An overview of our main services to help
you improve your provision:
Helping individual institutions in the
sector achieve good or outstanding teaching, learning
and assessment
– we’ll equip you with the tools to help
you improve the confidence and ability of your teachers
to deliver better teaching, learning and assessment to
your learners, through supportive but rigorous
observations that focus on promoting improvement and the
identification and sharing of good practice. We will
provide you with the training, paperwork and systems to
move your staff forward, encouraging their collaboration
in the sharing of resources and good practice, so your
staff will deliver in true teams. These are systems that
will make the difference you want to see.
Observation system development and
training to improve teaching, learning, assessment and
support
-
sadly internal observation systems rarely
feature as strengths during inspection but with the
right direction they can do. We can show you what
inspectors focus on and what makes an outstanding
session. Too often colleges and providers focus on
process, such as a lesson plan, rather than the
resultant teaching and learning. Joint observations, or
single observations by experts, can validate existing
completed observation paperwork along with the accuracy
and robustness of the observations carried out by your
staff. Many colleges have benefitted from a series of
joint ‘walk-throughs’ to check both the observation
system and to provide robust evidence of how good
practical and theory training really is, along with
pointers that really work on how to improve it.
As well as training your observers in what to look for
and how to grade we can tell you how good your teaching
improvement processes are and how to improve their
impact. For example, how to identify, log and spread
good practice so that it is implemented elsewhere. The
training and observations can give you reliable evidence
of how good your support for learners is or how
effective your tutorials are. We can tell you how the
best colleges and providers have improved the teaching
of their staff and the learning experience of their
students.
Mock inspections or curriculum audits of
specific areas within a college or provider
– gain an exact picture of where you are,
what you do well, what could be improved and how to best
present your provision. If you chose one or two areas
where your provision is ‘below the bar’ or where you
feel teachers are not where you would like them to be,
paired or individual observations can give precise
information on how to improve performance and what to
prioritise to move things on. A written report will
highlight the most applicable best practice from the
sector and can be used for self-assessment evidence and
for your management of teaching and learning
improvement. This work could also be for a cross-college
aspect such as equality and diversity in the classroom,
or the effectiveness of support.
Themed ‘walk-throughs’-
twenty minute observations of areas that you would like
to gain an overall picture of the current practice in
your college with. For example, punctuality and how it
is dealt with, prompt starts and introductions to
learning, assessment of learning, use of ILT, linking
learning to other sessions, functional skills, health
and safety, tutorials, target setting, theory teaching,
practical teaching. A written report will highlight any
best practice seen along with recommendations for
improvement.
Quality improvement policy and systems
development
- how
good are your policies and systems? Are they doing what
they are supposed to do if improvement is to happen? We
will review and help to improve your key systems,
especially course or
programme reviews. We can ensure that you
make the best use of learner and employer feedback to
demonstrate improvement and to act as a rich source of
self-assessment evidence. We can also help your internal
verification systems drive timely achievement.
Supporting leaders, managers and
governors
to understand their role and part in monitoring
performance and promoting improvement
– we’ll work with you to understand
exactly where you are now and provide tailor made
support that responds specifically to your needs,
whether it be individual one-to-one support or workshops
for groups of people such as curriculum leaders or
governors.
Sharing exemplary practice and systems in
self-assessment
and development planning
with you, leading
to quality improvement actions that move you forward
–
self-assessment can be the single most
powerful quality improvement tool if done well. Your
report is looked at on an annual basis by the
inspectorate along with performance data and can be an
influence on whether you will be inspected. We’ll
support you in developing your capacity to self-assess
all of your work honestly and robustly so that your
staff ‘own’ the resultant self-assessment reports and
improvement plans, understanding their part in moving
you forward. Know what sub-SARs to produce and how
to use them effectively. Wherever you are in your
improvement journey, we will help you focus on
maintaining upward movement and having a self-assessment
report that will be a continuing strength to draw upon
in your development.
We can get you ready
to meet the new demands of the ‘Common Inspection
Framework’ required for your SAR in Autumn 2013 –
what to grade beyond the four areas to make your report
useful to you and getting the report structure and the
way you produce your report right. A robust
self-assessment process uses the quality improvement
procedures you already have effectively, ensuring that
proposed grades stand up to inspection. Judgements based
on sound evidence are difficult not to agree with. How
to involve the right people, including governors, in
moderation and monitoring of your development (action)
planning to move your areas for improvement (weaknesses)
and ‘satisfactory’ areas on.
Conducting a confidential ‘health check’
of your
organisation
by two of the top and most experienced very recent HMIs
(and previously lead inspectors with the FEFC, TSC and
ALI)
– we’ll examine your leadership,
management, performance and quality improvement against
and beyond the requirements of the September 2012 Common
Inspection Framework in a way that can only be achieved
by scrutiny from the right people. Depending on
institutional size and complexity, this totally
confidential and focused ‘health check’ will ensure you
know your provision inside out and leave you with no
surprises should you be inspected. It will help you to
decide and
prioritise the
actions required to move your provision on.
Preparation for
inspection
(including the different aspects as a result of
short
notice)
– we’ll support you in developing your capacity to show
your institution in the best light, honestly but
robustly, as it should be. With just two days notice of
inspection it is worth being ‘institutionally ready’ so
that all your staff show themselves at their best. We
can dispel the myths and take the ‘angst’ out of
inspection.
We will show
you how to focus staff and learners on the important
things that will make a difference. Having the right
systems in place means that you can respond effortlessly
when that call finally comes. If you are new to the role
or just want to ensure that you do the best possible job
as a nominee
we can support you in getting everything ready and
‘right’.
Wherever you are in your improvement
journey we will help you focus on the things that
matter, maintaining your upward movement. If you are
previously good or outstanding we can show you the
factors that have helped others improve further or to at
least maintain their position.
An aspect that has been requested by
several colleges, especially where there are managers
not used to inspection, is to take such key staff
through the types of questions and evidence they might
need to refer to. We can also take you through the
difference between having ‘apprenticeships’ rather than
college based learning selected for one or more SSAs.
Position statements for key areas of your
provision
–
these are concise, evidenced statements that describe
key areas of your provision as they are now
- they will help lead inspectors to make the same
judgements and arrive at the grade that you are. If you
think you are likely to be selected for inspection
position statements demonstrate your movement since your
self-assessment and can easily be updated for the first
day of short notice inspections.
How to effectively manage and improve
subcontracted provision
– get
advice from the author of the Ofsted report ‘Ensuring
Quality in Apprenticeships’ on how to manage and improve
your subcontracted provision, whose own quality
assurance of extensive franchised provision was
described by the FEFC as ‘exemplary’.
Providing a ‘critical friend’ service to
check and validate self-assessment, observations of
teaching and other key quality processes such as course
reviews – confirmation that you are moving in the right
direction
–
constructive,
informed, reliable and confidential advice from someone
who knows how inspectors think and who has twice been
judged outstanding himself in inspection. We’ll
work with you to confirm you are doing the right things
in the right way, responding specifically to your needs.
We can help you to demonstrate to inspectors that you
know your provision and are self-critical.
A critical friend can help validate your own quality
improvement findings and identify any gaps in evidence.
Providing resources that really impact to
help you improve particular areas of your work
– for example, materials to train
governors, staff and learners in areas such as equality
and diversity, course reviews, self-assessment
reporting, general quality improvement and the
improvement of teaching, learning and assessment through
observation and improvement planning. If you have a
particular area you would like to develop contact Phil
as far in advance as possible to help you develop the
right materials.
Equal opportunities and diversity
training and embedding in teaching and learning
-
too
often a key area for improvement in the new inspection
regime that impacts negatively on teaching and learning
judgements made by inspectors. Understand how to go
about reinforcing learner understanding of equality and
diversity in lessons as a naturally occurring process
and where this is more difficult as part of tutorials,
cross-college events or reviews. Understand what your
staff, governors and learners should know about equality
and diversity and whether your induction for them is
appropriate, enjoyable and memorable? Learn how to
demonstrate that your college has an inclusive culture
of respect and opportunity. Understand what your
marketing materials are saying about you to different
groups of potential learners. How the best colleges and
providers have gone about improving under-represented
groups in particular SSAs. Planning ahead and then using
data to understand performance at different levels of
management.
Post-inspection action planning
- who better to advise you on
analysing and prioritising the key actions needed to
move your provision onto the next level following
inspection? If you are judged as ‘inadequate’ or
‘requires improvement’ you need to plan quickly in order
to improve in order to have the maximum improvement in
the short time before another inspection. Even if you
are judged as ‘good’ we can help you to take the right
next steps to becoming outstanding.
Providing
‘Masterclasses’
in key areas that are often cited as areas for
improvement in inspection, providing resources that
deliver and can be adapted by the institutions that
attend
- these will be a day or half day of
hard, but rewarding work. They should only be attended
by staff who have the ability and authority to introduce
the ways of working that are covered.
Attendance at a masterclass
gives your institution a
licence
to adapt the materials shared with you.
The
Masterclasses
are completely different from anything that has been
offered by others, and in terms of possible improvement
impact these will be the best money your institution has
ever invested.
Masterclasses can
be delivered ‘in house’ for key staff at a college or
training provider.