Issue - meetings

(Director of Governance) To undertake appropriate external scrutiny of Epping Forest College, in response to the concerns of members with regard to local further education facilities and services.

The Chairman introduced the Principal of Epping Forest College, Saboohi Famili, who had been invited to address the committee on the recent Ofsted reports (latest re-inspection report was in November 2017) to update the committee on the latest improvements made by the College.

Ms Famili had last attended this Committee in February last year to respond to the concerns raised by the January 2017 Ofsted report on its ‘inadequate’ judgement of its local further education facilities and services.

Ms Famili noted that there had been three Ofsted inspections carried out over the last year. A full re-assessment had been carried out last week; but unfortunately she could not share the results of that with the Committee. However, their self assessment had shown they had noticeably improved since last she was here and they had moved one stage further up on their journey to excellence. They still had challenges and notices of improvement and these would not be removed until the Ofsted report was published and their judgement given.

As an indication she noted the results that they had received so far, which they were extremely pleased about. In July/August last year they had a 5.6% increase on their study programme that took them to just around the national benchmark, before that they were around 8% adrift of that national level. On level 2 they had increased to 12.8%, now 5% above the national benchmark; on level 3 that had increased by 3% to 88%. Significant improvements had been made on GCSE English; they were now 16% above the national benchmark. They had also had a 24% increase on health and social care. Over 93% of their learners expressed their enjoyment of studying at Epping Forest College, which was an increase of over 12% from the year before.

Another key area for progression where they were very poor at was delivering apprenticeships; they had improved immeasurably and were now just above the national benchmark at 61.2%.

All these improvements had been achieved through hard work by members of staff at the college and also having a very supportive and challenging board of governors. They have tackled poor performance by giving support where it was needed and taking immediate action when needed.

They had invested heavily in Continuous Professional Development (CPD), for their lecturers and had joined various organisations that had better practice that they had and this meant that they could now admit that there were things that they did not know and this has changed the culture of the organisation from blame to acceptance of the issues and then to deal with them.

They now had some significant partnership arrangements from other organisations and as well as other colleges which their students could benefit from.

They had now stopped their decline and were moving the college in an upward direction, mainly achieved by measuring and tracking progress and not being ashamed to tackle things that were not right. Their approach at the college was what they called “100-0”, that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 55

(Director of Governance) a report on the proposed visit of the Principal of Epping Forest College to attended this meeting on 28 February 2017 is attached.

Also for the information of the Committee, a schedule setting out the external scrutiny that it has undertaken over the last three years is attached. This schedule has been updated to include those external scrutiny activities already agreed by the Committee for the remainder of the current municipal year.

The Committee noted that the Principal of Epping Forest College was due to attend the next meeting of this Committee on 27 February 2018. In preparation for this the committee was asked to identify areas that they wished to be covered at this meeting. The following topics were identified by members of the Committee:

(1)       The support, assistance and facilities provided by the College for disabled or disadvantaged students and those with special educational needs;

(2)       The support, assistance and facilities provided by the College for students from areas of identified social deprivation;

(3)       The educational subjects and qualifications in which the performance of the College is currently regarded to be ‘failing’ and those subjects and qualifications where the College is presently performing well in terms of attainment;

(4)       The success of the College’s proposed improvements and achievements outlined to the Committee in February 2017 and its expectations for future improvement and achievement going forward;

(5)       The current position with regard to Luctons Field and the intentions of the College with regard to the future use of this area, which is currently restricted to educational or health service uses;

(6)       The success of the College’s relationship with its ‘sister’ college (Barnet and Southgate College) in terms of the support, assistance and facilities provided to students; and

(7)       The success of the links and partnership arrangements that the College has established with the local community within the Epping Forest District, including the commercial and charitable sectors.

The Chairman informed the Committee that an item would be put into the Council Bulletin asking for any further topics that could be raised with the Principal.