Excellence and Vocational Education: The View from the Adult Learning Inspectorate

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Excellence and Vocational Education The View
from the Adult Learning Inspectorate Alan Clamp
(ALI)
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Inspection grades
All areas of learning (4/02 to 6/03) Grade 1 2 3
4 5 Mean 17 141 371 273 30 3.2 Leadership
and management (4/02 to 6/03) Grade 1 2 3 4 5 Me
an L M 5 60 122 133 21 3.3 EO 13 53 175 92 8
3.1 QA 0 40 110 161 30 3.5
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What excellence is not

• Poor achievement
• Ineffective teaching, training and learning
• Inadequate use of resources to support learning
• Poor assessment practices and ineffective
  monitoring of learners progress
• Programmes and courses that do not meet the
  needs and interests of learners
• Poor guidance and support for learners
• Leadership and management are ineffective in
  raising achievement and supporting learners.

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• Example 1 Building Engineering Services
• Training Ltd (published 13/6/03)
• Construction (Grade 4) - key weaknesses
• poor achievement rates
• weak progress reviews
• no systematic identification of ALN
• L M (Grade 5) - key weaknesses
• no strategy to improve the quality of provision
• poor management of ALN support
• very weak QA arrangements

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What is excellence?

• Outstanding achievement
• Highly effective teaching, training and learning
• Outstanding use of resources to support learning
• Thorough assessment practices and highly
  effective monitoring of learners progress
• Programmes and courses that meet the needs and
  interests of learners
• Outstanding guidance and support for learners
• Leadership and management are highly effective
  in raising achievement and supporting learners.

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• Example 2 5E Ltd (published 20/6/03)
• Foundation (Grade 1) - key strengths
• good development of employment skills
• good use of ILPs and progress reviews
• exceptionally good support for clients
• L M (Grade 1) - key strengths
• exceptionally strong strategic leadership
• very strong promotion of EO
• very effective action to promote continuous
  improvement

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• Achieving excellence the
• key challenges
• Appropriate selection for programme
• Accurate measurement of prior attainment
• Clear guidelines for assessing added value
• Better teaching/training skills
• Setting clear goals and encouraging
• demanding learners

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How does the ALI contribute to vocational
excellence? 1 The ALI vision 'The ALI aims
to be a world class quality assessment business
raising standards through inspection.'
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• How does the ALI contribute
• to vocational excellence? 2
• Thorough and fair external scrutiny
• Clear and detailed inspection reports
• Effective sharing of good practice (Talisman,
• Excalibur, thematic reports and link inspectors)
• Good working relationships with partners
• (PDU, LSC, JC, OLSU, Ufi, DFES, Ofsted,
• QCA, LSDA, awarding bodies, etc)

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The excellence endgame is probably a 14 - 19
Baccalaureate bringing together GCSE, A levels,
Modern Apprenticeships and vocational awards
until then, we need to chip away at problems
one-by-one.
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Questions alan.clamp_at_ali.gov.uk