A college under the management of the largest provider of higher education in West Sussex has been inspected by the industry watchdog after concerns over safeguarding.

Ofsted inspectors made the monitoring visit to Crawley College in October after concerns were raised about the campus.

Crawley College offers vocational qualifications, apprenticeships and adult courses to approximately 3,200 students and apprentices.

Of these, there are approximately 250 students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities who require additional support.

The college is one of seven run by Chichester College Group, which also incorporates Brighton Metropolitan, Chichester, Brinsbury, Northbrook, Haywards Heath and Worthing.

Ofsted judged the group to be outstanding in March 2020.

Concerns about Crawley College included the security of the site and the prevention of bullying and harassment.

Inspectors said the group has made “reasonable progress” in resolving both concerns.

The report said: “Governors and leaders have made the decision to extend an open campus policy to all sites within the college group in order to support positive student behaviour and conduct.

“To reduce the risk to students, leaders and managers have ensured that staff and students are sufficiently trained to know how to respond to instances where non-students are on site.

“Leaders are rightly considering further actions to support students’ safety on the college site.

“Leaders have appointed a community support officer who works with a team of duty managers to patrol and check the site is secure.

“Leaders’ deployment of CCTV is well considered, providing good coverage of the main entry points to the campus, buildings and remote spots.

Leaders have identified the need to further improve the range and coverage of this monitoring across the college campus and have sensible plans in place to do this.

“Leaders and managers use a helpful internet filter to check that students are safe and not accessing harmful, upsetting or disturbing content.

“The vast majority of students feel safe at college and when travelling to college.

“Leaders and managers have appropriate procedures in place to identify incidents of bullying and harassment.

“Staff have a good understanding of students who are most at risk. They regularly check that students feel safe and know how to make a disclosure.

“Where incidents of bullying and harassment occur, the safeguarding team and staff provide suitable and timely support to students.

“When necessary, the safeguarding team worked effectively with external safeguarding agencies, such as social and care workers, to help support students. As a result, the vast majority of incidents of bullying and harassment are dealt with effectively.

“However, in some instances, managers do not record actions clearly, which hinders leaders’ ability to check that students receive the support they need.”