Turnaround complete as Dudley College rated outstanding for first time

The grading represents a turnaround in fortunes at Dudley College of Technology, a decade on from being rated inadequate.

It is the first time it has been given the highest rating, up from its previous grade of good in 2013.

Principal Lowell Williams, who has overseen the rise in standards, said the recognition marked the completion of a ‘difficult journey’.

He took over in 2008 and brought in wholesale changes to make the college one of the most improved in the country.

The college has embarked on a huge modernising drive in recent years, with the expansion of a number of campuses and the building of Dudley Sixth on Ednam Road.

Education bosses are also planning a £30 million university and technical campus for the town.

From suffering a long period of decline during the last decade, the college now rivals many of the best in the UK.

The college is only one of a handful in the country to be rated as outstanding – and the first this year.

Following an inspection, Ofsted praised ‘outstanding teaching’ and a curriculum that ‘anticipates regional and national need, leading to highly appropriate training pathways for learners and apprentices’.

Mr Williams said: “Our journey from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘outstanding’ has not been easy.

“It has been a long and difficult road but one that staff and students have travelled together. We developed early on a very clear and aspirational strategy for the college, but the real key to our success has been our passionate and highly-motivated staff who have genuinely learned how to pull together as a team.

“And we have relentlessly focused on outstanding teaching and learning and the progress and progression of our learners.”

The college was rated as outstanding in seven out of eight areas, including teaching, effectiveness of leadership and management and outcomes for students, with the other – provision for students with high needs – rated as good.

Such praise is rare from the education watchdog, which has notoriously hight standards.

Mr Williams said: “When I joined the college there was a frustrating sense that Dudley’s best days were gone, that nothing new and aspirational could ever be achieved in Dudley and that the educational attainment of Dudley young people and adults would always lag behind their counterparts elsewhere in the country. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the ability of young people and adults in the Black Country. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“The staff and students of Dudley College of Technology have proved that with the right support and challenge they can be the best in the country in whatever they chose to do.”