Wise Training Streetworks and Construction

Wise Training Streetworks and Construction Limited Monitoring visit report

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Name of lead inspector: Karen Anderson, His Majesty’s Inspector

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Type of provider: Independent learning provider

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Address: Gibson Lane North Ferriby East Riding of Yorkshire HU14 3HH Monitoring visit: Wise Training Streetworks and Construction Limited, 2 and 3 July 2024

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Context and focus of visit

Ofsted undertakes to carry out monitoring visits to all newly directly funded providers of adult learning provision where the provision offered is in scope for inspection. This monitoring visit was undertaken as part of those arrangements and as outlined in the ‘Further education and skills inspection handbook’, especially the sections entitled ‘Monitoring visits’ and ‘Monitoring visits to providers that are newly directly publicly funded’. The focus of these visits is on the themes set out below.

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Context and focus of visit

Wise Training Streetworks and Construction Limited provides Skills Bootcamps funded by Hull City Council. Adult learners from the local area study either highway maintenance or highway maintenance supervisor programmes that last two to three weeks. These provide opportunities for learners to gain a NRSWA card for working on highways and a level 3 first aid at work qualification. At the time of the visit, there were seven learners on the highway maintenance programme, with 116 learners having completed Skills Bootcamps over the last year.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders have a clear vision for their Skills Bootcamps, which focuses on the niche area of highways and streetworks. They have built on their experience of providing commercial training to those already working in the sector. Learners on Skills Bootcamps, who are often new to the sector, gain valuable new knowledge and skills to use in employment.

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Reasonable progress

Through their Skills Bootcamps, leaders have, for the first time, recruited unemployed learners to train alongside those who are employed and self-employed. Although they provide effective training, leaders were initially not prepared for the significance of the barriers faced by unemployed adults to gaining employment in the highways sector. They have begun to implement a focused plan to address this, including engaging with a wider range of employers and matching individuals more accurately to vacancies.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders develop positive relationships with employers. They understand the knowledge, skills and behaviours that employers need their employees to have. They use this understanding to adapt their curriculum and better prepare learners for working in the sector. For example, tutors include in their training approaches to maintaining self-discipline and dealing calmly with members of the public. Monitoring visit: Wise Training Streetworks and Construction Limited, 2 and 3 July 2024 Leaders have suitable quality assurance processes in place. These include observations of teaching, standardisation of assessment and gathering feedback from learners. Leaders understand the strengths and weaknesses of their provision and have made incremental improvements to their Skills Bootcamps. They welcome external scrutiny and intend to set up formal governance arrangements in the future.

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Reasonable progress

Tutors keep their subject knowledge and skills up to date. This includes renewing their professional status and qualifications frequently, and continuing to work in the sector. However, although tutors have completed qualifications in teaching and assessing, they do not update their teaching skills. Leaders have recognised this and have a plan to address it imminently.

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Reasonable progress

Tutors sequence the Skills Bootcamp curriculum logically. Learners start by exploring the requirements of a safe site within the highways code of practice, such as minimum width requirements for walkways, braking speed distances and cone- tapering arrangements. They then use this knowledge to plan and make a risk assessment of a site, before executing their plan on a live public highway.

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Reasonable progress

Tutors use a range of effective teaching strategies and bring learning to life through their experience in the sector. Learners apply and reinforce their theoretical learning in practical tasks, including setting up a safe working area, detecting underground infrastructure and reinstating the road after the work is complete.

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Reasonable progress

Most tutors use assessment well to check learners’ understanding. They use quizzes and questioning to test learners’ recall of key concepts and terminology. For example, learners consider how people using wheelchairs and those with children in pushchairs will use the walkways that they create. However, in a few instances, tutors do not check that all learners fully understand the content of sessions and answer themselves the questions that they pose to learners.

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Reasonable progress

Tutors develop learners’ English and mathematics skills well during their programmes. Learners develop their skills in writing accurate and legible risk assessments in a working environment. They calculate braking distances matched to speed limits to calculate the correct angle for cone tapering at the start and end of roadworks.

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Reasonable progress

Tutors adapt their teaching to provide additional support when learners struggle. When learners make rapid progress, tutors provide prompts to stretch learners’ understanding further. For example, learners explore how their actions may differ if there was a visibility issue due to a broken lamp post. Monitoring visit: Wise Training Streetworks and Construction Limited, 2 and 3 July 2024 Tutors provide valuable careers guidance during Skills Bootcamps, and learners gain an understanding of the different routes that they may choose in the highways, construction and telecommunications industries. Tutors support learners well to prepare for applying and being interviewed for jobs, including producing a portfolio of work.

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Reasonable progress

Learners make steady progress, successfully complete their Skills Bootcamps and achieve their qualifications. Learners who are employed or self-employed expand their responsibilities at work, take on new contracts and often gain promotions. Around a third of learners who are unemployed gain employment quickly after completing their Skills Bootcamps.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders have effective safeguarding arrangements in place, including implementing suitable policies and ensuring that designated safeguarding officers and staff are appropriately trained. Staff discuss frequent updates on topical safeguarding issues, such as the link between football and the increase in domestic violence during large football tournaments.

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Reasonable progress

Learners know how to keep themselves and others safe in training and at work. They understand their rights, how to deal with bullying or harassment in the workplace, and how to manage their health when working long, physical shifts. Learners recognise the vulnerability of underground services and how these may be abused by those wanting to cause harm to the public. Monitoring visit: Wise Training Streetworks and Construction Limited, 2 and 3 July 2024 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

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Reasonable progress

children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Reasonable progress

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

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