After Ofsted

Well, the Ofsted colleagues have been and gone and a whole week has passed since they left. What can we say about it? Not much of the detail as that is provisional and pending the publication of the report (late April). Nevertheless, it has been a positive experience and a genuine examination of what the WEA tries to offer in terms of adult education.

Inspections of the WEA are Olympic scale operations - even in the new lighter touch approach - and managing them successfully demands enormous attention to detail by lots of people across the WEA. I want to thank all of those people here: The regions that were directly visited, the other regions who supported them, the staff involved in the whole process, the volunteers and partners and the tutors and students that met the inspectors.

I know, from sitting in on the inspectors feedback, how impressed they were with the scale, reach and commitment of everyone in the WEA to our provision and our mission. The expertise of our tutors was praised, the WEA's commitment to meeting the needs of disadvantaged communities and the role of volunteers in supporting this work, governance and scrutiny and in helping maintain provision in areas where other providers no longer go.

As soon as the report is finalised I will link it to this blog.