A Lancashire-based Group Training Association is celebrating after receiving a glowing report from Ofsted inspectors. The report, which was published today, highlighted that Training 2000 received outstanding grades for the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in three out of six judged subject areas: engineering, nursing and dental health and manufacturing technologies and achieved a “good” grade for all other areas. Leadership and Management and safeguarding arrangements were also judged to be outstanding. Inspectors spent five days at the organisation last month and made their judgment after studying learners’ achievements over the last three years as well as using other methods to gather the views of learners and employers including interviews, lesson observations and online questionnaires. Ofsted described staff as “highly experienced and knowledgeable” delivering courses that are well designed to meet local and national skills shortages. Steve Gray, who has been CEO at Training 2000 since 2005 said; “We are delighted with Ofsted’s findings. It’s been a real team effort and gives us a foundation to build upon in our relentless pursuit of excellence. We are pleased that the report mentioned our good personal support for learners, excellent standard of learners work and our high Apprenticeship success rates. “Ofsted also acknowledged the work we do to instill good working practices which help young people to get onto the employment ladder and that progression from our work preparation programmes is good.” The training provider has had over 3500 learners on programme over the previous academic year aged 16+ who are training in subjects including dental nursing, construction, engineering, automotive, military preparation, scaffolding, accounting, business studies and work preparation.