Riverside College Halton

Overview

Riverside College Halton is described as a medium-sized further education provider where students and apprentices “enjoy their learning” and display “extremely positive attitudes.” The report highlights a “strong sense of community” and leadership that is “highly ambitious” for learners, ensuring they are exceptionally well prepared for their next steps in work or higher education.

Strengths

• Students and apprentices are “articulate, enthusiastic and polite,” feeling “valued and respected” within a supportive community.
• The curriculum is “broad” and “aspirational,” featuring high-quality teaching that helps learners develop “highly relevant knowledge, skills and behaviours.”
• Leaders make a “strong contribution to meeting skills needs” through effective partnerships with local employers and stakeholders.
• Attendance is “very high,” and staff provide “high-quality developmental feedback” that helps students “make or exceed their expected progress.”
• Safeguarding arrangements are “effective,” with students feeling safe and confident that concerns would be “dealt with swiftly and effectively.”

Areas to improve

• On non-accredited foundation learning programmes for students with high needs, teachers “do not always recognise and record learner progress” towards educational health and care plan outcomes.
• Staff “do not routinely monitor or share information” of what these students can do now versus what they need to do next, meaning they “do not routinely make progress at the rate of which they are capable.”

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”