‘Good’ Ofsted rating for Burgess Hill college

A college which provides education for children who are unable to attend school has received praise from Ofsted in a recently published report.

The West Sussex Alternative Provision College (WSAPC) opened in September 2013 as a result of the merger of the Links College North and The Links College South pupil referral units.

WSAPC , whose head office is in Cuckfield Road, Burgess Hill, covers the entire county with eight centres stretching as far North as Crawley and as far west as Chichester. It also encompasses the mid West Sussex area and the coastal strip.

The college provides education for pupils who are at risk of being or have been permanently excluded from primary or secondary mainstream schools and those who are out of school for medical reasons.

Staff and pupils have plenty to celebrate with the college being graded ‘good’ overall by inspectors in the report which has just been published following an inspection in July.

The Ofsted report recognises that WSAPC enables its pupils to “make good progress in their learning and development” and that a “good proportion of pupils make faster progress than expected”.

Teaching was seen to be of good standard.

One pupil explained to the inspectors that: “Teaching is better here; I’ve made good progress and I’m looking forward to going back to another school.”

The report goes on to state that pupils’ behaviour is good and that pupils “respond well to the help and direction given to them” by staff at the college. There is “little disruption in lessons and pupils typically develop more positive attitudes to learning than they showed in their mainstream schools”.