Press release November 2022
Woking College: Awarded Ofsted Outstanding in every category.
At Woking College, we are absolutely delighted that the town of Woking has its own Outstanding 6th Form College providing excellence in education for 16-19-year olds. Examination results are excellent with a 99% pass rate at A Level and over 64% pass rate at High Grades A*-B, in addition the College offers the best programme of extra curriculum activities in the county with over 75 individual activities for students to get involved with.
We are incredibly proud of what we as a College, our teachers, support staff and students have achieved. Our College community is made up of wonderful, hardworking students, teachers and support staff and every single one of them has contributed to the College’s success, Ofsted confirmed that “students thrive in the inclusive, respectful and very positive environment in which they learn” Inspectors were glowing in the praise making it very clear that they had every confidence in their judgement due to the excellence of learning, teaching and assessment across the College.
Ofsted noted so many aspects of exemplary practice resulting in “the majority of A level students make excellent progress and earn places at highly competitive universities”
The Inspection team spent much of their time talking to students about their experience of learning at Woking College and observed that “students rightly speak highly of the excellent support they receive from subject and pastoral staff which helps them to stay on track and make rapid progress” and they spoke “very positively about the high quality of teaching and support they receive from their teachers that ensures they make rapid progress”. Students also spoke with enthusiasm to inspectors about the College’s Excellence Programme and how they benefited from a broad personal development programme which helps to develop their wider skills and supports their progression, including a dozen students successfully gaining places at Oxford and Cambridge this term.
When talking about Woking College teachers, Inspectors observed that teachers are “well qualified teachers with strong subject knowledge helping students to understand new information quickly and that leaders and managers “have created effective systems to maintain the outstanding quality of education.”
The Inspection team also had great praise for the work of the College in the local community, in particular the support for learners for whom English is not their first language drawing attention to the staff who have recently completed training in handling traumatic experiences which helps them to support Syrian, Afghan and Ukrainian refugees confidently and effectively.
College Principal, Brett Freeman pointed to the sense of pride and positivity members of the College have about the community they have created but equally he wanted to stress that “the overall ‘Outstanding’ judgement does not suggest perfection, but further inspires us to improve what we do; we want to maintain our focus on encouraging and motivating our students in their lessons, extracurricular activities, in tutorials and during 1-1 advice sessions”.
Inspection of Woking College 4 to 7 October 2022
Overall effectiveness: Outstanding
The quality of education Outstanding
Behaviour and attitudes Outstanding
Personal development: Outstanding
Leadership and management Outstanding
Education programmes for young people: Outstanding
Adult learning programmes: Outstanding
Provision for learners with high needs: Outstanding
For more information or to apply to the College for September 2023 go to www.woking.ac.uk
Click here to read the full Ofsted Report
