Wandsworth Council’s Life Long Learning Gets Recognition from Ofsted

The service provides adult learning programmes and apprenticeships to approximately 8,000 local people each year. Inspectors have now awarded “good” ratings to the quality of education offered, the leadership and management of the service, the standard of apprenticeship courses and also for the outcomes for learners and for their personal development.

They found there had been “substantial improvements in key areas since the previous inspection”, that more apprentices were now completing their courses and successfully gaining qualifications and that “learners receive good information, advice and guidance which support them well to achieve their personal goals and career aspirations”.

Jenny Holloway CEO of Fashion Enter & FashionCapital comments:

“Many congratulations to the team at Wandsworth Council for achieving a grade “Good” from Ofsted for the Life Long Training (WCLLL) provision. Working with WCLLL has been a really positive and uplifting journey.  We have worked so closely with the Life Long Learning team and the development of our in-house training provision has been excellent.  It’s not always easy to realise that the job you were undertaking in training was not the best it could be but working with the team at WCLLL has made the entire team increase standards in our training provision in terms of delivery, quality assurance and progression for the apprenticeships.”

“Our grateful sincere thanks to Santino and Andres for all their hard work and we look forward to an exciting time ahead with new training programmes such as the new Sew We Learn which starts on the 3^rd May.”

Some of the conclusions featured in the Wandsworth Ofsted Report:

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good:

• Very competent and assured tutors and assessors plan and teach good sessions and work effectively with their learners. Learner’s benefit from good-quality classrooms, workshops and resources.
• Tutors and assessors are well qualified and they have rich previous life and work experiences. This enables them to understand their learners’ needs and to draw on their own experiences to enrich teaching, learning and assessment.
• Learners often make good progress in their lessons and their standards of work are largely good, and sometimes high. Apprentices make good progress on their programmes.
• Apprentices benefit from high-quality assessment and reviews and the tracking of their progress is good. Typically, assessments and reviews by staff are both highly supportive and rigorous.
• Personal development, behaviour and welfare are good:
• Apprentices benefit from a well-planned and comprehensive induction at the start of their training, which is coordinated effectively between the provider and the employer.
• Staff pay good attention to occupational health and safety, for example ensuring that learners adopt the correct posture and have appropriate lighting when sewing in textile manufacturing.
• Learners improve their employment prospects and gain qualifications well. They use their newly acquired skills to change careers, become self-employed and, for example, successfully sell textiles, upholster furniture or produce paintings.
• A significant minority of learners gain permanent employment in the retail sector, progress to further study and training, and participate in voluntary work in the care sector.
• Employers and tutors make effective use of industry-standard resources both at training centres and in the workplace. This helps apprentices learn and develop their skills quickly.
• Apprentices make good use of their employers’ facilities and resources to develop highly relevant vocational and work related skills. For example in apparel, apprentices develop skills and expertise that enable them to identify critical and non-critical faults in manufacturing.
• Apprentices are confident and demonstrate high levels of professionalism and commitment to their chosen careers. Employers value the development of their apprentice’s employability skills that enables them to undertake roles with higher levels of responsibility.
• The majority of apprentice’s progress to advanced apprenticeships, higher education or permanent jobs with prestigious employers. 

Apprenticeships are good:

Director of children’s services Dawn Warwick said: “This is a good service for adults who want to learn new job skills or gain new qualifications to boost their careers or for those who are simply interested in broadening their horizons by learning for the simple pleasure of it. I am delighted that Ofsted have recognised its qualities.”

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