The college lighting the way

The Sixth Form College, Farnborough, has won special praise for its teaching and learning. This week it was made a Beacon school. Anne McHardy meets the students who have benefited from its successful methods

Jake van Praag is a walking advertisement for The Sixth Form College, Farnborough, which this week became one of the first further education colleges to be awarded Beacon status for the quality of its teaching and learning.

He is smiling cheerfully through five A-level exams, English literature, philosophy, mathematics, general studies and psychology – the sort of balanced spread that the reform of the sixth-form curriculum was designed to produce. Jake is president of the student representative body, he revels in a role in the debating society, playing devil's advocate as often as he can, and he has an exciting gap year planned before going to university to read philosophy. Part one of the gap year will be 10 days walking in Chile to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust, for which the college has given him a £250 bursary.

Grinning at the Hampshire college's principal Dr John Guy, he says: "I would like to come back here as well. There are so many other things I want to do. Next year you are introducing classical studies, I would enjoy that...."

Around the tables in the student common room the mood is as upbeat; even though the students are revising for that day's exam there is little sense of panic. One table full of students, who between them were studying 38 different subjects, from maths to philosophy, was playing cards – and didn't hustle them out of sight when the principal appeared. The staff's separate canteen was relaxed too.

Farnborough's Office for Standards in Education report, one of the first since Ofsted took over inspection of FE colleges, is glowing. Leadership and management are "outstanding", it says, as are teaching and student achievement in six of its nine curriculum areas. In the others they are good. Where the inspectors found fault – notably with the amount of space in the students' common rooms – the college is at work to find solutions. Mike Tomlinson, then the Ofsted chief inspector, who went himself to see the final stages of the inspection, said 91 per cent of teaching was rated good, very good or excellent, against a national average of 61 per cent. It was, he said, "head and shoulders above any sixth-form provision inspected". Last year Farnborough achieved good results in the newly introduced AS-level exams and this year it hopes to achieve good A-level results. Dr Guy, as smilingly bouncy as his students, believes that his sixth form college is succeeding largely because of the work he and his staff have put into organising and preparing for Curriculum 2000, which he sees as offering a much more relaxed as well as academically rewarding education than the old-style A-levels.

He believes that their democratic approach, which involves documented consultation and inclusion of students, even in the appointment of new teachers, is vital. The attitudes of the teachers towards the students is as important as the information they offer. An important factor is the tutor system, with tutors teaching only half the time table and meeting their students while they are still in secondary school.

The principal recognises the benefits that come from ploughing money into buildings and into provision that other sixth forms would kill for, including a well-equipped theatre, complete with dressing rooms and practice suites, computer suites that purr with efficiency and an attractive library. The school sold a waterlogged four-acre field to a property developer to raise building income.

Dr Guy, whose last post was as head of a Catholic school in inner-city Birmingham, was appointed to Farnborough 10 years ago when the authority decided to reorganise its education system into secondary schools for 11-to 16-year-olds and colleges for those older than 16. The sixth form college complements the Farnborough Technology College, which offers practical courses and adult education classes.

Having started with about 1,000 students, it now has 1,797 of whom 56 per cent are girls. One sign of its popularity is that an increasing number of students are drawn from neighbouring counties. All are housed in what was an old grammar school in this quiet, leafy town. Five per cent are from ethnic minorities, slightly more than the percentage in the local population because of local Nepalese students who have links with the Gurkhas and nearby armed forces establishments at Aldershot.

These students provide the sixth form college with some of its intake of less well-off students. Core buildings are from the Thirties and Sixties, something that can be detected in its red brick exterior, but which is hard to see inside, where restructuring has included turning old high gym buildings into two storeys. The surrounding area is detached and gardened computer belt and a significant proportion of the parents have degrees themselves.

When Dr Guy, a chemist by training, arrived at the school he seized the challenge of a total reorganisation. He has continued to see the subsequent changes as exciting, starting with Lord Dearing's review of post-16 education and continuing with Curriculum 2000. When the reform of the sixth-form curriculum was being mooted, the school decided to completely restructure the timetable. Taking five subjects in five one-hour sessions a week would mean constant changes of subject so periods were extended to 90 minutes, with three per subject per week. Modular testing is exploited. Students sit January modules and do March coursework so that they are left with no more than two examined modules per subject in May and June. Spreading the burden works for boys and girls, says Dr Guy.

The old A-levels were designed to create stress, he thinks. The new system, as well as offering breadth, reduces stress. By properly using modular teaching, students can be left facing just a final handful of exams, rather than the horrendous pressure of having to take timed papers. As the father of three boys – the middle one doing A-levels at his college – he is as anxious as any other parent to reduce exam stress. He is also convinced that his system could translate even into the inner city. "Everybody wants to succeed," he says.

education@independent.co.uk

The beacon sixth forms set to inspire

Four colleges are being awarded beacon status, the DfES announced yesterday. They are being honoured because of their excellence in learning and teaching, and their superb leadership and management. They have high standards, says the DfES, representing the very best that the post-16 sector has to offer. Apart from The Sixth Form College Farnborough, the three colleges are Hills Road Sixth Form College, Truro College and the Sixth Form College, Colchester. The idea is that the colleges will spread good practice around the country.

The new beacon status scheme replaces another one which was awarded to 18 colleges.

Both groups will keep their status indefinitely unless new inspection evidence shows that standards, or agreed objectives, are not being met.

Lucy Hodges