St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College

Overview

St Charles Catholic Sixth Form College is rated as ‘Good’ overall, with ‘Outstanding’ judgements for behaviour, attitudes, and personal development. The report describes an inclusive community where students “thrive” and feel “valued, respected and listened to,” supported by a curriculum that effectively prepares them for future education and employment.

Strengths

• Students demonstrate “highly motivated and ambitious” attitudes, with “very good” attendance and punctuality.
• Provision for learners with high needs is ‘Outstanding’, featuring “highly individualised one-to-one teaching” that enables “exceptionally rapid progress”.
• Teachers use “probing questions” to check understanding and provide “constructive feedback” that clearly indicates next steps.
• The college offers an “extremely broad enrichment curriculum” through clubs and volunteering, helping students “develop their interests and talents exceptionally well”.
• Careers guidance is “highly effective”, with the “vast majority” of students progressing to university.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must “implement fully actions to increase the proportion of students who achieve their qualifications”, particularly in A-level science and vocational media studies where achievement is currently insufficient.
• Teachers need to “correct students’ spelling, punctuation and grammar errors consistently” to prevent the repetition of mistakes.

Safeguarding

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