Introduction
There has been quite a contrast in this past week's Ofsted reports. Across the 14 full inspection reports and monitoring visits I've reviewed, we have examples of providers achieving Strong Standard judgements, others meeting Expected Standard, and some receiving Needs Attention or Urgent Improvement.
The monitoring visits generally present a more positive picture, with providers making Reasonable Progress across the areas evaluated.
One report stands out: an independent training provider received Urgent Improvement for both Achievement and Participation and Development in its adult learning provision, alongside Needs Attention for Inclusion and Leadership and Governance. Interestingly, its apprenticeship provision received Expected Standard across the evaluated areas.
The findings have also attracted attention from FE Week. What interests me isn't simply the Urgent Improvement judgements. It's the reasons behind them and, more importantly, what other providers can learn.
When attendance is poor, learners are disengaging and achievement remains low, we need to ask, "At what point should we have recognised that the existing approach wasn't working? And what should have happened next?"
The warning signs were there
In the report receiving Urgent Improvement, inspectors identified significant concerns about learners studying Access to Higher Education programmes. Too many learners left their programmes early without achieving their qualifications. Achievement had remained consistently very low, with no indication of improvement. Attendance at taught sessions was also very low.
Inspectors found that leaders and teachers did not maintain sufficiently high expectations of attendance and participation. Learners who missed sessions were not consistently engaging in meaningful activities to catch up.
This had consequences beyond attendance figures; learners missed opportunities to work with others, share experiences, develop their knowledge and prepare for university or employment.
And although those who completed their diplomas gained the grades required for university, a significant proportion did not progress to higher education.
There are several issues here, but I think the most important is the relationship between them.
Low attendance affects participation.
Poor participation can affect progress.
Weak progress increases the risk of non-completion.
And non-completion affects achievement and progression.
These aren't always separate problems. They can be different stages of the same problem, so why do we sometimes manage them as separate performance indicators?
Attendance is more than a percentage
I think attendance is an area where providers can sometimes become too focused on the number rather than what the number is telling them.
We monitor attendance. We set targets. We produce reports. We discuss learners who fall below expectations.
All of those activities have a place but what happens when attendance starts to decline, and do we understand why?
Is it a curriculum issue, a teaching issue, a personal barrier, an employer issue or something else entirely? Does our response change depending on what we find?
One of the positive examples this week came from an apprenticeship provider where inspectors recognised consistently high attendance, very high expectations and apprentices who understood the importance of participating fully in their training.
Elsewhere, inspectors recognised providers where staff followed up attendance concerns promptly, worked with employers and put tailored support in place to help apprentices catch up.
These examples demonstrate something important. Effective attendance management isn't simply about recording absence. It's about understanding the reasons for it and responding before learners fall behind. That also means recognising the difference between attendance and meaningful engagement.
A learner can attend regularly without making sufficient progress. Equally, a learner may have legitimate barriers to attending particular sessions but still be participating effectively through appropriate alternative arrangements.
What matters is whether leaders understand the learner's actual experience and whether the arrangements support successful learning.
Achievement is a lagging indicator
Another theme emerging from the reports is the relationship between achievement and the actions leaders take much earlier in the learner journey.
Achievement rates are important. They tell us something about whether learners complete their programmes successfully. But by the time poor achievement becomes visible in annual performance data, many of the opportunities to intervene may already have passed.
This is particularly relevant for apprenticeships, where programmes can run over several years and learners may experience difficulties long before they reach end-point assessment.
The same principle applies to adult learning. If learners are missing sessions, failing to complete work or struggling to maintain progress, those are opportunities to intervene before withdrawal becomes the outcome.
Perhaps we should spend as much time examining our early indicators of risk as we do reviewing final achievement.
For example:
- Are learners attending and participating in planned learning?
- Are they making the progress expected from their starting points?
- Are assessments identifying gaps in knowledge early enough?
- Are reviews leading to meaningful action?
- Are interventions improving engagement and progress?
- Are learners being prepared effectively for their intended next steps?
The challenge isn't collecting more information. It's making sure the information we already have is being used to identify concerns and improve outcomes.
What does Strong Standard tell us?
I think it's important that we don't focus exclusively on the weaker judgements. There are some encouraging examples in this week's reports. One apprenticeship provider achieved Strong Standard for Leadership and Governance, Achievement, and Participation and Development.
Inspectors recognised leaders who understood their provision in detail, maintained high expectations and worked closely with employers. Apprentices made rapid progress, achievement was consistently high, and around a third achieved distinction grades.
Another provider achieved Strong Standard for Leadership and Governance, with inspectors recognising leaders' detailed understanding of their provision and their focus on continuous improvement.
A Skills Bootcamp provider achieved Strong Standard for Achievement, with learners making substantial progress and applying their learning effectively.
And another apprenticeship provider achieved Strong Standard for Inclusion, with staff identifying barriers, monitoring the impact of support and adapting interventions.
These are different providers, delivering different programmes, but there are some common features.
Leaders understand what is happening.
They have clear expectations.
They use information to identify where support is needed.
They evaluate whether their actions are working.
The difference isn't necessarily the amount of data collected. It's how effectively that information informs decisions.
When does Needs Attention become Urgent Improvement?
This is perhaps the most interesting question raised by the week's findings.
In another inspection, a provider received Needs Attention for Leadership and Governance and Participation and Development. Inspectors found that leaders generally understood their provision, but did not use some information sufficiently well to evaluate effectiveness. They had improved apprenticeship achievement, but had not acted quickly enough to address all identified weaknesses. Careers education and guidance was also insufficiently planned and structured.
These findings are different in severity from the Urgent Improvement judgements discussed earlier. We shouldn't treat the grades as interchangeable but they raise a common question about leadership response, "What happens when we know something needs improving, but our response is too slow, too limited or insufficiently evaluated?"
A weakness doesn't automatically become a serious failure: providers will always have areas to improve. What matters is whether leaders understand the significance of those weaknesses, prioritise them appropriately and take effective action.
Sometimes that means responding to an individual learner's needs. Sometimes it means reviewing a curriculum or teaching approach. And sometimes it means recognising that a problem is sufficiently widespread or persistent to require a more fundamental change.
The important thing is that leaders don't simply become accustomed to poor performance because it has been present for a long time.
Governance needs to recognise the pattern, not just the individual problem
This brings me back to governance.
The provider receiving Urgent Improvement had recently strengthened its leadership and governance arrangements. Inspectors recognised that newly appointed governors brought relevant experience and that suitable expertise was available to support improvement. However, leaders had not accurately identified several significant weaknesses in the Access to Higher Education provision.
That is an important distinction. Having experienced governors, quality assurance processes and improvement plans is valuable but those arrangements must enable leaders and governors to recognise when provision isn't working.
For example, if a board receives separate reports showing declining attendance, low achievement and increasing withdrawals, does anyone bring those findings together?
Does the board understand whether they relate to the same learners or programmes?
Are governors asking why previous interventions haven't worked?
Are they sufficiently confident to challenge the effectiveness of the organisation's response?
This is where I believe effective governance moves beyond reviewing performance information. It is about understanding what the information means, recognising patterns and challenging whether the organisation is acting quickly enough.
Monitoring visits: improvement needs to be visible
The monitoring visits published this week provide another useful perspective.
Across the six monitoring visits reviewed, inspectors judged providers to be making Reasonable Progress in the areas evaluated. This is encouraging, particularly where providers are developing new provision or strengthening their arrangements.
However, the reports also contain reminders that improvement activity needs to be evaluated. In one monitoring visit, leaders had implemented suitable action plans to improve teaching and learner support, but some actions were not yet fully implemented and their impact was not evident.
The same provider monitored individual learner support but did not routinely analyse the progress and achievement of different learner groups.
Another provider reviewed attendance, completion, achievement and progression information for different groups, but did not yet use it consistently to identify patterns and plan targeted support.
These are not Urgent Improvement findings, and monitoring visit progress judgements are not directly comparable with full inspection grades. Nevertheless, they reinforce an important message: having an improvement plan is not the same as demonstrating improvement.
The question is whether the actions are implemented, whether they are making a difference and whether leaders are using the evidence to decide what needs to happen next.
Are our quality assurance systems giving us early enough warnings?
For me, this is the central lesson from this past week's reports. Most providers have systems for monitoring attendance, progress, retention and achievement. They have quality improvement plans, self-assessment processes and management meetings.
But how well do those arrangements work together? If a learner starts missing sessions, how quickly is that recognised?
If an intervention doesn't work, how long does it take before someone changes the approach?
If a curriculum area has experienced consistently poor achievement, what evidence is there that the underlying causes have been understood?
If leaders believe provision is improving, can they demonstrate that through the experiences and outcomes of learners?
I don't think the answer is necessarily more reporting. In fact, sometimes additional reports can make it harder to see the important issues. The challenge is to ensure that information is sufficiently accurate, timely and connected to support meaningful decisions.
We need to move beyond simply knowing that a learner is at risk. We need to know what we're doing about it, whether it's working and when we need to do something different.
What does this mean for self-assessment?
This is particularly relevant as providers continue reviewing their self-assessment and quality improvement priorities.
An effective self-assessment should not simply describe the activities an organisation has undertaken. It should evaluate how well those activities are working.
If attendance is improving, what has contributed to that improvement?
If achievement remains below expectations, have leaders identified why?
If additional support has been introduced, what evidence demonstrates its impact?
If the evidence is not yet available, are we being honest about that?
There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that an intervention is too recent to evaluate fully. But there is a difference between recognising that improvement is still developing and repeatedly relying on planned or recent actions to explain longstanding weaknesses.
Good self-assessment should help leaders recognise problems early enough to do something about them. It should not simply explain them after the event.
Final thoughts
This past week's Ofsted reports show the range of practice across the FE & Skills sector.
There are providers achieving Strong Standard judgements because leaders understand their provision, maintain high expectations and can demonstrate positive outcomes.
There are providers meeting Expected Standard while continuing to strengthen aspects of their work.
There are examples where weaknesses in attendance, participation and achievement have become sufficiently serious to require urgent improvement.
I think the most important lesson isn't about the grades themselves. It's about what happens before those grades are awarded.
The missed sessions.
The slow progress.
The repeated withdrawals.
The interventions that aren't working.
The quality assurance findings that don't lead to sufficient change.
These are the points at which leadership can make a difference.
So my question for FE & Skills leaders this week is, "Are our systems helping us recognise when something is going wrong early enough to change the outcome, or are they simply helping us explain what went wrong afterwards?"
Effective quality assurance shouldn't just tell us where we've been. It should help us see what's coming and act while we still have the opportunity to make a difference.
How AiVII can support
Through AiVII Consulting, we support FE & Skills providers with quality assurance, inspection readiness, curriculum evaluation, strategic improvement and leadership development.
This includes helping leaders evaluate how effectively their organisation identifies emerging risks, responds to concerns and demonstrates the impact of improvement activity.
The AiVII Platform provides the technology layer, supporting the visibility and organisation of learner information, quality assurance evidence and improvement activity.
Together, the platform and consultancy support a more connected approach to understanding performance, evaluating provision and identifying priorities for improvement.
Because effective quality assurance is not just about identifying weaknesses.
It's about recognising them early enough to make a difference.
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