There’s already evidence of employers favouring over-19s so we must look now at improving the functional skills offer for 16-18s. After the initial euphoria following the government’s announcement about the removal of mandatory functional skills qualifications for adult apprentices, the reality has set in. While framed as a success, the decision raises several concerns. Is this a […]
Looking at inclusion in the new inspection framework? The draft proposals for the new inspection framework have been available for a while now although they appear far from finalised or proposals for grading agreed. We do know the new structure is going to feature inclusion as a key driver. An outstanding provider report had this […]
Use of assessment strategies? Too often, leaders believe tutors understand the effective use of assessment only to find out their beliefs are ill-founded too late. At a recent inspection, while tutors use questioning well, the dreaded ‘however’ describes a different story. “However, too many tutors on courses for young people do not routinely check students’ […]
It was July last year when we at the Fellowship of Inspection Nominees started hearing complaints from members (mostly judged good or outstanding by Ofsted) that their funding for 2024-25 was under threat. The Education and Skills Funding Agency had instructed them to stop taking on new apprentices for certain programmes. In some cases providers […]
Do you have too many eggs in the one basket? During the past two months, there has been a significant increase in new providers, with44 new training providers, increasing the number of players on the pitch and spreadingrecruitment more thinly. Almost all of these are Independent Learning providers, and nearlyall offer boot camps. It’s worth […]
The Fellowship of Inspection Nominees (FIN) secured another major policy win this week when @Ofsted announced as part of its reforms that every school in England will be asked to nominate a senior staff member to “work closely with the inspection team” in addition to the headteacher. This followed Ofsted crediting FIN in its Big […]
Ofsted’s reforms could yet prove successful if the inspectorate is able to learn from its own best practice and get its silos communicating with each other. Ofsted’s pre-Christmas announcement that it will start trialling ‘new approaches’ to inspection this month before its report card consultation opens was not universally welcomed. But if Ofsted can learn from it – and […]
What do good and better behaviour and attitudes look like? The majority of providers perform well in outcomes for behaviours and attitudes. Theextract from an outstanding 6th Form is an excellent example of what inspectors mayexpect to see and nicely sums up the criteria identified in the handbook. Students’ behaviour is impeccable. Students attend well, […]
Welcome to the first edition of Inspection Insights for 2025. During the past sixmonths of 2024, 224 inspection reports have been published. Almost 75% of thesehave been rated good, and just over 12% rated outstanding, with 87% graded goodor better. We have seen a progressive reduction in those not yet good to around13% and a […]
Are leaders focusing sufficiently on achievement? This area for improvement identified in a recent report indicates a closer focus on achievement than recently seen. “Accelerate the pace of improvements in apprenticeships so that more apprentices achieve their qualifications on time.” Achievement is increasing in frequency in reports, and of course, we have the ‘achievement’ aspect […]
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