Veolia Environment Development Centre Limited

Published date 24 August 2011 Inspection Number 366010 Unique reference number: 58179

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Name of lead inspector: Joy Montgomery HMI

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Address:

54 The Causeway Staines Middlesex TW18 3AX

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Address:

Telephone number: 01784 273851 Campus Veolia

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Focused monitoring visit report

Focused monitoring visit: Campus Veolia, 27 July 2011 1 of 3

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Context and focus of visit

Campus Veolia is the trading name for the Veolia Environmental Development Centre Ltd, which was formed in 2001 to provide education and training to employees of the Veolia Group in the United Kingdom. Campus Veolia contracts with the Skills Funding Agency to provide Train to Gain programmes and apprenticeships in a range of subject areas linked to employees’ job roles. Qualifications are offered in waste management, engineering, driving goods vehicles, landscaping and business administration.

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Context and focus of visit

At the last inspection in April 2009, Campus Veolia was judged to have good overall effectiveness with good capacity to improve. Achievement and standards were outstanding. Quality of provision and leadership and management were good. Equality of opportunity was satisfactory. Low apprenticeship success rates for 2009/10 promoted a focused monitoring visit.

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progress

The self-assessment process is well defined and effectively builds on the systematic evaluation of courses run across the country. A wide range of people are involved in the course review process including learners, workplace managers, trainers and course managers. The use of data at this level is less well developed. The self- assessment report makes effective use of management information to understand the performance of programmes across the company, although qualification success rate data are not always used to track trends in the performance of different groups. The self-assessment report is self-critical and provides a good basis for quality improvement planning.

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progress

Campus Veolia has made at least reasonable progress in addressing the areas for improvement identified at the last inspection. The quality improvement plan is regularly reviewed and additional meetings are being added to ensure earlier identification of actions to improve provision. Veolia is continuing to improve the range of learning opportunities and progression routes available to its employees. Programmes are being developed to provide learning opportunities to young people who are not in employment, education or training right through to degrees at Master’s level. Focused monitoring visit: Campus Veolia, 27 July 2011 2 of 3

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progress

Campus Veolia is well aware of the various factors that resulted in low success rates for apprentices in 2009/10 and 2010/11. Problems with the technical certificate for the water industries apprenticeship meant 20 learners completed a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) and key skills, but not the full framework. This problem has now been resolved and the majority of learners are in the process of completing their full frameworks. One division of the Veolia Group was transferred to another company and some local authority work has been transferred to other operators. This resulted in a significant number of apprentices not being able to complete their apprenticeship with Veolia. The use of an incorrect leaving code for these transferred learners means the success rate data will continue to show a lower than actual performance until 2011/12.

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progress

Campus Veolia is aware that a few learners did not complete the full apprenticeship framework. The programmes have been redesigned to ensure key skills and technical certificates are delivered earlier in the programme. Key skills are now delivered in- house, allowing trainers to effectively contextualise the training and ensure learners appreciate the relevance of the qualifications.

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progress

Campus Veolia has maintained the outstanding Train to Gain success rates noted at the last inspection. Success rates within the timeframes expected remain at over 91% for most of last four years. An administrative error resulted in a lower than actual performance being recorded for a small group of engineering learners. The success rates for driving good vehicles was lower than other qualifications, at 84%, as some of the units did not match the actual jobs being carried out. The introduction of the new qualification credit framework (QCF) qualification has addressed this issue.

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progress

Campus Veolia has made significant progress in developing a wider range of teaching styles, to better meet learners’ needs, than was evident at the last inspection. Lesson plans provide a very thorough and practically-based framework to train and assess learners in the use of new machinery or processes. Apprentices benefit from working alongside experienced and knowledgeable mentors in learning to use or maintain complex machinery. Planning for the teaching of management and assessor qualifications shows a wide range of activities that require learners’ active participation, such as group working and discussion. Comprehensive lesson observations are beginning to provide a reliable overview of the quality of teaching Focused monitoring visit: Campus Veolia, 27 July 2011 3 of 3

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progress

and learning throughout Campus Veolia’s training activities. Lesson observation records show scope for greater precision and consistency in observers’ capture of the key strengths and areas for improvement in lessons and the way these impact on learning.

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progress

At the last inspection, Campus Veolia recognised that its strategy for Skills for Life was underdeveloped. Campus Veolia has put in place appropriate measures to assess individual learners’ additional learning needs and to provide any necessary support. Thorough evaluation of a pilot programme for Skills for Life provision, run in partnership with another organisation, has informed a well-conceived and explicit strategy to improve this provision further. Central to this strategy is an individualised approach to learning that ensures that teaching and learning are matched closely to learners’ working environments and specific job roles. 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

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learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in priso ns and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please 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. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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