Greenbank Project (The)

Greenbank Project (The) Report following a monitoring visit to a ‘requires improvement’ provider

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Name of lead inspector: Anita Pyrkotsch-Jones, His Majesty’s Inspector Inspection dates: 21 and 22 May 2025

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Type of provider: Independent learning provider

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Address: Greenbank Lane Liverpool L17 1AG Monitoring visit: Greenbank Project (The), 21 and 22 May 2025

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Context and focus of visit

Greenbank Project (The) was inspected in June 2024. 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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Context and focus of visit

The Greenbank Project is a registered charity and company limited by guarantee. It consists of Greenbank College and Greenbank Sports Academy. This monitoring visit covered the provision at Greenbank College only. The college provides full-time education and training for young people aged 16 to 25 who have additional learning needs or special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

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Context and focus of visit

At the time of the monitoring visit, there were 163 learners studying on one of three distinct learning pathways. Twenty-seven learners were studying on the foundation learning pathway, 14 were studying on the supported internship pathway and 122 were studying on the vocational learning pathway. One-hundred and twenty-seven learners had an education, health and care (EHC) plan. Of these, 90 learners were in receipt of high needs funding. Learners on the foundation learning and vocational learning pathways study a range of subjects such as business administration, IT, health and social care, hairdressing and catering from entry level to level 2.

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Insufficient progress

Many learners come from disadvantaged backgrounds, have experienced trauma, or have a learning disability. Leaders and managers make very limited use of this information or information about what learners already know and can do when designing the vocational learning pathway curriculums. This limits learners’ choices to participate in broader vocational courses and, consequently, learners often study on courses that are not appropriate to meet their needs, abilities or aspirations.

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Insufficient progress

Tutors on the vocational learning pathway recognise that the design of the curriculums require significant improvement. They have trialled new baseline assessments to identify learners’ individual needs so that they can design the curriculums based on these. However, they are yet to implement fully the baseline assessments with vocational pathway learners. Monitoring visit: Greenbank Project (The), 21 and 22 May 2025 The foundation learning curriculum has been redesigned to align with the principles of the preparation for adulthood framework. The curriculum is now tailored to learners’ EHC plan targets. Leaders and managers have designed and sequenced the foundation learning curriculum effectively, ensuring learners build on prior knowledge, develop new skills and make progress towards greater independence. For example, foundation learners master the skill of learning how to use a washing machine through repetition, reduction in prompts and individualised support.

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Reasonable progress

Most learners on the foundation learning pathway now attend high-quality work placements that match their career aspirations closely. For example, learners with ambitions to become receptionists complete work experience on the college reception. They are learning new knowledge and skills, including using the photocopier, issuing visitor lanyards and dealing with challenging situations. The resulting professional manner and technical skills that learners are developing are helping them to find employment in their chosen sector.

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Reasonable progress

Those learners on the vocational learning pathway who have work placements learn new skills relevant to their career aspirations. For example, catering learners have work experience in commercial kitchens and learners who want to set up their own businesses are learning entrepreneurial skills from employers who have set up their own companies. However, leaders and managers acknowledge that the proportion of learners on vocational courses, such as health and social care, IT and business administration who complete work placements is too low. They are expanding the number of employers who can offer work placements, but it is too soon to see the full impact of this expansion.

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Reasonable progress

Leaders and managers have close partnerships with Liverpool City Council and with the NHS hospital trust. Partners provide useful supported internships in a wide variety of roles including social care, housing, portering, pharmacy, catering and retail. Job coaches ensure that supported interns are placed on the most appropriate internship for their career aims. Supported interns learn valuable new knowledge and skills that help them to progress to positive next steps in employment and education. Monitoring visit: Greenbank Project (The), 21 and 22 May 2025

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Insufficient progress

Tutors on the foundation learning pathway utilise effectively a baseline assessment of what learners know and can do and the skills that they need to develop. They use the learners’ EHC plan outcomes when planning learning to meet foundation learners’ personalised needs. This thorough and detailed process ensures tutors take a well-informed approach to curriculum planning and individual target-setting. Tutors now monitor learners’ progress to inform future setting of targets and to revise teaching and learning strategies. However, the new approach to monitoring learners’ progress has only recently been implemented. It is too early to evaluate the full impact of these changes.

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Insufficient progress

Tutors on the vocational learning pathway receive information on learners’ starting points and promptly identify broader needs, particularly in relation to learners’ confidence and readiness for employment. However, tutors do not formally record this information in learners’ personalised learning plans. As a result, learners’ progress from their initial starting points is not systematically recorded, monitored or updated.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders do not use information consistently about vocational pathway learners’ prior skills, knowledge and abilities. They do not ensure that learners are placed on the appropriate course for their needs, which slows their progress. In vocational areas such as hairdressing, learners struggle to meet the demands of the course as the course is taught at too high a level and is too complex to meet their needs.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders and managers have not established relationships with all learners’ and interns’ previous education settings. This means that leaders struggle to identify learners’ individual needs at the start of their course.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders and managers acknowledge that limited progress has been made in providing feedback to help individual learners make progress. They state that it has been too difficult, because of the complexity of provision, which includes foundation learning, vocational courses and supported internships. Leaders and managers identify, rightly, that feedback to learners remains an area for significant development.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders and managers do not provide useful guidance to tutors to improve the quality of the feedback they give. The advice provided is confusing and unhelpful. College marking procedures are poor, basic and vague, which results in significant Monitoring visit: Greenbank Project (The), 21 and 22 May 2025 variability in the quality of feedback that learners receive.

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Insufficient progress

Much of the written work that learners complete is not marked and no feedback is given. When feedback is provided on written work, it is often cursory and unclear. In many cases, including in English, tutors’ feedback contains spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors. Feedback provided by tutors is unhelpful and does not provide learners with the guidance they need to improve their work. For example, learners are asked to improve their spelling, but are not given strategies, such as the use of phonics, which might help. In many cases, learners’ work does not improve after feedback. In a small minority of subjects, learners receive more helpful feedback on their vocational knowledge and skills, behavioural targets and preparation for examinations.

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Insufficient progress

Most tutors provide helpful verbal feedback in class that helps learners to improve their work. For example, learners on level 2 IT improved the preview of their website because of technical advice about mobile views of websites. Tutors check learners’ knowledge and skills in class, confirming correct answers and asking helpful further questions to extend their understanding. In catering, tutors provide helpful feedback on technical skills, with detailed and useful explanations about how to improve them.

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Insufficient progress

Staff benefit from a range of staff development activities that enable them to maintain their occupational competency. They receive training to develop and extend their knowledge and understanding of supporting learners with high needs, such as CHARGE syndrome and visual impairment, supporting learners who are neurodiverse, and working with learners with keratoconus. However, tutors do not receive sufficient training to develop their teaching practice. Many tutors, particularly on the vocational learning pathway, do not use teaching strategies that meet the individual needs of all learners.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders’ assessments of teaching and learning through lesson observation do not accurately inform actions for improvement. Leaders do not evaluate the observations and are unaware of many of the college-wide systemic weaknesses in teaching and learning.

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Insufficient progress

Training resources for staff to improve the quality of teaching are often inaccurate and are of poor quality. Consequently, tutors use incorrect strategies in their teaching. Monitoring visit: Greenbank Project (The), 21 and 22 May 2025

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Insufficient progress

Following the previous inspection, leaders restructured the leadership team at the college. However, the pace of improvement has been extremely slow. The new leadership team has failed to stop the decline in the quality of education, particularly for learners on the vocational learning pathway that accounts for most of the provision. Almost all weaknesses from the previous inspection remain.

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Insufficient progress

Quality assurance of the provision remains weak. For example, the self-assessment report is descriptive, lacks evaluation and is overly positive. The quality improvement plan lacks specificity. Action points are generic and sometimes nonsensical. Several actions are significantly past the expected completion date.

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Insufficient progress

Following the previous inspection, leaders worked closely with the local authority and specialist organisations for learners with high needs to review governance functions at the college. The board of trustees has now reduced from 15 to eight. Leaders have been too slow to recruit new high needs and further education specialists to the board.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders have now implemented a quality of education scrutiny sub-group for trustees to provide scrutiny on how leaders are improving the quality of the provision. The sub-group meets at least monthly to review improvements and the impact these improvements have on the quality of education that learners receive. However, reports to governors are poor and do not provide trustees with sufficient information to challenge leaders and hold them to account for their actions.

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Insufficient progress

Leaders have successfully reduced the number of agency staff at the college. Staffing is now stable. Leaders have reviewed and updated their recruitment processes and now recruit staff who have experience of and the skills to work with learners who have high needs. Teaching staff are now all qualified tutors, and learning support assistants are no longer expected to teach classes. Monitoring visit: Greenbank Project (The), 21 and 22 May 2025 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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Insufficient progress

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

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Insufficient 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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