Amersham and Wycombe College

Amersham and Wycombe College Re-inspection monitoring visit report

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Name of lead inspector: Nick Gadfield, Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Type of provider: General further education college

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Address: Stanley Hill Amersham HP7 9HN Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017

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Context and focus of visit

This is the second re-inspection monitoring visit to Amersham and Wycombe College following publication of the inspection report on 22 July 2016 which found the provider to be inadequate overall.

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Context and focus of visit

The majority of students are on level 3 study programmes with smaller proportions on level 2 study programmes, apprenticeships or adult learning programmes. The most popular subjects are in creative industries, health and social care, business studies and sport and public services.

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Context and focus of visit

The purpose of this visit was to evaluate the progress being made in improvements introduced at the time of the previous monitoring visit in September 2016.

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Significant progress

The much improved relationships between governors and senior leaders identified at the first monitoring visit in September 2016 have developed into a very strong culture of transparency and mutual respect between staff and managers at all levels. The new and much smaller board has fully supported the leadership team in focusing on improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and setting high expectations for learners’ attendance and progress. Governors and leaders jointly scrutinise detailed monthly reports which helps ensure that governors have a clear view of the improvements being made. This much more positive relationship at senior level has permeated the college so that staff at all levels recognise and respond well to the more open, transparent and supportive culture that underpins the emphasis on improvements being a corporate responsibility.

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Priorities for improvement

 Ensure that the positive relationships between the corporation and leadership team continue to influence the work of staff at all levels so that learners achieve their qualifications. Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017

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Significant progress

Learners readily identify how much more rigorously teachers and tutors monitor their attendance and punctuality and the range of actions they take to drive improvement. Where any learners are late arriving in college, support staff are alerted and contact the learner or their parents or carers at home. Calls are made very rapidly which usually results in the learners arriving, albeit late, whereas under previous systems delays in making contact often meant that learners were not motivated to arrive just for an afternoon. Course leaders and programme area managers regularly assess the effectiveness of the range of measures they take to ensure they have the required effect. Attendance is much improved in the current year, with individual learners showing significantly better attendance, sometimes after several years of low attendance at school.

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Priorities for improvement

 Review the effectiveness of the range of measures that individual teachers and course teams are using to improve attendance; identify those measures that are most successful and ensure they are shared with all staff.

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Significant progress

Since the previous inspection, leaders and managers have substantially revised the college’s systems for observing and evaluating the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. They have strengthened observation arrangements, including the introduction of no-notice ungraded observations of lessons carried out by a small team of trained observers. Leaders have also increased the frequency and focus of developmental walkthrough observations carried out by middle managers which are also not graded, but which provide more regular ‘spot check’ opportunities to evaluate the effectiveness of planned learning. The resulting reports completed by observers now have a sharper focus on teaching and learning and contain more focused evaluative judgements on the effectiveness and impact of particular Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017 strategies used by teachers to support learning. Across the college and in lessons,

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Significant progress

there is a much stronger focus on learners’ progress, attendance and punctuality.

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Significant progress

While it is too early to assess the overall effectiveness of the revised observation arrangements that have been recently introduced, those which have already been completed by managers have helped them and teachers to identify more accurately areas of good practice and aspects where the quality of teaching and learning is not yet fully secure and needs to improve further. This is also enabling leaders and managers to develop a more informed and insightful understanding of the quality of teaching across different learning programmes and where to target specific support and improvement initiatives where teaching practices are not in line with their high expectations. Learners who are now in their second year have noticed the significant improvements in how their lessons are planned and managed.

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Priorities for improvement

 Encourage teachers to seek opportunities wherever possible to compare their practice with that of colleagues so that they can build successively on professional development activities and events to improve their teaching and assessment.

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and refine the roles of APs as you identify the

best approaches to support rapid improvement.

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Significant progress

At the previous inspection, the quality of teaching, learning and assessment varied too much to be judged good except in the creative industries, sport and public services. Leaders and managers have prioritised a wide range of appropriate focused professional development activities that target both the weaker aspects of teaching, learning and assessment identified at the previous inspection and seek to improve and extend teachers’ confidence and skills in the ‘craft of teaching’. The planning of staff development for teachers is appropriately informed by information gathered from a wide range of sources including lesson observations, learning walks, curriculum area development plans and the views expressed by learners. The resulting staff development plan makes suitable use of this information to ensure that training provided to teachers meets their needs in such areas as setting high expectations, planning learning to meet individual learners’ needs and developing

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Significant progress

effective questioning techniques. Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017 Attendance at staff development events is high. Teachers are clear about the college’s expectations to participate in relevant professional development opportunities which are now seen as being beneficial, developmental and supportive. As a result, staff morale is high and teachers state that they are more confident in seeking support to improve their practice than was formerly the case.

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Significant progress

Appropriate support arrangements are now in place to assist teachers who are new to post or who require additional assistance and interventions to improve their classroom practice. Advanced practitioners and programme area managers work closely together to provide regular coaching and mentoring for these teachers. However, further work is still needed to ensure that the impact of the training and support provided to individual teachers to improve their practice is more consistently evaluated and reported on by managers through individual curriculum area development plans.

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Significant progress

Improvements to both the format and accessibility of data held on the college’s centralised reporting system has resulted in information about learners’ progress and performance being more widely owned and understood by staff at all levels than was formerly the case. Managers and teachers now closely monitor learners’ progress to scrutinise in-year trends and take swifter action such as identifying learners who may be at risk of not successfully completing their programmes. They regularly monitor the effectiveness of planned intervention and support activities to keep learners on track with their learning. Timelier monitoring has resulted in improved attendance for learners compared to a similar time last year.

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Priorities for improvement

 Rapidly evaluate how consistently staff use the electronic tracking system to record learners’ progress and any concerns to ensure the records provide full details across the whole programme of study and that risk ratings are as accurate as possible. Ensure that curriculum reviews evaluate how effective staff development is at dealing with the few remaining areas for improvement in teaching, learning and assessment.

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their vocational lessons. Identify success criteria,

measure the impact and adjust as required.

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Significant progress

The way in which mathematics provision is organised and delivered to learners is improving as a result of the recruitment of additional qualified teachers of mathematics and the much heightened focus that leaders and managers now give to ensuring that teachers support and more regularly promote the importance of numeracy skills within their lessons. Since the previous inspection, teachers have Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017 received additional training to improve their confidence and skills in integrating mathematics in their subject teaching. Teachers now more routinely incorporate clearer referencing to both English and mathematics opportunities within their schemes of work and lesson planning in order to promote and develop learners’ confidence in these essential skills. The large majority of group profiles accurately record learners’ initial starting points in both

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Significant progress

mathematics and English and the link between learners’ work in discrete English and mathematics lessons and their vocational studies is improving. Increasing numbers of learners now recognise the importance of these subjects to their career prospects and life chances. Learners interviewed during the monitoring visit explained how they apply and extend the mathematics skills they have learned to their learning. For example, in an advanced level course in photography, while critically appraising the presentational quality of a range of selected photographic images, learners were able to correctly identify how the shutter speed of the camera influenced the quality of the picture taken. In an intermediate level hair, beauty and make up class, learners’ knowledge of mathematics was enhanced by the tutor emphasising the importance of the correct use of ratios when mixing hair colours and the need to closely monitor the

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Significant progress

length of time the hair colour had been applied to a model’s hair so as to obtain the right level of effect. In an advanced level graphics design course, learners were observed developing their confidence in using mathematics techniques and language while considering a range of different shapes and dimensional sizes associated with the design of a prototype carton to carry other products. However, a few teachers still lack the confidence to recognise all the opportunities they might use to improve learners’ mathematical skills in the course of their work. Additionally, managers do not check sufficiently that teachers consistently evaluate and report learners’ in-year progress in mathematics using the same criteria on the centralised learner tracking system.

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Priorities for improvement

 Build on existing mechanisms for sharing ideas about incorporating mathematical exercises into lessons, such as the teachers’ page on the college intranet and the regular course team meetings. Identify subjects where teachers consistently work closely with mathematics specialists to align their teaching and ensure these examples are shared widely and adopted wherever possible.

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Significant progress

Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017 At the previous inspection, most of the adult learners achieved their qualifications, which helped them to move into employment or higher education. However, programmes offered were not focusing sufficiently on the needs of local employers or communities surrounding the college.

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Significant progress

Since the inspection, leaders and managers have made secure progress in reviewing and reshaping the college’s curriculum for adult learners so that it better meets their needs. Well-informed strategic analysis of local skills priorities and labour market information has been skilfully used by leaders to inform college development planning as a whole, by department, programme area and course so as to ensure that the planned adult skills offer is flexible and responsive. The college’s strategic priorities for adults are now closely aligned to and meet local enterprise partnership priorities, as well as meeting the needs of employers in such areas such as health and social care, digital and media, construction, engineering and creative industries. For example, in engineering and construction a new purpose built multi-skills centre partly funded through the local enterprise partnership has been established, allowing

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Significant progress

learners to benefit from access to industry-standard facilities, resources and an enhanced curriculum offer. In the health and social care sector, as a result of close partnership working with the local National Health Service (NHS) trust, the college has responded well to meeting the growing demands for an advanced level care assistants programme by ensuring that training is structured around their varied shift patterns.

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Significant progress

For adult learners who are returning to learning, including those seeking work, leaders have made good progress in ensuring that the college offers a broad curriculum with clearer progression routes that meets the needs of its community well. For example, leaders have recognised that many adults in employment who wish to enhance their prospects through gaining additional qualifications are unable to attend lessons in person; in order to respond to the demand for more flexible programmes, they have recently entered into a strategic partnership with a commercial partner experienced in providing online education and training programmes for adults. As a result of this initiative, adult learners are now able to access a broad range of accredited online training programmes from intermediate to higher levels in such areas as business and finance, information technology and networking, project and quality management, as well health and safety

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Significant progress

management. Subcontracting arrangements have been used appropriately to extend the college’s provision in priority areas such as working with the unemployed.

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Priorities for improvement

 Ensure that the new technical skills centre is established in time for the new academic year and that it is suitably scheduled to make the best use of the resources to meet the priority needs of the Thames Valley (LEP). Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017

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Significant progress

Arrangements to support the planned merger are well advanced. Governors, leaders and middle managers have held joint meetings with their counterparts in the proposed mergers college and visited all the campuses that will be affected. In spite of the inevitable uncertainty until any formal decisions are taken, staff morale is high. Teachers and course managers are directing their energies to improving the experience of current learners and reassuring them about the future of their courses following the merger. Learners are well informed about the plans and understand the reasons behind it.

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Priorities for improvement

 Ensure that staff are kept informed as soon as decisions are made about the potential merger so that they are not distracted from ensuring the achievement of their learners by unnecessary uncertainty. Monitoring visit: Amersham and Wycombe College, 22-23 February 2017 the guidance ‘Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . Learner View Learner View is a website where learners can tell Ofsted what they think about their college or provider. They can also see what other learners think about them too. To find out more go to www.learnerview.ofsted.gov.uk .

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Priorities for improvement

Employer View Employer View is a website where employers can tell Ofsted what they think about their employees’ college or provider. They can also see what other employers think about them too. To find out more go to www.employerview.ofsted.gov.uk .

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Priorities for improvement

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Priorities for improvement

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Priorities for improvement

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Priorities for improvement

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