Newcastle upon Tyne City Council

Newcastle upon Tyne City Council Report following a monitoring visit to a ‘requires improvement’ provider

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Name of lead inspector: Charles Searle HMI

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Address:

Westgate Community College West Road Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 9LU Monitoring visit: Newcastle upon Tyne City Council, 13 February 2019

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Context and focus of visit

Newcastle City Learning is part of Newcastle upon Tyne City Council’s Education and Skills division within the People’s Directorate. It delivers community learning, adult skills training, study programmes for 16- to 19-year-olds, courses for learners who have high needs, and apprenticeships.

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Context and focus of visit

Newcastle City Learning was inspected in March 2018. At that time, inspectors judged the overall effectiveness of the provision to require improvement. The focus of this monitoring visit was to evaluate the progress that leaders and managers have made in addressing the main areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection.

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Significant progress

Leaders and senior managers have taken decisive action to enhance the quality and timeliness of the information that they use to manage and improve the provision. As a result, they have been able to bring about rapid improvements to address many of the major weaknesses evident at the time of the previous inspection. For example, the proportion of adults achieving their qualifications has increased so that it is now above that found at similar providers. The overall attendance of adult learners and learners on study programmes has also improved significantly.

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Significant progress

Managers can now interrogate data at many different levels, from individual courses up to curriculum areas, for individual tutors, and by learner characteristics. This enables them to identify emerging gaps in performance and put in place swift interventions. For example, the poor quality of the provision for learners with learning disabilities and/or difficulties was recognised early enough to bring about a redesign of the curriculum and subsequent improvement to the outcomes for these learners.

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Significant progress

Managers have developed an effective system through which they can track and monitor the progress of learners. Most tutors use this information well to identify additional support for those learners making slower than expected progress. A small minority of tutors, however, have not yet implemented the system fully.

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Significant progress

Senior managers use the improved range of data available to them to manage effectively the performance of their staff. As a result, teachers delivering poor-quality provision have been managed out of the service successfully. Monitoring visit: Newcastle upon Tyne City Council, 13 February 2019 Members of the service’s governing board have greater confidence in holding senior managers to account for the performance of the provision because they can now rely on the accuracy of the reports that they receive.

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Reasonable progress

Managers have adopted a sensible approach to addressing the areas of weakness in teaching, learning and assessment identified at the previous inspection. They recognise that, because many of their teachers work on a part-time basis, the implementation of improvements needs to be staged carefully. Most teachers have improved the way that they use learners’ starting points to plan and deliver learning, and feedback to learners is more constructive. However, a small minority of teachers have yet to embrace the required changes or have not had an opportunity to implement them.

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Reasonable progress

Tutors have responded enthusiastically to a major shift away from planning learning around the achievement of qualifications to an approach based more on the development of learners’ attitudes, skills and knowledge. They have become more adept at setting individual targets for learners based on their prior experience and qualifications, and in a language that learners can understand. A small number of tutors still need further support in adopting this approach to plan programmes for individual learners that will enable them to make more rapid progress.

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Reasonable progress

The great majority of tutors provide helpful feedback on their learners’ work. Tutors identify specific areas for development in their written feedback that enable learners to improve. In mathematics lessons, tutors challenge learners to reflect on why they have given the wrong answers and to learn from their mistakes. In a minority of subjects, tutors’ feedback is confined to how learners can achieve a unit for their qualification and not on the development of broader skills.

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Reasonable progress

These improvements to the quality of teaching, learning and assessment enable a higher proportion of current learners to make better progress than at the time of the previous inspection.

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Reasonable progress

Since the previous inspection, managers and tutors have taken a range of effective actions to improve the overall attendance of learners. The attendance of adult learners has risen by over 10 percentage points. For learners on study programmes, who had the lowest attendance at the time of the previous inspection, attendance has improved by seven percentage points. Managers acknowledge, however, that Monitoring visit: Newcastle upon Tyne City Council, 13 February 2019 there are still areas of the provision where attendance needs to improve further, such as in access to higher education, and in English and mathematics.

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Reasonable progress

Managers and tutors now have higher expectations about the attendance of their learners. At the beginning of the new academic year, they met with all study programme learners and their parents and carers to discuss and sign a new behaviour and attendance agreement. They have implemented a system of incentives to reward high attendance and have enforced sanctions swiftly for poor attenders. The service has invested in additional pastoral support workers, whose role is to follow up and support those learners whose attendance declines. Tutors have improved online resources to enable learners who miss sessions to catch up.

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Reasonable progress

Managers reinforce the importance of attendance by making it one of the key improvement measures when they report to governors and manage the performance of teaching staff.

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Reasonable progress

Since the previous inspection, leaders and managers have made the development of learners’ mathematical skills a key strategic priority. This has involved two strands of work. The first was to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment on functional skills and GCSE mathematics courses. The second was to raise the skills and confidence levels of all tutors to plan and deliver practical mathematics, where appropriate, through their main subject areas.

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Reasonable progress

Managers responsible for mathematics have used the improved data available to them to manage the performance of their tutors more effectively, and to identify which learners need additional support to make better progress within the subject. As a result, the proportion of learners achieving mathematics functional skills qualifications improved significantly by the end of 2017/18. Current learners on mathematics courses are making good progress.

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Reasonable progress

All tutors in the service have been assessed for their level of mathematical skills and knowledge. Those who did not achieve a minimum standard have been provided with additional training to bring them up to the required level. All staff have received support on how to integrate mathematics into their subject specialisms. However, this has not yet translated into learners having the opportunity to develop their mathematical skills in all subject areas. Monitoring visit: Newcastle upon Tyne City Council, 13 February 2019

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Reasonable progress

Managers have intensified the range of strategies they use to increase learners’ and apprentices’ understanding of the risks of radicalisation and extremism. They have redesigned the induction process that all learners undergo to place greater emphasis on these risks and they have given them greater prominence in learner handbooks. Teachers have produced short video cartoons, available in a range of languages and designed for different learner groups, that show learners, in an enjoyable way, how to identify the potential signs of someone becoming radicalised. All tutors have received additional training to increase their confidence in having discussions with learners about extremism, and how respect for core values can combat it.

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Reasonable progress

These initiatives have had more impact in raising the awareness of apprentices of the risks of radicalisation and extremism than they have for adult and study programme learners. Assessors use their regular reviews with apprentices to discuss these risks, so they can measure over time how their level of understanding has increased. Managers cannot yet do this for adult and study programme learners because they only have anecdotal evidence about their learners’ knowledge of the risks.

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Reasonable progress

Managers have been hampered from making rapid progress on raising their adult and study programme learners’ awareness because they have focused too much on attempting to get learners to identify what the ‘Prevent’ duty means, rather than concentrating on the risks that the duty is designed to combat. Monitoring visit: Newcastle upon Tyne City Council, 13 February 2019 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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Reasonable progress

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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Reasonable progress

regulates and inspects to 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 and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, 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 reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to

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Reasonable progress

the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Reasonable progress

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Reasonable progress

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

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