Ofsted – Chief Inspector’s Annual Report

The significant increase in the proportion of independent providers being rated good or outstanding in their Ofsted inspections over the past 12 months has been warmly welcomed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP). The number of independent providers rated good or outstanding in the last academic year rose from 60% to 67%.

AELP is also pleased with the overall number of providers improving their grades (32% of providers inspected) in comparison with last year’s figures and the proportion (16%) of those whose overall rating fell .

AELP recognises any provider receiving an inadequate grade is still a cause for concern and it is committed to working with Ofsted, the Education and Training Foundation and providers to address this challenge.

The observations in the Chief Inspector’s annual report are based on findings of the first year of the new Common Inspection Framework (CIF) with the revised Framework’s emphasis on the quality of teaching and learning. Most providers will now have built the quality processes into their delivery models and we would expect the improvements to continue. In recent weeks there have been 2 grade 1 inspections of independent providers.

AELP chief executive Stewart Segal said:

“Independent providers score highly in terms of flexibility of their training and meeting employers’ needs. These factors are key to the effective delivery of training and are important elements in the CIF standards. As employers take a more central role in the development of programmes employer responsiveness is an increasingly important factor in the inspection process.”

Delivery of teaching and learning in a work based environment is different to the traditional classroom approaches. Work based learning by definition takes place in the many different environments of the workplace, often involving very small groups or even individual trainees. The training provider may also be operating over several sites, which requires management oversight of a consistent set of standards.

It is also true that success rates play a significant part in determining the grade of the provider. Delivering to some hard-to-help groups in difficult working environments can mean it is very challenging to deliver high success rates and this partly explains why classroom based learning has traditionally had higher success rates.

AELP congratulates CITB ConstructionSkills, Hawk Training and QA Apprenticeships on their overall ‘outstanding’ grades achieved under the new CIF and it is arranging a series of events on the sharing of best practice where providers such as Hawk Training can pass on their experience and expertise to other providers.

Stewart Segal added:

“The achievement of high standards of delivery which are reflected in Ofsted grades has never been more important. With the requirement for providers to have grades 1 or 2 to deliver traineeships, the need to achieve good grades has become more important and AELP and its members recognise this.

“We are confident that independent training providers can respond to this challenge and deliver excellent results. We will work with Ofsted to ensure that the inspection framework recognises excellent delivery and creates the platform for provider improvement. This will enable us to work in partnership with providers to generate better grades across the sector.”