University with Mansfield campus rated 'Good' by Ofsted following latest inspection

The varsity, which has a campus in Mansfield was rated ‘Outstanding’ for behaviour and attitudes, apprenticeships and adult learning programmes and ‘Good’ for quality of education, personal development, leadership and managment and education programmes for young people, leading to an overall ‘Good’ rating.

In their report, Ofsted inspectors said: “Leaders are highly ambitious for their learners and apprentices.

"They are committed to the recruitment and training of learners from diverse backgrounds and understand well how to help them to achieve their goals and aspirations.

"Apprentices come from various previous experiences, including painters, decorators, secretaries, hospitality staff and emergency service call handlers.

"Those without high academic starting points perform equally as well as their peers.

“Leaders are well informed through useful employer forums and well-established links with professional bodies such as the NHS and the Wildlife Trust.

"Leaders use this knowledge effectively to inform their curriculum choices and plan course content carefully.

"Adult learners quickly regain confidence in their academic skills and are able to carry out research.

"Most young learners make positive progress over time from their varied starting points, gaining valuable and relevant new knowledge and skills.

"Leaders understand the importance of their apprentices learning highly specialist knowledge and skills.

"Young learners benefit from helpful practical demonstrations, visual aids and discussions and they develop their practical skills and knowledge well.

"However, in a few cases, explanations of theory topics are superficial and do not progress beyond basic identification or listing of information.

"Young learners do not develop their class-based theoretical knowledge swiftly enough.

“Lecturers of apprentices and adult learners set challenging activities that demand significant effort.

"They require learners to think carefully and apply their new knowledge and skills to real-life scenarios.

"This preparation equips apprentices well for future roles, where their decisions will directly impact patient outcomes.

"However, this level of challenge does not occur in a few theory classes for young learners, where lecturers often assign basic work that lacks challenge.

"Consequently, a few learners do not make the progress that they could.

"Apprentices facing significant challenges during their studies receive excellent support to undertake planned breaks in learning.

"Staff consult with both the apprentice and the employer and promote the availability of extensive additional support for apprentices.

"Lecturers offer appropriate support to young learners and adult learners with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

"Lecturers and support staff collaborate effectively to put in place relevant adjustments and support strategies. available.

"Access to higher education learners receive comprehensive support, including structured employability sessions and UCAS application guidance, and nearly all of them progress to higher education.”

On where the univeristy needed to improve, inspectors said it needed to ‘provide young learners with suitably challenging tasks and activities in lessons’, ‘ensure that lecturers of young learners consistently make useful checks on learning during lessons, ‘provide young learners who do not aspire to progress to university with appropriate careers advice’ and ‘fully implement the new approach to lesson observations for teachers of young learners and adults to ensure that staff benefit from developmental feedback that has a positive impact on their teaching practice’.