Setting

Alexandra House 33 Kingsway Holborn London WC2B 6SE T 08456 404045 F 020 7421 6644 www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Mr Keith Elliott Principal City of Bristol College College Green Centre St George’s Road Bristol BS1 5UA

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Sector Skills Area 5 – Construction

Thank you for your hospitality and co-operation during my visit on 18 and 19 October 2006. I am particularly grateful to you and all your staff for the hard work that took place to prepare for the visit and for giving up a great deal of time during the visit to meet with me. Please pass on my thanks to all those concerned.

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Sector Skills Area 5 – Construction

This visit is part of a series to provision in SSA 5 graded good or better at its most recent inspection, in order to evaluate how effective/good practice has been brought about, further improved and sustained. The visit provided much useful evidence for the good practice survey in construction. Published reports are likely to list the names of the contributing institutions but should we wish to cite specific aspects of practice we will contact the college first. All letters, following survey visits, will be published on the Ofsted website at the end of each half-term.

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Sector Skills Area 5 – Construction

The evidence used to inform the judgements made included: lesson observations; interviews with staff and learners; scrutiny of the examples of good practice provided including a tour of resources. I agreed to provide a summary of the observations of good practice seen and to suggest some areas for development.

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Good practice observed included:

 the good monitoring of attendance  the participation of learners in local, regional and national skills competitions  the approach to the integration of key skills; the use of vocationally relevant assignments and effective team teaching by vocational staff and key skill specialists  the broad curriculum enabling progression from one level to the next, allowing movement between full and part-time work-based learning courses  the innovative use of a dedicated learning resource centre to support construction learners and staff  the participation of the faculty manager and staff in external liaison with employers  the strong focus on improvement; good support from college management with effective action planning, monitoring and evaluation. Good use of both internal and external specialist practitioners to improve the quality of provision.

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Areas for development, which we discussed, included:

 to improve teaching and learning by sharing good practice, further developing learning materials and enabling learners to be more actively involved in lessons  to develop further the confidence and competence of staff in relation to their role and level of responsibility.

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Areas for development, which we discussed, included:

I hope these observations are useful as you continue to develop construction provision in the college.

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Areas for development, which we discussed, included:

As I explained in my previous letter, a copy of this letter will be sent to your LLSC. It will also be available to the team for your next institutional inspection.

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