NEW COLLEGE, SWINDON
Minutes of the Curriculum and Quality committee held on 4 th November 2014
Present:
With:
Dave Rowlands (Chair), Leeanne Hunnex, Sam McCurdy, Peter O’Brien, Ben Sonoiki,
Graham Taylor
Chris Hale, Paul James, Tracy Scaife
529 Welcome – the Chair welcomed Paul James, recently appointed Quality Manager to his first meeting of the committee.
530 Apologies for absence – received from Charlotte Mannion and Susanne Davies.
531 Appointment of Chair – Dave Rowlands was nominated and duly seconded for the position of Chair. No further nominations were received.
RESOLUTION: that Dave Rowlands be appointed as Chair of the Curriculum and Quality committee until the first meeting of the committee in the 2015/16 academic year.
532 Minutes of the last meeting held on 13 th June 2014 – agreed as a correct record.
533 Matters arising from the minutes of the last meeting held on 13 th June 2014 – raised as follows:
(a) 525 Curriculum Development Strategic Plan 2014/15 – noted that the risk of students refusing to undertake English and Maths qualifications required through the implementation of the new English and Maths Strategy has been added to the Risk Register. It was noted that at the present time there are 32 students who are not on a qualification programme who should be. The financial implications of this were noted.
534 Risk management update – verbal report by Director of Curriculum received and noted.
535 Success Rates (SR), Self Assessment Report (SAR) and Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) – report by Quality Manager received and noted.
The Quality Manager advised that the final draft of the SAR is now available.
The take-up of short courses fell significantly last year, thought to be mainly due to confused messages with regard to funding. It is important to get the profile for short courses back to the level of the previous year and recruitment to these courses has been set as a target for this year. There are many courses available including personal finance and internet safety.
With regard to long courses, the SR last year was the best that it has ever been. There is still a need to concentrate on increasing the number of higher grades achieved. SSA 12, Language, Literature and Culture needs to be pulled apart and focussed on, particularly English.
Through the SAR, the college is graded 1overall at the present time and the Quality Manager advised that it is almost there. The Principal advised that he is of the opinion that the college is a grade 1

college and based on performance was outstanding last year and good this year. A lot of good practice has been observed through lesson observations this week.
With regard to the SR, the course profile of the college needs to be changed to include more short and very short courses. Improvement plans have been put together for areas underperforming. The meeting asked for further information on actions planned for under-performing courses i.e. cancelling courses, replacing with alternative e.g. BTEC.
ACTION: GT/PJ to advise the meeting of actions planned for under-performing courses.
536 Performance Tables – report by Quality Manager received and noted.
The meeting asked for further information on GCSE Average Points Score (APS) at entry for students starting in 2012 and for APS for the top performing 100 students.
(Note: Gifted and talented learners do very well. Our top 100, based on Key Stage 5 APS achieved an APS of 991.6 and an APS per entry of 244.2.)
537 Value-added – report by Quality Manager received and noted.
The meeting noted that the rules for BTEC Level 3 courses have changed and an investigation is needed to ensure that nothing has been missed as the value-added for these courses is poor.
Courses with strong SRs and value-added were noted together with those with strong SRs but poor value-added.
538 Recruitment – the report by the Quality Manager was withdrawn as some of the figures could be misleading.
It was noted that day-time recruitment is buoyant but evening recruitment is not as good as previously.
An amended report will be circulated to the committee as soon as possible.
ACTION: PJ to issue amended report to C&Q committee asap.
539 Curriculum Development Strategic Plan 2014/15 – report by Director of Curriculum received and noted.
Priorities for 2014/15 were noted. The Principal stated that the target for the increase in short courses needs looking at as the target increase proposed will not enable levels to return to the
2012/13 level. Short courses proposed for the year are personal finance and internet safety for first year students and CV writing and employability for second year students. Apprenticeships also need more emphasis.
ACTION: CH to revisit target for short courses
540 Curriculum efficiencies – report by Quality Manager received and noted.
The number of courses running with classes of less than 10 were noted however the figure could be inflated due to coding issues. The Director of Curriculum agreed to investigate this.

ACTION: CH to investigate coding of courses and to update the committee on the actual number of
courses running with classes of less than 10.
541 Lesson observation update – report by Quality Manager received and noted.
The Observation of Teaching, Learning and Assessment Policy was amended in September 2014 to reduce the number of graded observations that are required of new staff; during their first term at the college they will have one ungraded lesson observation. Paperwork for observations has also been revised.
Lesson observations are being carried out this week and next and so far 87% of lessons observed have been graded good or better. At the end of the two weeks the system will be looked at to see if there are any further improvements that can be made and its impact. A full review will be carried out at the end of the year.
542 English and Maths Strategy – report by Director of Curriculum received and noted.
It was further noted that a proposal to make English and Maths a single department next year is being considered.
543 Annual Quality Cycle – received and noted.
544 Higher Education (HE) entries 2014 – report detailing college students who have progressed to university received and noted.
The committee noted the universities being picked by students and asked if we knew out why students choose particular universities. The Principal advised that this could possibly be done through learner voice.
545 Terms of Reference – received and noted.
RESOLUTION: that the Terms of Reference be referred to the Corporation for approval.
ACTION: TS to present ToRs to Corporation 09.12.2014
546 Any other business – none.
547 Date of next meeting – Tuesday 3 rd March 2015 at 1800 (approx.)