Stockport College to appeal Ofsted rating

The Principal of Stockport College has announced that the college intends to appeal the latest Ofsted report which rated it as ‘inadequate’.  

The college, which was rated ‘outstanding’ by the education watchdog in 2008, originally fell to a grade four in 2013 when former FE commissioner David Collins said it could be forced to make up to 150 redundancies to “balance the books”.

Stockport then climbed out of administered status when it was rated ‘requires improvement’ in January last year and was lauded for making “rapid improvements” by the inspectorate.

The latest Ofsted report stated: “Leaders and governors have not halted the decline in standards since the previous inspection”.

But inspectors did find that governors are having a good impact on the college.

“Well-qualified and experienced governors now offer effective challenge to the senior leadership team,” they said. “They have shown very effective strategic leadership during the area-based review and are committed to ensuring continuing further education for the local community.”

But Stockport College Principal Simon Andrews, who took over from Ian Clinton as principal of Stockport College in February last year, said the report does not “accurately reflect” the improvements made at the college over the past 12 months and he would be appealing the judgment.

“We are naturally extremely disappointed with the outcome of the Ofsted inspection,” he said.

“The inspection judgement does not accurately reflect the distance the college has travelled over the past 12 months, nor does it reflect upon the hard work, effort and enthusiasm both learners and staff have put in to improvements across all aspects of what we do.

“We will be appealing Ofsted’s judgement.”

“We have many areas across the College to be proud of, for example; we currently have the best maths GCSE A* – C results of all Greater Manchester colleges, as well as being fourth best in English.

“Over 60% of our 16-18 learners have performed above benchmark and many at an outstanding level.  Employer satisfaction ratings have also increased dramatically and we are now rated second best provider in Greater Manchester.

“Our student satisfaction ratings have risen, with 98% stating they enjoy their lessons and would recommend the College to a friend. Over 200 of our young learners enrolled at the College on entry level 1 programmes have graduated at advanced level 3 this summer, with several students inspired to continue their studies with us onto our Higher Education provision within the College.

“Amongst these achievements the College produced two World Skills finalists whom excelled in their fields of study, demonstrating their expertise on a national level.

“Indeed, FE Week in their overall college league table rank Stockport at 117th out of 214 colleges which puts Stockport College ahead of around 50 per cent of colleges in the sector.

“The college is committed to providing high quality professional and technical education for the local community and is engaging positively with the agencies and stakeholders to do just that.”

“These are just a few of our accomplishments last year which represents a significant success for a large proportion of our learners.

“The College has plenty to be proud of and, while continuing to improve our performance, we will also continue working in partnership with the local and combined authorities to deliver the positive outcome from the Area Based Review of Greater Manchester, and working with the local authority to relocate the College to a new build in the town centre.

“The College is committed to providing high quality professional and technical education for the local community and is engaging positively with the agencies and stakeholders to do just that.”