College Strategic Plan 2016 - 2018

INSPIRE - EMPOWER - ACHIEVE Mission INSPIRE - EMPOWER - ACHIEVE

Vision Our vision is by 2018 we will be a successful and thriving College which is able to change people’s lives by:

• Aiming for, and achieving the highest of standards in all that we do. • Inspiring students, staff and the communities we serve to reach their full potential. • Empowering our stakeholders to improve their lives and the lives of others through education and training. • Delivering a vibrant and responsive curriculum. • Encouraging innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. • Playing a leading role in the local community, and in the development of the local workforce and the local economy, whilst looking to expand our markets both in the UK and internationally. • Operating from a high quality learning and working environment and, more broadly, contributing to the sustainability agenda. • Working in partnership to deliver a better future for the people of Grantham and the surrounding area.

Values • Inspiring others • Leading through vision and values • Continuous improvement • Innovation • Customer focus • Professionalism • Valuing diversity

Strategic objectives • Ensuring that students are central to everything we do. • Ensuring that a commitment to Safeguarding, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is embraced throughout the College. • Delivering excellent services to maximise success. • Development and delivery of a Curriculum Strategy which meets stakeholders’ needs. • Maintaining a financially robust and sustainable organisation.

Our Communities Grantham College serves primarily its local community which includes both students and employers. We also work with employers across and recruit students from a national base to our specialist Table Tennis Academy and engineering provision. For us community also describes our relationship with key stakeholders such as the Local Authority, the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership and other education providers. Welcome Thank you for reading the 2016 – 2018 Strategic Plan for Grantham College. This plan builds upon our achievements of the last three years and sets our priorities for the next two years.

Our mission, vision and values are unchanged but our strategic objectives have been reduced to channel our focus on what we believe is important for our future. The College is operating within a very complex and dynamic environment and the two-year focus reflects this, not least in the context of Area Based Review. The recommendations of this process will not be known until Spring 2017 and may subtlety or drastically impact upon our direction of travel. Whatever the outcomes we seek to address the skills needs of our local communities and the priorities identified by the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership and by the Combined Authority in relation to the devolved skills budget.

Whatever the future may bring, Grantham College will endeavour to be true to its values and ensure primarily that our students come first. Fundamentally we seek to contribute to the economic prosperity and social cohesion of the communities we serve.

Mos Kalbassi SeniorLinda Houtby Leadership Team 2016/2017 Chair of the Corporation Chief Executive

Linda Houtby Paul Deane Janet Cannon Drew Richardson-Walsh Chief Executive Principal Deputy Principal Assistant Principal, Services for Students

Claire Temprell Tracy Scarborough Lara Steptoe Assistant Principal, People Director of Quality Director of Business & Performance Development About Grantham College Grantham College is a small general college based on 5 sites in the town of Grantham. We offer provision from entry level to higher education in a broad range of subject areas.

The College was established in 1948 and had 48 students on predominately engineering provision. Now, nearly 70 years later, engineering provision is still important to us and the local economy and our apprenticeship provision is a key part of what we do. Our other vocational provision also meets local skills needs and those of the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership and include (although not limited to) Health & Social Care; Business and Management; Construction; Animal Care; Sport; Visual & Performing Arts; Public Services and Computing. In addition, the provision of English and maths to support our students is important to us.

We work with a range of partners including an emerging collaborative relationship with and New College Stamford. The three colleges have a history of partnership working but in July 2015 began to explore new ways of working closer to achieve our aspirations. Within the space of twelve months, the three colleges have agreed seven areas of collaboration including the formation of a jointly owned company to deliver apprenticeships. The initial focus will be on logistics (a GLLEP priority) but in time this may expand. This is the start of our collaboration but we will continue to explore ways of working more efficiently together as well as ways of securing new business. Whatever direction this takes each college is committed to retaining a base in each respective town to meet the needs of the local community.

The College has grown its Higher Education provision in recent years and will continue to do so. The College works in partnership with Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln to validate some of its provision. The aim is to offer a high quality, value for money and accessible offer to develop and retain the higher level skills that the County needs.

The College works with a range of partner organisations to deliver externally funded projects such as Lottery funded projects as well as with a range of employers delivering apprenticeships and bespoke training.

The College has been fortunate to have a capital bid endorsed by the GLLEP which will begin construction in early 2017. The new building will be an iconic part of the College’s estate and a significant investment for the town. The building will house the technology curriculum along with a new leadership and management portfolio of provision. Policy and Economic Context Skills and economic policy continues to change the College’s operating environment, creating both opportunities and challenges for the College. The government’s recent Skills Policy statements still maintain that skills are central to economic growth whilst certain budget lines have been reduced and others are set to do so in the future. The College will need to respond to the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy and the fallout from the Sainsbury Review and the associated Skills Plan 2016.

These skills policy initiatives sit alongside the uncertainty created by Brexit, not least the impact upon European Social Fund that the College has been a significant beneficiary of in the past. The pre-Brexit government promoted localism and devolution and as such a Combined Authority including Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire bid for and were successful in securing a devolution deal. This will include the Adult Skills Budget but the details around commissioning and funding are not yet known.

The Combined Authority mirrors the geographical make-up of the LEP – the Greater Lincolnshire LEP. The LEP are playing a key role in determining capital spending, European Structural Investment funds and their skills priorities for the area. The College needs to be cognisant of these priorities but also consider the ‘replacement’ numbers needed in other occupational areas. This last point is exacerbated by Lincolnshire having an aging population; a falling demographic of 16–18 year olds to 2022 and an outflow of both higher education students and a daily out commute of skilled workers to nearby cities such as Nottingham and Peterborough.

Nevertheless, there are opportunities going forward as there is significant planned investment in Grantham. The town has Growth Point status and new housing developments have already started. There are planned retail developments on the outskirts of the town and access to a reasonable transport and road infrastructure not necessarily enjoyed by the rest of the County. Strategic Objectives and Key Performance Indicators Our strategic objectives have been developed to enable us to fulfil our mission and vision over the life of this Strategic Plan.

Strategic Objective 1 Ensuring students are central to everything we do by: • Re-energising the Students’ Union and reviewing student voice feedback focusing on teaching, learning and assessment. • Providing external high quality work experience for 16 –18 year olds on Study Programmes. • Exploring strategies by which students fulfil their potential. • Embedding employability, work readiness and using technology at work in the curriculum. • Delivering excellent teaching, learning and assessment opportunities. • Providing holistic student support services especially for those students with high needs, Looked After Children and those in receipt of free school meals. • Providing an accredited quality impartial advice and guidance service.

Key Performance Indicators for Strategic Objective 1 • Achieve an overall attendance rate of 94%. • Achieve end of year retention rate of 92%. • Achieve a pass rate of 94%. • Above benchmark outcomes from student satisfaction surveys. • 100% of students on study programmes have work experience. • Meet all student number and funding targets.

Strategic Objective 2 Ensuring that a commitment to Safeguarding, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is embraced throughout the College by: • Reducing any gaps in student retention and pass rates (by age, gender, disability and ethnicity). • Ensure retention and pass rates for Looked After Children and those in receipt of free school meals are in line with their peer groups. • Ensuring all staff undertake mandatory training. • Providing specific opportunities for teaching staff and assessors to debate and discuss British Values in lessons and reviews. • Ensuring 100% of work experience placements have been vetted and assessed to ensure that they are in line with the DfE and HSE guidance. • Providing cross college opportunities for students and apprentices to engage in EDI events and activities.

Key Performance Indicators for Strategic Objective 2 • 100% of work experience placements are vetted and assessed. • Provide three cross college EDI events. • 100% of students on study programmes and apprentices have had input on British Values. • No significant gaps in retention and pass rates. Strategic Objective 3 Delivering excellent services to maximise success by: • Investing in the College estate and associated resources. • Investing in its staff in terms of Continued Professional Development (CPD). • Improving school liaison and marketing activities resulting in increased applications and conversion rates. • Improving teaching, learning and assessment. • Improving internal progression rates. • Listening to our customers and key stakeholders and developing opportunities for stakeholder feedback. • Creating business support structures, processes and practices that provide customers with an outstanding experience. • Using self-assessment and service standards to improve performance. • Appraising all our staff and managing their performance.

Key Performance Indicators for Strategic Objective 3 • Reduce the number of formal complaints by 3% year on year. • Increase 16-18 apprentices by 10% and improve their conversion by 10%. • Increase internal progression rates by 5%. • Achieve an Ofsted grade of ‘good’. • Deliver ‘Building 20’ on budget and on time.

Strategic Objective 4 Development and delivery of a curriculum strategy which meets stakeholders’ needs by: • Ensuring the curriculum meets needs identified by employers, the Local Authority, Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership (GLLEP) and other stakeholders. • Increasing the amount of higher education provision including higher apprenticeships. • Working with employers to increase apprenticeship numbers. • Rationalising non priority curriculum especially where it makes little financial contribution to the College. • Developing a flexible curriculum which fully utilises technology. • Working with partners to enhance learning opportunities. • Enhancing the curriculum offer for adults and particularly the unemployed. • Increasing the amount of full cost / bespoke activity.

Key Performance Indicators for Strategic Objective 4 • Achievement of funding / student number targets. • Achieve a 10% increase in the amount of money raised through full cost work. • Increase apprenticeship numbers by 10% by September 2018. • Develop two jointly delivered programmes by September 2017 with Boston College and New College Stamford. Strategic Objective 5 Maintaining a financially robust and sustainable organisation by: • Ensuring that our teaching staff are efficiently deployed. • Questioning the necessity for any appointments and any financial return from such appointments. • Exploring alternative sources of funding. • Hitting student number and funding targets. • Increasing higher education opportunities and consequently higher education funding. • Exploring procurement opportunities with our collaborative partners. • Exploring efficiency savings with our collaborative partners.

Key Performance Indicators for Strategic Objective 5 • Achieve an overall SFA (Skills Funding Agency) financial health grade of ‘good’ or better. • Ensure no more than 1 of the 3 SFA financial health sub grades fall below ‘good’ and none are rated ‘inadequate’. • Ensure pay expenditure is no more than 74% of income.

Monitoring our Plan Monitoring the performance against the strategic objectives and key performance indicators will be undertaken twice yearly by the College Corporation. The Senior Leadership Team will regularly monitor progress and all staff will have annual targets in their appraisal which reference the strategic objectives. Targets will be reviewed annually.