Heritage Skills Academy Limited

Heritage Skills Academy Limited

Address: Main Stores, 90 - Bicester Motion, Buckingham Road, Bicester, Oxon, OX27 8AL Unique reference number (URN): 2577253

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, learners are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect providers for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The provider has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not met: The provider has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Leaders and governors understand their key strengths and priorities extremely well. Newly appointed governors challenge leaders effectively and bring about swift improvement, most notably in stemming the small decline in achievement rates. Leaders use feedback effectively to improve the training and environment for apprentices.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Leaders work very productively with key stakeholders in the heritage vehicle sector. The industry recognises leaders' expertise and proven track record in training the highly skilled employees the sector increasingly needs. Leaders work closely with partner organisations to support apprentices' studies. For example, partners provide vital subsistence bursaries for apprentices or fund new training workshops.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Leaders ensure staff are highly qualified, experienced industry specialists. They manage high-quality resources effectively, which means apprentices use the most up-to-date machinery and tools.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Leaders and governors create a culture where everyone feels valued. This is a highly positive place in which to train and work. Leaders manage staff workload carefully and offer flexibility when external pressures arise. Staff who willingly give their time to support events are encouraged to take time off in lieu. They greatly value this give-and-take approach.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Leaders maintain a focus on continuous professional development. They accurately identify individual training needs. For example, newly appointed teachers without a teaching qualification are supported to gain one, while those unfamiliar with business environments receive help with office etiquette and typing skills. Leaders also identify training that benefits all staff, such as developing questioning techniques. Inspectors saw the positive impact of this training during their visit.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Leaders create an inclusive culture in which apprentices have access to high-quality training, regardless of any barriers to learning that they have. Staff are passionate about supporting apprentices to make progress and achieve. Leaders responsible for inclusion are suitably qualified and experienced. They ensure that staff have the skills to support the range of learning support needs that apprentices have, for example dyslexia or a visual impairment. Leaders identify apprentices' starting points accurately and ensure that staff use this information well to implement suitable support and adjustments. Staff monitor apprentices' progress carefully and adapt support where necessary. For example, as highly anxious apprentices rapidly build confidence, staff reduce the level of support to promote independent working.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Managers ensure that arrangements at apprentices' workplaces are appropriate for their needs and that employers know how to support their apprentices.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Leaders and managers do not routinely check the progress made by apprentices with identified needs, and therefore fail to use this data to improve their inclusive practices. However, because leaders are very well informed on how well all apprentices are doing, this has very limited impact on the progress of individual apprentices.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Leaders helped design the qualification and so have an excellent knowledge of the curriculum and its quality, alongside a thorough understanding of the needs of the employers they work with. They regularly review and update the curriculum, such as including newly defined classic cars as historic thresholds change. This ensures that teachers train apprentices with the skills they need to be extremely well prepared for careers in the sector.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Staff are highly experienced and well qualified. Staff collaborate with employers to design and teach content that aligns with the apprentice's individual needs and workplace requirements. Staff ensure that employers give apprentices ample opportunity to practise and reinforce their newly learned skills. This helps apprentices to quickly gain new practical and technical knowledge and apply it confidently in their work. Employers value enormously the innovative ideas and techniques that apprentices bring from their training.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Staff know their apprentices, including those with identified support needs, extremely well and they plan activities that ensure apprentices make rapid progress. They tailor training effectively so apprentices develop confidence and deepen their understanding. They use a

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Expected standard

broad range of very effective teaching techniques. For example, when removing, cleaning and refitting a distributor, they pair more confident apprentices, who could reinforce and consolidate their knowledge, with other apprentices learning the task for the first time. Teachers are particularly skilful at adapting their questioning to challenge apprentices of different abilities. They ensure that apprentices know how to improve their work.

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Participation and development Strong standard

Leaders ensure that apprentices feel welcomed and supported. They foster an inclusive culture in which apprentices thrive and that celebrates and values difference.

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Participation and development Strong standard

Teachers create an extremely calm and professional working environment in which apprentices work harmoniously and support each other well. Apprentices develop high levels of confidence and self-belief and are highly motivated and ambitious. They take great pride in their work. Apprentices demonstrate very positive attitudes to their learning.

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Participation and development Strong standard

Apprentices have a thorough understanding of fundamental British values and apply these with confidence both in training and at work. They benefit from a curriculum that supports them to stay fit and healthy and lead productive lives in their local communities. They know how to keep themselves safe online.

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Participation and development Strong standard

Leaders have high expectations of apprentices' attendance. They ensure that extremely high levels of attendance are sustained.

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Participation and development Strong standard

Apprentices benefit from well-coordinated wider learning and networking opportunities at prestigious sector events. These enhance their learning, garner their interest and provide inspirational experiences for apprentices and their families.

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Participation and development Strong standard

Apprentices receive highly effective, bespoke careers advice. They are well informed about the wide variety of specialisms open to them, alongside opportunities for further study if, for example, they want to run their own business.

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Achievement Expected standard

Apprentices, including those with support needs, achieve well. Leaders have successfully halted the recent small decline in achievement rates. They recognise that further work is needed to return achievement rates to their previous very high levels.

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Achievement Expected standard

Apprentices produce high-quality written and practical work that improves over time. For example, early on, they learn the main components of a gearbox; later, they analyse technical faults in gearbox transmissions and propose repair solutions for a range of vehicle models.

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Achievement Expected standard

Apprentices develop the English, mathematics and digital skills they need for their jobs. For example, they learn to prepare detailed quotes for clients and accurately convert between imperial and metric units. All apprentices who need English and mathematics qualifications achieve them.

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Achievement Expected standard

Staff prepare apprentices very well for their next steps. Nearly all progress to positive destinations, including those who do not complete their training.

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What it's like to be a learner and/or an apprentice at this provider

Apprentices, many of whom have significant barriers to learning and/or have had poor prior experiences of education, enjoy their training enormously. They attend extremely well. They develop a passion for working in the heritage vehicle sector. Alongside their technical skills, apprentices develop confidence and resilience. They become highly ambitious for what they can achieve. Many experience a feeling of success and accomplishment for the first time.

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What it's like to be a learner and/or an apprentice at this provider

Apprentices benefit greatly from the partnerships that leaders have built. They participate enthusiastically in a wide variety of prestigious events across the heritage vehicle industry. They represent their training provider and employers with confidence. For example, apprentices staff stalls at industry shows, where they knowledgably and enthusiastically share their passion with members of the public.

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What it's like to be a learner and/or an apprentice at this provider

Apprentices have access to a very broad range of classic and vintage vehicles across their training sites and workplaces. They are able to practise and hone their skills on a wide variety of diverse vehicles from different eras. This prepares them extremely well for working in the sector and helps them to identify any specialist interests that they may have. Apprentices take their next steps with confidence, very often staying with their current employer with enhanced levels of responsibility and pay.

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What it's like to be a learner and/or an apprentice at this provider

Apprentices work very effectively with a broad range of clients from different backgrounds. They learn to be accepting of people who hold opposing views to them. They have very high levels of respect for each other, their teachers and the wider public. Apprentices feel safe and their behaviour is exemplary.

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Next steps

Leaders and governors should monitor the progress of apprentices with an identified need to evaluate the effectiveness of the adaptations they make to support them and to inform improvements. Leaders should improve achievements rates so they become consistently high.

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Team inspectors:

Kay Hedges, Ofsted Inspector Jaswant Mann, Ofsted Inspector

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This was the data available at the time of the full inspection, taken from different sources . More recent data may have been published since the full inspection took place.

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Facts and figures used on inspection

The inspector(s) used this data during the full inspection on 25 August 2026

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About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty's Inspectors (HMIs) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

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About this inspection

Inspectors spoke with apprentices, leaders, teachers, development coaches, employers, external stakeholders and those responsible for governance during the inspection.

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About this inspection

The inspectors confirmed the following information about the provider:

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About this inspection

Leaders offer the level 3 heritage engineering technician apprenticeship, with two established pathways: vehicle mechanical technician, and coach-building and trim technician. At the time of the inspection, there were 174 apprentices in training, around 10 of whom were studying for additional qualifications in English and/or mathematics. Around half of the apprentices were aged 16 to 18. Training takes place face to face at one of the centres in Bicester, Oxfordshire or at the Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey.

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other providers can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The provider reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The provider is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The provider needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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Urgent improvement

services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

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Urgent improvement

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 .

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Urgent improvement

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

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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

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