Furness College, Barrow-in-Furness
Data last updated 20 Aug 2026
Key Information
DfE GIASOfsted Rating
Ofsted · 7 months agoReport card - no overall grade (new Ofsted framework from Sep 2024)
Ofsted Insights
What This School Does Well
Furness College has made good progress in supporting its young learners through an engaging personal development curriculum that covers important topics like British values, healthy relationships, and real-world issues. Teachers have improved how they give feedback to help learners understand what they need to do to improve their work. The college is also working hard to strengthen its leadership and governance to drive further improvements.
Key Strengths
- Leaders have developed a clear action plan with improved retention rates compared to last year
- Staff development programme implemented with training on classroom culture and retrieval practice
- Governors strengthened with new chair, skills audits, and external training to provide better scrutiny
- Most teachers improved feedback quality using structured formats to help learners improve
- Young learners benefit from effective personal development curriculum including British values and careers guidance
Areas for Improvement
- Apprentices not receiving sufficiently challenging curriculum tailored to their starting knowledge and skills
- Coaches setting overly broad targets without precise identification of workplace development needs
- New teaching and learning framework developed but not yet implemented
- Feedback consistency still needs improvement in some areas
- Need for governors with greater further education sector experience
Safeguarding
Safeguarding findings not detailed in this monitoring visit report.
Extracurricular Activities
Careers fairs, university visits, guest speakers on knife crime and other social issues, tutorial sessions
Furness College is a general further education college in Barrow, Cumbria, serving over 1,100 young learners aged 16-18 and 400 adult learners across two main campuses. Following an inadequate rating in November 2024, this monitoring visit assessed progress on key improvement areas.
At a Glance
No
Boarding
No
Nursery
No
Sixth Form
No
Special Measures
Sixth Form Performance (A-Level)
A-Level Results
C-
Average grade
25.8
Points per entry
C-
Best 3 A-Levels
3%
Achieving AAB+
Below average
Value added
124
A-Level students
82%
Retention rate
2024/25 academic year
A-Level Subjects Offered
+ 24 more subjects
2024/25 academic year - entries by number of students
After A-Levels - Leaver Destinations
After A-Levels (Year 13) - 656 students
202223 data
University & Higher Education Destinations
10%
Top-third university
28%
Degree course
42%
Any L4+ destination
11%
Apprenticeships
Based on 281 students completing 16-18 study
2021/22 cohort - "Top-third" = most selective third of UK universities by student intake
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Capacity & Demand
Area Demand Pressure - Barrow-in-Furness
Based on MHCLG housing supply data for Barrow-in-Furness
Admissions Demand - Westmorland and Furness
Places available
2,864
Applications
1,955
Got 1st preference
96.7%
Got preferred school
99.7%
Secondary admissions across Westmorland and Furness (2025/26)
Inspection History(13)
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