Learning support assistants have all received appropriate training. Other staff assisting in classes have not all had sufficient training on educational strategies. 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

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T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk No. 090105

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