It has been three years since I became principal of Gateshead College - a dream job but one that has not been without its challenges. Today, as new students arrive full of nerves and excitement, I can say that the rewards have been even greater.

In 2013, we were graded as “requires improvement” by Ofsted for the second time; a bitter pill to swallow. But there was a job to be done - not everything was good enough. Turning things around was going to need focus, clarity and a bit of backbone.

There had been significant improvements. Ofsted said we were doing all the right things but that they hadn’t yet been felt across the whole college. They told me that I had to keep going, building on what we had done and focusing on one student at a time. 

Committed colleagues

Staff felt bruised: there was some outstanding practice across the college and the majority of people were passionate, committed and wanted to do a great job. My role was to pick them up, focus their minds and actions on the things that really mattered and inspire them to do their very best for our learners.

From day one, I was clear that we would work with Ofsted to do this. Ultimately, we both wanted the same thing - the highest standards for every student - and it made sense to take advantage of the support and guidance we were offered.

My first task was to reinvigorate our culture. We had a longstanding reputation of being a technical college, with close ties to local businesses and the community. We had to go back to what we always did best, with a relentless focus on quality improvement and providing a curriculum that suited market, employer and business needs.

I brought the staff together to share the vision of making our students the most highly prized in the jobs market; to give each and every one of them what we call the “employment edge” and continually reinforce this. I was honest: everyone had to work harder and smarter. If we didn’t, the college would struggle. If we did, wonderful things would happen.

A minority of staff members did choose to leave but the majority embraced the challenge and have worked with me to achieve remarkable results, which we’re incredibly proud of.

Our transformation has required a business-focused approach as well as some brave decision-making. This was welcomed by the board and its support has been crucial in delivering our strategy.

In my first six months, I set about changing the college’s structure, which had become dispersed and inefficient. I wanted a “one college” approach to our business with a coherent sense of purpose and clear accountability.

Developing our people strategy was a priority. This was about improving employee engagement and putting greater investment in management development, succession planning and reward and recognition initiatives.

I am more visible in the college, host monthly staff lunches and personally meet all new team members at their inductions. An increasing focus on performance management is helping to drive a high-performance culture, where people have clear targets and development goals, and achievements are recognised.

This seems to have paid off. We recently secured the Investors in People Gold Award for the second time. We want to be a great employer and this helps to attract the best people to work at our college.

Teaching comes first

At every opportunity, I reinforce the message to staff that if we deliver high-quality teaching, learning and assessment, the rest will follow: it’s our core business and we have to get that right.

We’ve enhanced management information systems and become far more rigorous about capturing and routinely analysing data. We have extremely detailed and accessible information about every student’s achievement, progress and experience as well as a range of performance data, which is used to make quick management decisions and to target early interventions.

Links with the business community have always been excellent and I have been strengthening these connections and getting the college to be even more outward-looking. I sit on various boards and have been everywhere, talking to everyone and developing relationships with business people in our region, finding out what we can do to help them.

I won’t allow complacency to creep in. We are very self-reflective and must continue to improve. Looking to the future, our focus on giving our students the employment edge remains.

I am confident, because we have the business right, that we can move forward with other initiatives, including increasing learning and development opportunities for staff and introducing coaching models to develop an even higher performance culture.

I am proud of my college and my team; we are now classed as “outstanding” but can always do more. We want to get the best from everyone, so that our students, the businesses we work with - and Ofsted - can be sure that the next chapter of Gateshead College’s story will be even better.

Judith Doyle is principal and chief executive of Gateshead College. She was named FE leader of the year at the 2016 TES FE Awards