Activate Learning

Overview

Activate Learning is a large further education group delivering a broad range of courses across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Surrey. The inspection found that learners enjoy a “calm, welcoming and inclusive learning environment” and benefit from high-quality teaching that fosters ambition and strong study skills. The provider makes a “strong contribution to meeting skills needs” through effective employer engagement and responsive curriculum planning.

Strengths

• Learners develop “effective communicators” and show “thoughtfulness and maturity” when exploring sensitive topics.
• Teachers are “well-qualified subject specialists” who use assessment and feedback effectively to help learners improve.
• Provision for learners with high needs is “especially ambitious” and enables them to make “outstanding progress”.
• Leaders maintain “very good links with employers” to ensure courses meet regional skills needs and industry standards.
• Apprentices benefit from “well-planned on- and off-the-job training” that rapidly develops practical skills.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must ensure the “very small number of courses” that do not yet provide consistently good education improve rapidly.
• Apprenticeship provision requires improvement so that employers are “fully involved in monitoring their progress”.
• Leaders should ensure all learners benefit from a personal development programme that helps them understand “wider risks” beyond core studies, such as radicalisation.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with staff appropriately trained to identify emerging risks and systems in place to support vulnerable learners.