We are celebrating after being awarded a ‘good’ grading by Ofsted inspectors for our specialist care training during a recent inspection.

The inspection was carried out in late January and the resulting report commended our  “highly flexible and responsive” approach to “meeting the needs of apprentices and employers in the care sector.”

Under the current inspection regime, training companies are inspected by Ofsted and allocated a grade between 1 and 4, with 1 being outstanding; 2 being good; 3 being ‘requires improvement;’ and 4 being ‘inadequate’.

Inspectors rated Acacia Training as ‘good’ with the resulting report concluding: “Apprentices develop good skills in health and social care and early years and playwork; they provide a good standard of care.”

Inspectors were also impressed with our understanding of employer needs within the care industry, stating: “Managers work well through their strong partnership links with employers, to identify skills shortages and offer accredited and specialist training programmes, such as palliative and end-of-life care.”

The report also states: “The curriculum meets the needs of apprentices, employers and the community very well. Leaders and managers have a good understanding of the employment and labour market needs of the health and social care, and early years and playwork sectors.”

Victoria Sylvester, Managing Director at Acacia Group, comments: “We are delighted with this recognition from Ofsted – it is testament to the hard work of all the team here and our assessors throughout the UK.”

She continues: “The report shows that our students progress well across all of our courses, and their success is reflected in the satisfaction levels of our employer clients.

Leaders at The Acacia Group also own and run two care homes – Samuel Hobson House in Wolstanton, and Mayfield House in Crewe. Bosses founded Acacia Training in 2001 because of the gaps they were facing in available training for their own care home employees.

Victoria explains: “Because we work so closely with employers and own two of our own care homes, our focus is on developing training in line with the sector needs and wants.”

In addition to work-based learning covered by the inspection, we also provide a range of short courses, specialist units and in company training including a new portfolio of e-learning courses thanks to a recent partnership with CareShield UK.

Inspectors suggested a small number of areas for development, such as boosting apprentices’ ability to set their own learning targets, and increasing employer involvement in planning and reviewing learning at progress reviews.