THERE are two areas of Sidmouth College's performance graded as 'inadequate' by Ofsted the overall effectiveness of the school and leadership and management. HM Inspector Adrian Lyons reports under its overall effectiveness: This college requires signi

THERE are two areas of Sidmouth College's performance graded as 'inadequate' by Ofsted - the overall effectiveness of the school and leadership and management.HM Inspector Adrian Lyons reports under its overall effectiveness: "This college requires significant improv-ement, because it is performing significantly less well than in all the circumstances it could reasonably be to expected to perform."While the college provides an acceptable standard of education and the personal development of students is good, its overall effectiveness is inadequate. "This is because the leadership has not moved the college on well enough since the last inspection and consequently improvement in students' achievement has faltered over several years."He said while recognising improvements in monitoring students' academic performance and the effectiveness of subject departments that have taken place this year "these are not embedded well enough to help drive up achievement throughout the college quickly enough."Mr Lyons continued: "Following several years of underachievement, students' progress is now satisfactory because there is good teaching in some parts of the college."He said it had real strengths, relationships were generally positive and staff gave free time to support students through extra lessons and activities.Teaching was satisfactory overall but variable. "There are not enough opportunities for students to work independently and develop their own thinking."The pace of learning was sometimes slow because assessment data wasn't well used to ensure all levels of ability were challenged in lessons."Procedures for monitoring teaching and learning are insufficiently robust and focus too much on teaching activity rather than the quality of student learning."Under leadership and management he said: "The leadership and management at all levels are not consistently strong enough to secure the rapid pace of improvement needed to raise standards."Targets set are not sufficiently challenging, given their potential, and a number of parents feel the expectations of some teachers are too low.