Document No 14/65 MINUTES OF THE QUALITY AND STANDARDS COMMITTEE MEETING HELD ON TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY 2014 Committee Membership: Peter Wells (chair), Anthony Cohen, Paul Inman, Teresa Johnson, Andrew Miller (Principal), Adrian Moore, Jenny Newlyn (co-opted member), Philip Richmond, Siraj Shaikh, Mike Titcombe, Mike Wadley, Sasha Walsh. Members Present: Peter Wells (chair), Anthony Cohen, Teresa Johnson, Andrew Miller (Principal), Adrian Moore, Philip Richmond, Mike Titcombe, Mike Wadley, Sasha Walsh. Also Present: Karen Barber, Vice Principal, Curriculum, Teaching and Quality Charlotte Corfield, Manager, Teaching and Quality Evelyn Little, Director of Employer Responsiveness and Business First Cathy Sharokni, Interim Director of Student Services Beckie Dunsby, Learning Technologies Co-ordinator Alasdair MacDonald, Clerk to the Governing Body The meeting commenced at 1600hrs. 28-14 APOLOGIES Apologies for absence were received from Paul Inman, Jenny Newlyn and Siraj Shaikh. 29-14 DECLARATION OF MEMBERS’ INTERESTS There were no declarations of interest in any specific items on the agenda. 30-14 GOVERNOR BRIEFING No matters were brought to the attention of the committee. 31-14 MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 26 NOVEMBER 2013 The minutes were approved as a true record of the meeting and signed by the committee chair. 32-14 MATTERS ARISING AND OUTSTANDING ACTIONS REPORT Document No 14/19 refers. Minute 286-13 QAA Self-Evaluation Document – the clerk was asked to provide a copy to those members of the committee who had not received one. Action: JAM All other actions had either been completed or would be discussed further as part of substantive items on the agenda. 33-14 HIGHER EDUCATION a) Draft HE Quality Cycle – Document No 14/20 refers, introduced by Karen Barber. She guided the committee through the proposed reporting and monitoring schedule for the college’s higher education provision. It was agreed that development plans and new initiatives, shown to be reported at the fifth and final meeting of the year, should be reported as they occurred. The committee chair confirmed that members were interested in both formative and summative monitoring as well as in the key quality processes and strategies adopted. b) QAA Review Update – Karen reported that the QAA had confirmed that the on-site review th would be conducted on 26/27 February. Detailed desk research was undertaken by QAA reviewers off-site based upon the extensive evidence provided by the college. The final report would be received approx. 6 weeks after the completion of the review. The committee chair wished the college well in the forthcoming review and thanked all staff who had worked so diligently in the preparation of the evidence. He hoped that the final report would contain sufficient guidance on any areas for improvement to enable the committee to build this into its monitoring cycle. The next item was taken out of sequence. 35-14 FE CHOICES: OUTTURN RESULTS 2012/13 Document No 14/22 refers. Karen confirmed that the FE Choices survey was conducted by the SFA independently of the college. She noted the two 9.1 scores from the Employer survey as being particularly satisfying –see also minute 34-14 below. Karen would ask the SFA if the employers who participated in the survey received the summary results. Action: KB From the Learner survey, the score of 8.2 for ‘the advice you have been given about what you can do after this course’ had triggered action to improve this advice. The committee noted that Document No 14/21 – see below – provided an Employer Satisfaction League Table and it was suggested that some benchmarking of the Learner Satisfaction outturns would be of considerable value. 34-14 LEARNER VOICE AND EMPLOYER FEEDBACK The committee chair welcomed Evelyn Little and Cathy Shahrokni to the meeting. Document No 14/21 refers. Cathy reported that the induction survey was now done in-house as it produced quicker results and was less costly, although the benchmarking opportunity was lost. It was a working document for the Curriculum Area Managers who sought to make relevant improvements even though the overall outcome was very satisfying with 98.42% saying they were happy with their course and with Swindon College. Cathy referred to an improvement in the rating of the induction provided by the LRC compared to the previous year. The committee discussed the findings. Members agreed that the ‘self-certification’ of disability and learning difficulty was likely to produce a significant understatement of the true position. Members were pleased to note the very high core for student safety. Overall, this was an excellent result although members did agree that improvements should still be sought for the small minority who were not satisfied with some aspects of the college’s service. Evelyn Little guided the committee through the ‘Overview of responses’ from employers – see also minute 33-14 above, and the Employer Satisfaction League Table. The batch size of responses for the college was much higher than for most other colleges, making the responses a truer result. Evelyn presented next the results of the Apprentice and Employer Grades for 2013/14 year to date, where the percentage of ‘A’ grades was marginally up on the previous year, remaining at a very high level. She directed members’ attention to the summary of improvements carried out in a number of curriculum areas as a direct result of the feedback received. Finally, Evelyn reported on employer feedback on the work experience programme for 2012/13. However, the caveat was that the programme for 2013/14 was quite different and had been improved significantly. Students were now on work experience programmes of 1 or 2 weeks or for individual days over a 10-20 week period. The survey for the current year, when presented to the committee in 2014/15 would include questions on student attitude, attendance, and punctuality. Evelyn emphasised the support given by the college to employers in structuring the work experience programmes. The committee chair asked Evelyn to present an interim report to the committee on the revised work experience programme at the final meeting of the academic year. Andrew Miller suggested that the structure of the report in future could be improved and this would be taken on board in subsequent reports to the committee. Action: EL 36-14 ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE MONITORING 2013/14 Document No 14/23 refers. a) Operating Statement and KPIs – Karen summarised the strong progress being made against Strategic Aims 2 and 5, and against the KPIs relevant to the committee’s remit. Student attendance was a concern, however, and her report detailed a number of specific actions being taken. The committee discussed these actions in some detail to better understand when they were used and which strategies were particularly effective. In response to a member’s question, Karen told the committee that the draft HE Strategy had been discussed at the SLT meeting held earlier on 11 February and it would be finalised shortly. It could be presented to the committee at its next meeting. Action: KB b) Improvement Strategies - Karen reported, in particular, on the need to improve value added scores for Level 3 learners, where the importance of the stretch and challenge strategies was clear. Some specific actions being taken were noted by the committee. The committee spent some time discussing the significant change which would occur in 2014/15 regarding students enrolling without grade Ds in GCSEs in English and/or Maths when they would be required to retake the GCSE. This presented a significant challenge to the college. Members were told that GCSE grades in English and Maths were steadily rising in the Swindon feeder schools but the college’s intake would still contain a high proportion of those who had not achieved grades A-C. c) QSR Report – Karen asked members to note that, whilst the college’s success rates remained high and still marginally improving, the provider group and national averages were closing the gap as standards across the post-16 sector reached higher levels. d) Curriculum Planning Update – the committee agreed that some time spent understanding the rationale for new courses being introduced would be valuable. Action: KB e) Retention and Success Rate Target Setting 2013/14 – Karen confirmed that this process continued with the established practice of course tutors, CAMs and DoCs working through their courses line by line to set targets for the current year. The first stage involved setting improvement targets based on the previous year’s outturn. These targets were usually aspirational and might be modified at the second review stage in March. f) Lesson observation Window 1 report. Charlotte Corfield summarised the outcome of Window 2 as set out in Document No 14/23. The emphasis for this window was to re-observe staff who had received a grade 4 or 3 in the previous window as well as a selection of other staff from all curriculum areas. To cumulative result to date was that 35% of lessons had been graded as ‘outstanding’ compared to 33% in 12/13 although the result for grades 1 and 2 combined to date was 81% against 88% in 12/13 and a target of 89%. Charlotte was very pleased with the application of ILT in lessons observed – see also minute 37-14 below. She spoke briefly about the key themes emerging from this observation window and about the main teaching and learning themes in general including stretch and challenge, English and Maths, and developing further outstanding teaching and learning. g) Service Standards – the committee noted the progress report on the monitoring of standards in the college’s service areas. 37-14 THE APPLICATION OF ILT IN TEACHING AND LEARNING The committee chair welcomed Beckie Dunsby to the meeting. She gave a short presentation focussing on:       Lesson Observations and the application of ILT The use and development of The Zone Staff development and training The application of Moodle and Mahara Feedback from BTEC Quality Review Flash Workshops Andrew spoke of the need to build on Beckie’s work with further investment in ILT. The improvement in its application had been substantial with a relatively small resource input. He commented on the many recent problems with IT hardware and systems’ reliability which confirmed that the server capacity had not kept pace with the demand for ILT, and this was being addressed. Members discussed with Beckie the extensive use being made by staff and students of virtual learning resources. Also, lecturers were increasingly making teaching resources available to colleagues via Moodle. Students could, of course, access material via the internet/You Tube from anywhere in the world and material made by Swindon College could be similarly distributed. It was not felt to be appropriate to charge for such materials. The committee thanked Beckie for another inspirational session. It was agreed that some governor training in ILT should be provided. It was also suggested that some aspects of ILT could be applied to the governance process. Action: JAM 38-14 MEETING ASSESSMENT Document No 14/25 refers. Committee members completed their meeting assessments and returned them to the clerk. The average rating score for the meeting was 1.4. The average rating score by managers present was 1.0. The following comments were made by members on their assessment forms:        Identification of future reports important Good assurance on detailed monitoring matters Excellent input from Beckie (x 5) Too much time spent on Learner Voice/Employer Feedback report Discussion of too much detail in some instances Document No 14/23 too prolix A slight reluctance on the part of managers to accept comments and constructive criticism 39-14 DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEETING The next meeting of the Quality and Standards Committee is scheduled for Tuesday 29 April 2014 at 1600hrs. The meeting finished at 1815hrs.