The Isle of Wight council say an action plan to improve the council’s adult education service will be implemented after Ofsted found the service ‘Requires Improvement’.
The service was rated ‘Requires Improvement’ in all five areas of assessment.
Central government-funded, each year the service caters for over 800 Islanders aged 19 or over from disadvantaged backgrounds. In particular, those who are looking to improve their skills and qualifications in order to find work.
Areas for improvement
Highlights from the report include:
- Managers’ self-assessment of the provision is over-optimistic as it does not take sufficient account of the weaknesses of the provision.
- Managers have not made sure that the quality of teaching, learning and assessment on English and mathematics courses improves quickly enough, that more learners stay until the end of their courses and that a higher proportion achieve their functional skills qualifications.
- Too few learners are helped to improve their English and mathematical skills.
- Learners do not have a good enough understanding of the dangers of radicalisation and extremism.
- Managers do not know enough about whether courses are helping to improve learners’ lives and job prospects.
- Managers do not provide sufficient feedback to curriculum leaders to enable them to identify good practice and areas for improvement.
- Too few learners attend their lessons regularly
Where there are strengths
Things being done well included:
- Managers communicate well with users of the service, and reflect their views in the range of courses offered.
- Many learners improve their social skills and self-confidence during their courses.
- Most learners on courses that do not lead to qualifications achieve their personal learning goals.
- Family learning courses help parents support their children in all aspects of their learning and behaviours, and this has a significant positive impact on families and school communities.
Paul Brading, the cabinet member responsible for the service, said,
“This is a disappointing report from Ofsted on a service that had previously been rated as good but there are many plus points too and the council is very confident it can improve.
“We set up a new advisory board in September to address some of these issues that had already been identified before Ofsted came and this will implement the action plan to improve standards through detailed performance reports.
“The service has suffered from the absence of key managers and this has hampered progress, but staff are hard-working and committed to helping adults gain qualifications, life skills and jobs. We work with adults aged 19 – 100, with the majority being aged 30 – 50.
“My view on this report is simple: I see no reason why we cannot make the changes necessary to regain our good rating once again.”
The report
The report can be read in full (click full screen icon for larger version)
Image: booleansplit under a CC BY 2.0 license
