Weymouth College’s plans for improvements continue to be on course as the latest reinspection report is issued by Ofsted. In January 2015, inspectors judged outcomes for learners as ‘Good’ and the quality of teaching, learning and assessment as ‘Good’; whereas the overall effectiveness of the college was judged inadequate due to its poor financial position.
Ofsted re-visited the College in March 2015 as part of a follow-up plan and in the report issued following the visit, Ofsted indicated that the College was making good progress and had identified strategies that would help to contribute to improvement in its financial position whilst maintaining its high academic standards. In this latest monitoring visit, Ofsted focused on aspects of leadership, management and governance, and the inspector met with a number of people across the College including the acting Principal, the nominee, governors, senior leadership team, teaching and support staff and the clerk to the corporation.
Ofsted were so impressed with the continued improvements made by the College that they awarded three ‘significant improvement’ judgements, which is unusual at this stage of a monitoring process. Significant improvement’ corresponds to a grade one judgement for improvement in each area inspected. The report said: “leaders, managers and governors have made very good progress, particularly to address areas for improvement around leadership, governance and financial management. They have put in place a suitably detailed quality improvement action plan and financial recovery plan”
The report goes onto say: “representatives from the Further Education Commissioner’s office and funding agencies have reviewed these plans and expressed a high level of confidence in the direction of travel of the College.” Nigel Evans Acting Principal said: “We are delighted with the judgements made in the recent Ofsted monitoring visit. These judgements represent an impartial view on the honest and transparent progress we have made as an institution since the beginning of the New Year.
It is of note that whilst we have made significant and positive progress against our financial position, we have maintained very high levels of academic performance, continuing to give our students a great experience.” It is now anticipated that the College will have a full Ofsted inspection within the next academic year.
