How do inspectors award an area of strength? Each of the areas inspected are divided into a number of criteria, on average six. Each is judged not met, met or strong.
To gain an area of strength every criterion must be met and fifty per cent of the criteria in that area must be judged as strong.
Strong criteria are important, but so is where you score them. Inlingua Cheltenham, for example, was marked as strong in 30 criteria, well above average but received the industry average of five areas of strength. Had they been marked strong in just one more criterion in each of two areas, they may have gained two more areas of strength.
Most importantly, centres must be judged to have met every criterion. For example, East Sussex College, our top performing state college, used the wrong British Council logo, one criterion under Publicity. It may have cost them a fourteenth strength.
Or take the case of top independent junior summer school, Discovery Summer, with 14 strengths. It also did not meet one criterion in Publicity because it failed to publish the fee for the IELTS exam. It may well have cost Discovery Summer a perfect score of 15 strengths.
