North Yorkshire Council

North Yorkshire Council Report following a monitoring visit to a ‘requires improvement’ provider

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Name of lead inspector: Chloe Rendall, His Majesty's Inspector

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Inspection dates: 13 and 14 December 2023

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Address:

County Hall Racecourse Lane Northallerton North Yorkshire DL7 8AD Monitoring visit: North Yorkshire Council, 13 and 14 December 2023

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Context and focus of visit

North Yorkshire Council was inspected in February 2023. At that time, inspectors judged the overall effectiveness of the provision to require improvement.

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Context and focus of visit

The focus of this monitoring visit was to evaluate the progress that leaders and managers have made in resolving the main areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders have taken effective steps to improve their oversight of the quality of education. They have implemented new quality assurance processes to help them monitor adult learning and apprenticeship provision. They use information from these processes to implement credible improvement strategies in areas such as the quality of teaching. For example, leaders hold frequent meetings with curriculum managers following scrutiny of reports relating to observations of teaching and assessment. Where weaknesses in the quality of teaching are identified, leaders take swift action to provide professional development support for staff that helps them to improve their pedagogical practice.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders have established a working group that has a clear focus on quality improvement. The group’s membership includes teaching staff, who contribute positively to identifying the changes in teaching practice that are needed. For example, tutors and assessors have agreed to work with a new marking and assessment policy that helps them to provide more pertinent feedback on the quality and accuracy of apprentices’ written work.

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Reasonable progress

Senior leaders and councillors have a clear understanding of the quality of education and training that learners and apprentices receive. Leaders provide them with informative reports that help them to understand how well learners and apprentices achieve. Senior leaders and councillors now ask more challenging questions of leaders in response to the reports that they receive to understand better the impact of improvement actions taken. As a result, they have a strong understanding of how well adult and apprenticeship education best serves the residents and communities of North Yorkshire. Monitoring visit: North Yorkshire Council, 13 and 14 December 2023

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Significant progress

Leaders have taken highly effective steps to ensure that all education and training programmes offer clear progression pathways to further learning and employment. All accredited and non-accredited programmes are very closely aligned to a range of jobs and wider employment opportunities. Tutors carefully discuss progression routes with learners and apprentices at the start of their training and throughout their programmes. These rich discussions help learners and apprentices to identify future job opportunities, such as moving from introductory sewing courses on to level 1 bookkeeping programmes and then into self-employment in garment alteration.

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Significant progress

Leaders ensure that adult learning programmes fully reflect the principles of adult learning. Each course successfully promotes the achievement of personal, social and educational goals, which helps adult learners to develop a higher sense of self- direction and motivation. For example, learners who have children with hearing difficulties attend Makaton training to improve their knowledge and skills in using sign language. Adult learners realise their personal career aspirations, such as becoming qualified teaching assistants in their local primary schools and supporting children with hearing disabilities as they move on to level 1 and level 2 qualifications.

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Significant progress

Leaders ensure that adult learning programmes and apprenticeships meet skills needs and fill skills gaps successfully. They have appointed partnership and learning engagement officers to key roles in local communities across North Yorkshire. These staff undertake local market intelligence research to understand employment needs and advise leaders about what types of education provision would help to fill skills gaps. For example, leaders recognise that the level 2 and level 3 adult care apprenticeships provide residents, who are changing career, with the opportunity to train in roles where there is an identified need for care workers, both nationally and in North Yorkshire.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders provide apprenticeship assessors with helpful training in written communication that focuses on correcting spelling, punctuation and grammar. When assessing apprentices’ written work, assessors accurately identify the improvements that apprentices need to make in their written reports. Leaders and managers Monitoring visit: North Yorkshire Council, 13 and 14 December 2023 recognise that further training is required to help staff to provide apprentices with feedback that develops their higher level writing skills and fluency.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders ensure that assessors provide adult care apprentices with access and support to use successfully accessibility features of information and communication technology. Assessors provide helpful guidance to apprentices about how to use editing functions to review their written work and read-back functions to check how their written work would sound when spoken. Apprentices use these functions to make improvements to their work, which helps them to be more accurate in their spelling and in using professional language when completing care plans.

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Reasonable progress

Care service managers recognise that their apprentices demonstrate increased skill in their internal and external written communications. For example, apprentices whose written communications lacked specificity at the start of their apprenticeships are now more adept in preparing required hand-over information in the settings where they work and when writing reports for external professionals.

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enables them to gain a deeper understanding of

fundamental British values and successfully.

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Significant progress

Leaders ensure that the adult learning curriculum is explicitly planned to enable learners to deepen their understanding of fundamental British values. They provide tutors with an extensive calendar of local, national and international events that they use to raise awareness of key topics, such as democracy when delivering the curriculum. For example, in mathematics sessions, tutors use voting statistics for different constituencies to develop mathematical knowledge and skills about proportions and variance. At the same time, they teach learners about participation in democratic processes, such as election to government. In accounting, exercises to calculate tax and government revenue are used to introduce discussion about why it is an important duty for learners to pay taxes owed and the services they can expect to receive in return.

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Significant progress

Teaching staff draw attention to fundamental British values very effectively in their sessions. They use a symbolling system of ‘flags’ during activities that help adult learners to consider the values that help them to contribute to being a citizen in modern Britain. For example, on courses in English for speakers of other languages, tutors use recap activities very effectively to check how well adult learners understand the meaning of key terms and words associated with democracy, such as ‘parliament’ and ’voting’. Monitoring visit: North Yorkshire Council, 13 and 14 December 2023 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

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Significant progress

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.

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Significant progress

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Significant progress

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Significant progress

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Significant progress

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