Havant college given glowing inspection by Ofsted

The education inspectorate graded Havant Sixth Form College ‘good’ across the board for exam results, leadership and management, and overall effectiveness.

Personal development of students was also considered to be ‘very good’ by the Ofsted inspection team.

The college’s high achievement rates were compared with those of the best-performing sixth-form colleges nationally rather than the results for vocational colleges nationally, which are significantly lower.

Principal John McDougall said he expects to achieve ‘outstanding’ by next summer and added: ‘I’m extremely proud of our staff and students for showing the inspection team just how good we are.

‘The college was judged against the new and tougher criteria introduced by the chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw and we were judged to be among the best in the sector and on the cusp of outstanding.’

Inspectors said that students make ‘good or better progress and achieve better than expected given their starting points’ with a high proportion of students gaining high-grade passes and progressing to higher education.

Teachers were praised for their knowledge and experience and inspectors saw ‘effective activities and resources to ensure learners rapidly develop their skills’.

But inspectors said there was room for improvement in GCSE retake results and apprenticeships.

The college was told it must improve on the ‘significant minority’ of GCSE students who make insufficient progress and that too few achieve high grades in their examinations.

Mr McDougall said: ‘These are students we have given the chance to retake their GCSEs.

‘We need to do a bit more work to ensure these students achieve higher grades.’

And he said the problem with apprenticeships is that apprentices are usually attached to large organisation with big caseloads and, although they are completing their courses, they do 
not always complete them in time.