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Ofsted has judged that Myerscough College is making both ‘reasonable’ and ‘significant’ progress against a range of areas flagged as needing improvement in a November 2023 inspection.
At that time, inspectors judged the overall effectiveness of the educational provision to ‘require improvement’. In the latest monitoring visit, Ofsted aimed to evaluate the progress that leaders and
managers had made in resolving the main areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection.
Myerscough is a special educational college focusing on land-based, science, engineering and sports courses. The college’s main site is the Bilsborrow campus north of Preston. The college has a further five centres in Manchester, Blackburn, Penrith, Warrington and Liverpool.
In the short monitoring report, based on a November 2024 visit, the college was found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in relation to the question: “How much progress have leaders made in strengthening the quality assurance and improvement process so that the quality of education that students receive is improving?”
The report adds: “Leaders have put in place a range of suitable and thorough quality assurance and
improvement measures since the previous inspection. These measures are already having a beneficial impact on the quality of education.”
Reasonable progress was also being made in relation to leaders and staff ensuring class attendance was being adhered to, and also relating to reviewing the curriculums and ‘using the starting points for students with high needs and those on education programmes for young people to ensure that they are ambitious’.
The college was also found to be making ‘significant progress’ in two areas, firstly in relation to the question: “What progress have leaders made in improving the feedback following assessment that young
people receive so that students know what they need to do to improve their work?”
On this, the report added: “Leaders’ actions to improve the quality of feedback that students receive have been significant. Following the previous inspection, leaders took swift action to identify the components of effective feedback and devised a rubric for teachers to use.
“Leaders communicated the expectations to staff. Teachers attended specific training to improve the feedback that they provide. Following feedback, students studying animal care include the quantities of different food in the feeding plans that they devise for animals.
“Students appreciate the comprehensive feedback that they receive and most of them improve their work over time. Leaders continue to rigorously monitor the quality of feedback that teachers give to students.”
The other area of significant progress related to improving the use of education, health and care plans and targets for students with high needs.
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