Safeguarding remains a high focus
It appeared that initial reports said little about safeguarding. Dig deeper into participation and development, and you often find a comment. Recently, we have seen more negative comments than in early reports. Safeguarding is a topic that isn’t going away, so it’s best to be prepared.
We’ve spotted comments on low attendance, such as this one. “Learners’ attendance at all 4 centres is too low. The strategies that leaders and managers have implemented are not yet having a positive impact.” If you haven’t realised, poor attendance is a safeguarding issue because if learners are not where they should be, then where are they and what’s happening to them? The TES recently published an article stating the government is being urged to show greater “ambition” to restore school absence to pre‐pandemic levels. The target of over 94 per cent attendance by 2028-29 would still be below pre-Covid levels, when it was regularly above 95 per cent. Clearly, it’s a focus.
Inspection often refers to checking and reinforcing learning; however, it is a subject that still appears in reports. Here’s an example from the past month. “During course inductions, tutors introduce learners to the principles of life in modern Britain and how to keep themselves safe from extremism and radicalisation. However, these topics are not reinforced in sufficient depth later on, and learners’ understanding of these topics is shallow.”
Many tutors take the approach of teaching topics; we can’t argue with that, but do the same teachers frequently recall what they’ve taught to ensure it’s embedded in long-term memory?
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