BOLTON College has been told it "requires improvement" by Ofsted inspectors.

Principal Marie Gilluley said she was disappointed by the judgement — but stressed the college is working on plans to improve it.

Ofsted found that "too few learners are successful and achieve their main learning goal" and success rates for apprentices were inadequate last year.

Concerns were raised that too many students in engineering and construction leave before the end of their course, and not enough are successful.

Outcomes for learners and the effectiveness of leadership and management were said to require improvement.

But Ofsted praised a number of areas of the college — which moved into a £70 million building in 2010 — including developing students' personal, social and employability skills and the development of their vocational skills in a range of areas.

The quality of teaching, learning and assessment were marked as good, as were courses, including teaching of health and social care and early years and playwork; hairdressing and beauty therapy; English and modern foreign languages; independent living and leisure skills.

Building and services and construction crafts were said to require improvement.

Ms Gilluley said the college was pleased that the report highlighted a “significant” number of strengths.

She said: “Seven out of the nine subject areas inspected were also graded as ‘good’.

"The report states that ‘learners grow in confidence and acquire important and relevant knowledge and technical skills through their interactions with well-qualified subject tutors and specialist support staff’.

"In addition to crucial knowledge and technical skills, the report shows that learners ‘develop strong personal and social skills’."

Ms Gilluley said: “We are committed to our partnership work within the Bolton family, and Ofsted commended ‘the participation and contribution the college makes to meet the key local skills and employment priorities’ as well as our ‘highly inclusive learning environment’."

She said the report recognised that students feel "highly valued" and how it helped students gain employment.

Ms Gilluley added: “While we are proud of our many strengths, the current Ofsted inspection framework is very rigorous, and it has indicated where improvements need to be made.

"While our results were around the national average last year, under the current framework these results ‘require improvement’.

"Our apprenticeship provision last year, where it was delivered by sub-contractors, was not good enough.

"We have been working for some time on a plan to improve our results in this area and have terminated all partnerships with poor success rates.

“We are obviously disappointed that Ofsted judged us overall as requiring improvement but we are already working on our plans to improve and we are confident that very soon we will return to being overall good."