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Jan 2024

Last Updated: 28/01/2024

Ofsted says council improving adult education service in North Yorkshire

by Flora Grafton

| 29 Jan, 2024

Ofsted has recognised North Yorkshire Council’s efforts to improve its adult education services.

The council receives UK government funding to provide part-time adult education and training courses.

About 1,550 adult learners follow a range of programmes, including courses leading to accredited qualifications and community learning courses. Further details are here.

Ofsted's visit, which took place in December, came after a previous inspection in February last year said the service overall ‘requires improvement’.

Ofsted broke down the areas that required improvement into four main themes: maintaining the quality of education, progressing and aligning the curriculum, improving written communication in apprenticeships, and understanding of fundamental British values.

The inspector said the focus of the latest visit was to “evaluate the progress that leaders and managers have made in resolving the main areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection”.

The findings were published in a report last week.

Quality of education

The inspector said the council has made “reasonable progress” towards improving its oversight of the quality of education.

They said the authority has “implemented new quality assurance processes to help them monitor adult learning and apprenticeship provision” and said, by using this information, the council can “implement credible improvement strategies in areas such as the quality of teaching”.

Aligning curriculums with career progression

Ofsted found the council has made “significant progress” towards ensuring all education and training programmes offer clear progress pathways to further learning and employment.

The report said all accredited and non-accredited programmes are “very closely aligned to a range of jobs and wider employment opportunities”. It added:

“Tutors carefully discuss progression routes with learners and apprentices at the start of their training and throughout their programmes.

“These rich discussions help learners and apprentices to identify future job opportunities, such as moving from introductory sewing courses on to level 1 bookkeeping programmes and then into self-employment in garment alteration.”

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Written communication development

The inspector said the council has made “reasonable progress” towards developing accuracy in apprentices' written communication.

They said leaders provide apprenticeship assessors with helpful training in written communication that focusses on correcting spelling, punctuation and grammar, adding:

“When assessing apprentices’ written work, assessors accurately identify the improvements that apprentices need to make in their written reports.

“Assessors provide helpful guidance to apprentices about how to use editing functions to review their written work and read-back functions to check how their written work would sound when spoken.

“Apprentices use these functions to make improvements to their work, which helps them to be more accurate in their spelling and in using professional language when completing care plans.”

Understanding of fundamental British values

The report found the council made “significant progress” towards helping adult learners deepen their understanding of fundamental British values.

The inspector said leaders provide tutors with an extensive calendar of local, national and international events to raise awareness of key topics, such as democracy, when delivering the curriculum. They added:

“For example, in mathematics sessions, tutors use voting statistics for different constituencies to develop mathematical knowledge and skills about proportions and variance.

“In accounting, exercises to calculate tax and government revenue are used to introduce discussion about why it is an important duty for learners to pay taxes owed and the services they can expect to receive in return.”

Council committed to 'best possible education'

In response to Ofsted's monitoring visit, Cllr Annabel Wilkinson, the Conservative-run council's executive member for education, learning and skills, said:

"The recent monitoring visit and subsequent report reflects our dedication to providing quality education and ensuring continuous improvement.

“We are committed to addressing the identified areas for improvement and ensuring that adult learners and apprentices in North Yorkshire receive the best possible education to support their future careers and lives."

Various adult learning courses are on offer in Harrogate and Ripon.

In Harrogate, people can enrol on to cyber security and money-saving courses at Harrogate Civic Centre, as well as courses on how to use an air fryer and slow cooker effectively, which takes place at St George's Community Centre.

Excel, food safety and computing courses are available at Ripon Community House.