St Elizabeth's Centre

Published date 16 June 2010 Inspection Number 345819 Unique reference number: 132015

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Name of lead inspector: Deborah Vaughan-Jenkins HMI

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Type of provider: Independent specialist college

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Address:

Much Hadham Hertfordshire SG10 6EW Telephone number: 01279 844422

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Focused monitoring visit report

Focused monitoring visit: St Elizabeth’s College, 11 May 2010 1 of 3

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Context and focus of visit

St Elizabeth’s College (the college) is located at Much Hadham near Bishop’s Stortford, East Hertfordshire. The college predominantly enrols learners with a range of moderate learning difficulties and/or disabilities and complex medical needs with the aim of developing skills to support independent living. Currently there are 36 Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funded students aged between 19 and 25 years enrolled at the college and all are tenants of housing associations in either Much Hadham or Bishop’s Stortford. There is an even gender mix with 18 female and 18 male students. Around 14% of learners are of minority ethnic heritage.

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Context and focus of visit

The most recent inspection report was in April 2008. The college was graded satisfactory in overall effectiveness, capacity to improve, outcomes for learners, quality of provision and leadership and management. The last monitoring visit in April 2009 looked at five themes and judged the college to be making reasonable progress in four and insufficient progress in one.

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progress

The 2008/09 self-assessment report is written using the previous inspection framework and makes clear judgments about each aspect of provision. The new framework is being applied for 2009/10. Increased use is made of learners and parents views throughout the report to help support judgments. The use of trend data however, does not feature enough to support judgments on the full extent of any progress made or to help show sustained improvement over time. The self- assessment is much more learner-focused although is still overly descriptive in a few places.

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progress

The college has strengthened its quality cycle of audits to help inform staff training and development and check the impact of actions taken. For example, an initial audit of tutorials has ensured students gain their tutorial entitlement. After highlighting training in learner target setting, further audits now focus on improving the quality of students’ individual development plans (IDPs). Outcomes from the most recent audits suggest the quality of IDPs is improving.

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progress

The college’s quality improvement plan is monitored and updated each term with senior managers responsible for the overview of progress against each aspect. Few objectives in the plan have really explicit or precise targets against which to measure clearly progress. In a few cases, areas for improvement identified are not sufficiently well defined. Focused monitoring visit: St Elizabeth’s College, 11 May 2010 2 of 3

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progress

The self-assessment states the college are undertaking a comprehensive review of its safeguarding policy to incorporate more clearly e-safety and safer recruitment procedures. Student and parental feedback suggest students feel safe in the college environment. Initial training has been undertaken in preparation for vetting and barring legislation. However, the planning programme for its full introduction is not yet fully developed. In addition, although records are kept of incidents and accidents, outcomes are not analysed over time and the follow up responses are not logged on the same form making it difficult to track the outcome of these. Currently, near misses are not recorded.

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progress

Accountability for Skills for Life provision is now clear and managed by the new college vice principal who took up post in September 2009. A Skills for Life policy and accompanying action plan are in place. Staff received specific Skills for Life training in October 2009 to consider the types of activities to use to better integrate relevant basic skills into sessions. In addition, the college are working closely with an awarding body to develop an accredited framework for life and living skills for the next academic year. Since September 2009, the college has run two discreet groups of nine more able learners, to improve and develop their literacy skills. Plans are in place to accredit units where appropriate. A vision for Skills for Life has now been established but it is too early to determine the full impact on the outcomes for all learners.

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progress

The college has notably increased the number of observations it undertakes annually from 30 in 2008/09 to over 85, by observing every tutor twice during the 2009/10 academic year. In 2008/09, 30% of teaching was judged by the college to be good or better. This year, college data indicate an improvement to at least 50% of teaching judged good or better which is on schedule for meeting the college’s target for 2010. An audit of lesson observations undertaken in February identified strengths in teaching around the use of learning materials and learner involvement and indicated further training required in sharing and setting learning aims, session planning and questioning skills. Managers have provided subsequent training for teaching staff and plan to undertake further audits to check how successful this has been. The teaching and learning audits are not sufficiently comprehensive however to help identify and celebrate best practice.

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progress

Focused monitoring visit: St Elizabeth’s College, 11 May 2010 3 of 3

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progress

The moderation of the observation process for teaching and learning remains underdeveloped. Arrangements to continue external joint observations have been undertaken this year with a local general further education college. However, internal joint observations are not formalised and currently there is no moderation of written observation reports to promote consistency and/or share good practice.

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progress

The college analyses progress by gender and ethnicity systematically and college data show no significant differences in learner performance. A college equality and diversity report produced annually, shows that the staff profile closely matches that of the student body. The college has set objectives to ensure the governing body profile is also more representative. The reports analysis of the staffing profile is not comprehensive. For example, it does not analyse gender, age, ethnicity and disability by job level to ensure the identification and avoidance of potential discrimination. Promotion through the curriculum is gradually developing with some meaningful approaches to celebrating culture. For example, students from minority ethnic backgrounds are actively encouraged to celebrate their heritage and raise awareness of their cultures through the design and cooking of national dishes for other residents in a version of ‘come dine with me’. It is unclear from college observation

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progress

data how widespread promotion is across all subjects.

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progress

The equality and diversity group monitors the implementation plan for gender, disability and race, although the targets set are not always sufficiently precise or meaningful to easily judge the full impact on learners and staff. Records of complaints, incidents and accidents are not analysed by different groups to determine if there are any patterns emerging that may require action. 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 Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It rates council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children,

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If you would like a copy of this report in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 1231231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk.

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You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way.

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Royal Exchange Buildings St Ann’s Square Manchester, M2 7LA

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T: 0300 1231231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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