College’s fury over Ofsted rating

ALUN FRANCIS: not happy about inspection criteria

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OLDHAM College is to make an official complaint after being stripped of its “outstanding” Ofsted rating.

The college has plummeted from the top Ofsted grade to “requires improvement” (grade three) after a visit by the education watchdog.

Bosses at the Rochdale Road college say the inspection — its first since 2008 — doesn’t focus on the things that matter “educationally or economically”.

They accuse Ofsted of retrospectively introducing new performance measures and say that “glowing” comments about the vast majority of the college’s work aren’t reflected in its overall grade.

Ofsted visited in May and looked at six subject areas. They found that most tutors have excellent subject knowledge and use their experience of working in industry to help students.

Student progress is better than expected in some subjects and poor in others, but the proportion of students going on to higher education or to get a job has increased.

Outcomes for apprentices were “inadequate” in 2013/14, with too few successfully competing their programme and in the time planned. The college was also told it doesn’t do enough to help students improve their English and maths, and was told to improve its work experience programmes.

Areas highlighted for praise included support for students with additional needs, the college’s diversity and its careers advice.

Principal Alun Francis confirmed the college is making an official complaint.

He pointed to positive areas of the report and said: “All the good things get lost because the Ofsted report has a grade on it. That is unfortunately a grade three, because how we are measured has changed literally over night.

“Oldham College has never been driven by its Ofsted grade in the past, and will not be in the future.

“The college acquired an outstanding grade in 2008 and kept it for an unusually long eight years. It stopped using it in promotional material a long time ago because the inspection did not focus on the things that mattered educationally or economically.

“Since then, the college has developed a substantial range of new provision, closely aligned with economic growth, with strong employer involvement in the curriculum. It has transformed a large proportion of its buildings and the campus. Its educational performance has improved beyond recognition.

“In each of the last three years it has achieved record breaking results, and was among the top 10 per cent nationally in 2014.

“A new performance measure, introduced in January 2015, was applied retrospectively during our inspection in May. The inspection team was open that this meant the college couldn’t be treated on the same basis as those inspected before January 2015, but aimed to achieve parity. We aren’t confident this was the case.

“Although the text of the report is glowing about the vast majority of our work, and the inspectors accepted it was a close decision, this is not reflected in the grades.

“We will resolve this issue without being diverted from the fact that our main accountability is to the learners, employers and others in Oldham and Greater Manchester.”