January 2003

Liz Kidd - Chief Post 16 Inspector for Estyn

ACM in Wales held its Autumn Conference in November at the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel and Country Club. The theme of the Conference was ‘College Inspections 2002-2004 – All you need to know about making the grade.’ A new inspection framework for Wales was launched in September, which introduced significant changes to the way in which colleges are inspected. In the new arrangements ESTYN (HMI’s in Wales) will use a Common Framework supported by a new detailed Handbook. The National Council – ELWa (Education and Learning, Wales) has responsibility for quality assurance in the FE colleges and has outlined its role in ‘Aiming for Excellence’.

Liz Kidd, the Chief Post 16 Inspector for Estyn, outlined the way in which the new system would work. Greater emphasis would be placed on the experience of learners and an assessment of what individuals had gained from the system. Estyn would look retrospectively at the ‘distance travelled’ by colleges since the last inspection. The contribution of governors and managers would be an important part of the new inspection framework. Marion Jebb then outlined ELWa’s quality assurance strategy which supported the new procedures.

Other contributors included: Huw Evans (Principal Llandrillo College) who dealt with key messages for colleges who are preparing for inspection; Katy Burns (Vice Principal Coleg Gwent) spoke about the preparation of the Self Assessment report; Gerry Evans (Vice Principal Neath Port Talbot) and his colleague Rob Fowler, spoke about their experiences of organising for inspection and Fred Cunningham (Principal Llysfasi College) described the management experience of a recent inspection.

The day ended with a robust question and answer session. Virtually every FE college in Wales was represented at the Conference and everyone, including the contributors stayed for the whole day. Peter Pendle, General Secretary, introduced the Conference and reminded delegates that this was the twentieth conference organised by ACM (Wales) and by the attendance it was clear that once again the Association was dealing with matters members considered to be important to the sector. He thanked fforwm (the Welsh Colleges Forum) for their assistance in staging the event.

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