Coventry College gets apprenticeship ban after Ofsted report

Coventry College has been forced to stop offering new apprenticeships after a report from Ofsted found that the institution “requires improvement”.

The college was told that it must improve across almost all areas, including quality of education, leadership, and management education programmes for young people and provision for learners with high needs.

It was ranked good for behaviour and attitudes. Inspectors found that learners feel “respected and embrace everyone’s individuality”, and that they are “enthusiastic about their learning and are keen to do well”. They also concluded that the majority of students on study programmes are “well prepared for their next stage in education”.

The college has faced significant financial challenges since it was formed through a merger in 2017. The Ofsted report said school management has “rightly focused their efforts on securing financial stability for the college” and noted that they have also “invested considerable time and effort in improving the quality of education”.

However, it said that these efforts have “not yet yielded sufficient improvements”.

The inspection at the college was carried out by Ofsted on 15 November 2022, and the report was published online on 16 January.

On the subject of apprenticeships, the report said: “Leaders and managers do not ensure that learners and apprentices routinely receive high-quality teaching. In a few areas, leaders have struggled to recruit teachers and needed to recruit temporary staff as an interim solution.

“However, leaders have not placed enough focus on supporting these teachers to improve their teaching practice. For example, in construction, teachers do not know learners’ starting points.

“They do not understand learners’ needs or fully understand the expectations of the curriculum. This has resulted in poor teaching that has impeded learners’ progress.”

Speaking to FE News, Coventry College principal Carol Thomas, who was appointed in August 2020, said: “Unfortunately Ofsted came about 12 months too soon for us. Anyone who has been involved in turnaround of this magnitude would know that it takes three to five years to really see the impact of decisions and actions taken and that’s when you have a full leadership team in post.

“If you add in the closing of a college site, the bringing together of two very different college cultures, plus a pandemic enforcing a series of lockdowns, remote learning, centre assessed and teacher assessed grades, followed by learners with no examination experience suddenly thrust into the world of RQF examinations – then it’s safe to say it has been nothing if not a challenge.

“The Ofsted report noted progress made from the 2019 inspection, particularly in relation to learner behaviour and attitudes, something that has been a challenge for the whole sector post pandemic, and most noticeably the whole learner experience and culture of the college, but the team are clearly disappointed to have received an inadequate grade for apprenticeships which is only 4% of the college provision but dominates the Ofsted report.

“We have been battling to remove all of the apprenticeship legacy issues, which has been challenging due to the impact of the pandemic, and unfortunately an over reliance on agency staff in STEM areas, which Ofsted quite rightly noted had an impact on the learner experience.

“The college is, however, ambitious for its future and with a stable foundation and a strong team now in place, it can continue to move forward through the next phase of its improvement journey.”

She also noted that the FE Commissioner and the Education and Skills Funding Agency described Coventry College’s turnaround as “one of the best they have ever seen in FE”.