Foreword
1 The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) was invited by Guildhall School of Music & Drama (the School) to undertake a quality audit of the School. The Agency is grateful to the School for the willing co-operation provided to the members of the audit team.
The remit
2 The Institutional Review Directorate of QAA undertakes quality audits according to the following terms of reference:
i to consider and review the mechanisms and structures used by those institutions in membership of the owner bodies of QAA to monitor, assure, promote and enhance their academic quality and standards, in the light of their stated aims and objectives; and to undertake a similar consideration and review in respect of other institutions of higher education, at their request;
ii to comment on the extent to which such procedures in place in individual institutions reflect appropriate good practice in maintaining and enhancing quality, and are applied effectively;
iii to prepare and publish a report on each audit undertaken;
iv to prepare and submit an annual report to the Board of Directors of QAA;
v to liaise with the other Directorates of QAA, drawing their attention to such matters and findings which may be of interest to the higher education system and which may merit further research and development; likewise receiving benefit from the work of the other Directorates.
The institutional context
3 Guildhall School of Music & Drama was founded in 1880 and throughout its history it has been owned and administered by the Corporation of London. The School receives no funds from the Higher Education Funding Council for England and is funded for its core activities by the Corporation. At its foundation, the School's initial focus was on music and performance; this subsequently broadened to take in speech, voice and acting and, more recently, stage management. The School does not have the power to award undergraduate or postgraduate degrees and its undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes of study leading to degrees and diplomas are validated by the University of York, the University of Kent, and City University. In addition, it makes a number of awards in its own name, such as 'Associateship of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama'.
4 A distinctive feature of the School is that, in addition to its undergraduate, postgraduate, and post-experience teaching and learning provision, it provides tuition and training for school-age students through its Junior Department. This operates each Saturday for students between the ages of five and 19. The School also operates an Examinations Service which administers a UK and world-wide system of examiners, responsible for examining and grading student musicians; it publishes a range of widely sold primers and other tuition materials. These aspects of the School's work were not included in the scope of this audit.
5 The School has occupied its present premises in the Barbican since 1977 and steady growth in the number of its students has placed increasing pressure on its teaching and practice accommodation. A purpose-built hall of residence, Sundial Court, close to the Barbican, was opened to students in 1995. Its residential facilities can cater for up to 178 students and it offers refectory and other services more widely.
6 In 1997-98, the School had 649 full-time students and 270 part-time students pursuing its undergraduate, postgraduate and post-experience programmes of study. Of these, 529 were pursuing music programmes of study and 120 were following acting and stage management programmes of study. In addition in 1997-98, some 350 students were enrolled in the School's Junior Department.
Governance and management
7 Legally and administratively the School is a Department of the Corporation of London and operates under the provisions of the Corporation's Policies and Procedures Manual and its Employee Handbook. The Corporation also provides the School's payroll and payment functions and personnel services.
8 The strategic direction and day-to-day activities of the School are monitored by the members of the Corporation of London's Music and Drama Committee, for whom supervision of the School's affairs constitutes a substantial part of their responsibilities. The Music and Drama Committee occupies the place in the School's arrangements which might under other circumstances be taken by a governing body. But the comparison with a University's governing body is difficult to sustain at any level of detail; for example, academic representation on the Committee is limited to the Principal. Before the audit began, the QAA audit team was told that it was the Corporation's long-term aim to constitute a committee to oversee the work of the School with arrangements more akin to those proper to a governing body, but which would nonetheless remain part of the Corporation.
9 The Chief Executive of the School is its Principal, who is responsible to the Music and Drama Committee for the management and direction of the School. The Principal is assisted in discharging his responsibilities by a Directorate of nine individuals, which constitutes the executive committee for the School. The members of the Directorate include the Principal (Chair); the Director of Administration; the Director of Music; the Director of Drama; the Director of Technical Theatre; the Director of Initial Studies (the division of the School responsible for its Examinations Service and the Junior Department); the Assistant Director of Music; the Head of Music Studies; the Head of Research and Development, and a head of department elected by his/her peers to attend the Directorate.
10 The Directors of Administration, Music, Initial Studies, Drama and Technical Theatre are each responsible for the leadership of a group of full-time and part-time staff which in some cases includes individuals designated as 'heads of departments' who are responsible for leading subsections of staff.
Mission, aims and objectives
11 In its Quality Assurance Handbook (the Handbook), the
School defines its purpose as being to 'provide the highest attainable
quality of education and professional training'. It states its aim as being
to 'create a crucible for artistic development which allows all participants
to explore their full potential'. In the School's view this will be accomplished
through 'attracting the most gifted teachers and students' and providing
a 'learning environment in which all members have the enthusiasm, energy
and capacity to pursue performance, teaching and research with individual
excellence and collective purpose'. The Handbook sets out five goals
for the School; these are:
'To create a culture which fosters collaboration, innovation, personal
motivation and reflection, mutual tolerance and respect, professional integrity
and a lateral approach to problem solving;
- To implement a curriculum which aims at high standards of performing
skill and at the development of individual autonomy, curiosity, leadership,
flexibility and risk-taking through imaginative forms of teaching and
learning;
- To achieve an educational environment which supports outstanding practice-based
research, continuing professional development and innovative approaches
to the design and delivery of teaching;
- To form significant local, national and international partnerships and
collaborations with professional and artistic organisations and educational
and community groups;
- To have an efficient and cohesive administration that fully supports
a creative environment'.
The audit process
12 Prior to the audit visit, the School provided briefing documentation, including its Handbook, course (programme) handbooks, promotional materials and a thoughtful 'Analytical Self-Study'. The audit team considered these materials at a briefing meeting, suggested a programme of meetings for the visit, and identified items of supplementary information to help it to understand the School's work. This supplementary information was made available to the team at the visit.
13 The visit took place from 19-22 October 1998. The audit team met the Principal and members of the Directorate; heads of department; undergraduate, postgraduate and post-experience students; full-time and part-time members of the teaching staff and members of the learning support, technical and administrative staff. The team also met members of the Music and Drama Committee of the Corporation of London, officers of the Corporation and members of staff of the University of Kent and City University in their capacity as representatives of two of the three Universities which validate aspects of the School's academic provision. In all, the team met over 60 individuals, some on more than one occasion. The team wishes to express its gratitude to all those who made themselves available to help it to understand the School's governance and management, and its arrangements to maintain and enhance the quality of its academic provision and the standards of the awards of the validating Universities.
14 The audit team comprised Professor G Chesters, Dr P J A Findlay and Dr F M Mannsåker, auditors, and Mr G Clark, audit secretary. The audit was co-ordinated for QAA by Dr D W Cairns, Assistant Director, Institutional Review Directorate.
The School's systems and arrangements for quality assurance
Quality assurance policy
15 The School is proud of its independence, its history of innovation and pioneering, and its pre-eminence in the world of conservatoires. To some degree, and on account of this self-assessment, the School has felt itself cushioned from the demands of quality assurance systems. Although the School has not articulated a statement of its own quality assurance policy to underpin its stated aims, the existence of an implicit policy can be deduced from its persuasive self-portrayal as 'an institution which combines the standards and organic processes typical of its traditions with more formal current standards of public accountability in education'. The audit team therefore found itself having to judge the appropriateness of the balance between the organic processes and the formal standards of accountability for assuring quality without the benefit of an explicit statement of a policy.
16 Until 1987, the School had autonomous control over its courses and (non-degree bearing) awards, and its programmes developed organically in response to the changing needs of the performance professions. With the School's vocational emphasis and close, active engagement with professional practitioners, there appeared less need for those more formal and systems-based procedures being developed more generally in higher education. With the decision to seek external validation as degrees for its post-18 programmes, however, the School was required to match its own processes more closely to those of its validating Universities.
17 The School's collaborative arrangements with City University and the University of Kent, in particular, have sharpened the need for a more explicit quality framework and there is recognition within the School that bilateral discussions during the associated validation, revalidation and annual review processes have tested and helped to define the School's own thinking on quality assurance.
Quality Assurance Handbook
18 The School itself felt the need to produce a quality assurance handbook, a need highlighted during a recent revalidation process and intensified by the prospect of the current audit. An initial draft for such a handbook was produced by a highly competent internal team aided by an external consultant but was rejected by the School's Academic Board in March 1997 as being too jargon-ridden, too mechanistic and insufficiently attuned to the particular circumstances and traditions of the School. Since that time, various briefer versions have been the subject of widespread consultation, with the current, much truncated, version being ratified by the Academic Board in July 1998.
19 The current Quality Assurance Handbook (the Handbook) is an interesting document with an interesting history - and, in the view of both the School and the audit team, probably an even more interesting future. It is divided into three sections: Overview (covering governance and management, committees, minimal definitions of processes for course approval and review, general regulations for courses); Programmes of Study; and Support Services (covering in terse formal language matters relating to staff appointment, staff evaluation, staff development, accommodation, student welfare and support, Library etc). It rarely refers the reader specifically to other more detailed documents.
20 The Handbook is 'intended to give easy reference for staff, students and appropriate members of the public on matters relating to Guildhall School of Music & Drama's control of the quality of its teaching and learning environment'; but in seeking to meet the many needs of such a wide readership, the School has lowered the Handbook's relevance and utility for those who should be its key readers: the staff within the institution who have responsibility for quality, or who contribute to quality procedures. The result is a Handbook that relies to a surprising degree on the straightforwardly descriptive. Paradoxically, given the School's intentions, the Handbook fails to do justice to the strengths and traditions of the School. Notwithstanding these comments, the Handbook contains some implications that consciously challenge the habits of the School and have the potential to accelerate the process of change envisaged both by the Music and Drama Committee and the Directorate.
Monitoring and review of quality assurance issues
21 The great virtue of the Handbook has been in the process of its production. Its various versions have provoked an intense and widespread 'institutional conversation' (and more) on matters of quality assurance; a vigorous hum stretched and amplified over two years by the acoustics of committees and corridors. The debate is by no means over, and the audit team noted that the Handbook itself begins with a statement that it will be subject to annual review by the Directorate and the Academic Board. The School is to be commended for its willingness to open up its internal conversation to the external audience of auditors and, almost by necessity, invite challenge and suggestions for revision. It was made clear to the team that its report would be a significant step on the journey undergone by the Handbook. Already there is a determination to review the structure and content so that the main Handbook is crisper and better captures the organic processes of the School, with signposts to other, more descriptive and procedural documents. In the light of these comments, the School will understand the necessity of further developing the Handbook, in particular so that it relates to all aspects of the School's quality assurance processes.
22 The School is engaging with accepted quality assurance procedures with evident seriousness, and has made commendable advances already. The audit team would support it in resisting the imposition of a formal quality system more suitable to a large University than a small, performance-focused conservatoire. Nevertheless, there are aspects of the School's practice which the team would encourage it to refine further; these will become evident in the body of this report.
Formal responsibilities
23 The Directorate, which meets weekly during term time, has the responsibility for monitoring and controlling the quality of activities of the School and has interpreted this term of reference as including responsibility for monitoring and reviewing the quality assurance framework itself. The audit team witnessed the commitment of the Directorate's members to this process both in the documentation and during the visit itself.
24 The Academic Board, which meets termly and is chaired by the Principal, has the responsibility for maintaining and improving the educational quality of the School. In a commendable development, the School has recently established a sub-committee of the Academic Board, the Academic Board Standards Committee (ABSC). ABSC meets at least monthly, its membership consisting of the Head of Research and Development (Chair), the four Directors of Music, Drama, Technical Theatre and Initial Studies and two members of the academic staff, with the Academic Registrar in attendance (importantly, since the Academic Registrar has played and continues to play a central role in developing the quality assurance framework as well as being involved in the process itself). It reports to the Academic Board on all matters concerning the quality of courses, teaching standards and examining as well as the quality of the student experience. The audit team recognised the increasing value of the work done by this Committee and commends the School for setting up such a powerful group to oversee, at frequent meetings, the key operations within the quality and standards framework. It was, however, not clear to the team how the boards of studies, currently relating to courses validated by other institutions, interact with ABSC; the School, while it reflects further on the expansion of the boards of studies structure to cover its own awards, may wish to consider the relationship of the boards to ABSC.
Individual roles
25 The four Directors, the heads of departments and the Head of Research and Development all possess some level of responsibility for quality assurance beyond their contribution to formal processes within committees. The course tutors, a group of 19 individuals appointed in 1997 to perform a general liaison role between staff, students and administration, have no formal responsibility for quality assurance but have, through the very breadth of their discussions, become involved in raising issues about the quality of the student experience. Through its meetings with many School staff (part-time and full-time), the audit team was able to gauge the manifest commitment to standards; what was less clear was an explicit understanding of the relationship between quality and standards.
The design, approval and review of programmes of study
Programme design and approval
26 Since 1990, the School's programmes of study have been validated as the BMus by the University of Kent and the BA Acting, the BA Stage Management and Technical Theatre, and the MMus in Composition by the City University. A Music Therapy Diploma has also been validated by the University of York (and appears overdue for revalidation). At the time of their validation, these programmes were internally well established and were originally accepted by their validators as degree-worthy with only minor amendment and development. But the processes involved in their monitoring, review and revalidation have encouraged the School to refine its own procedures and adopt comparable processes for its internal programme developments.
27 The process for the design and approval of new programmes, as described in the Handbook, follows a standard pattern, adapted to reflect the size and more informal ethos and culture of the School. Departments wishing to propose new programmes first seek the outline approval of the Directorate, and if granted, prepare full documentation for consideration by the Academic Board Standards Committee. ABSC is required to ensure that the document is clear and comprehensive, and addresses details of admissions, progression and assessment as well as resource implications. When it is satisfied that the documentation is acceptable, it convenes a validation panel. The validation panel includes two external advisors of appropriate academic and professional expertise, the Chair of ABSC and two representatives of the teaching staff not directly concerned with the programme. Having fully considered the proposal, including the physical resources and financial planning, the panel makes a recommendation to ABSC, which in turn makes its own recommendation to the Academic Board for formal decision. The audit team noted that ABSC had revised its membership and terms of reference during 1997-98 to enable it to fulfil this role more securely.
28 The process for validating the School's own programmes mirrors the pattern of external validation required by the University of Kent and City University. However, it is very new, still evolving, and is yet to be fully embedded within the School's quality assurance framework.
29 ABSC and its validating panels are specifically required to examine the future resource demands of new or revised programmes. However, the audit team learnt that to date the student support services had not been involved in the planning process and there was some evidence that proposals had not always been as rigorously scrutinised for their resource implications as might be expected. The School will wish to consider the advisability of involving its support service providers more closely in the planning of its developing portfolio.
30 The audit team recognises that in a small School it is inevitable that senior staff should undertake multiple roles, and that there will be an overlap of functions, sometimes affecting ABSC and its validating panels. It noted, for example, that the membership of ABSC, when it considered the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme, included the programme's proposer (properly standing down temporarily as committee Chair), and that the validation panel for the Postgraduate Diploma in Musical Performance (the PGDipMus) was chaired by the proposer of the CPD. In these almost inevitable circumstances, the School will understand the necessity of being vigilant in maintaining a level and range of external input within its validation processes to assure demonstrable objectivity of judgement (see below, paragraphs 42 and 84). Range is important: the team noted a tendency to rely on a single external colleague to perform several functions. One of the two external members of a validation panel, for example, was already a long-standing, active external examiner for another of the School's programmes, and had indeed acted as a panel member on its revalidation which, in itself, is not commended practice.
31 A pilot version of the School's PGDip Musical Performance (PGDipMus) was provisionally introduced in 1997-98, following an unexpectedly high demand from the students for the proposed project. The provisional nature of the course led to some difficulties when the validation panel for the substantive course later withheld validation at its first meeting in March 1998. A subsequent meeting in June which followed the fuller procedure described in the Handbook was able to approve the programme; however, students who had embarked on the programme whilst it was in its pilot stage remained unclear at the time of the audit visit whether the award of the PGDipMus was available to them. The School has subsequently made every effort to ensure that those who followed the programme in 1997-98 are credited for their achievement.
32 Following its validation, the School is now proposing to set up a board of studies for the PGDipMus, comparable to those required for the externally validated programmes, and to appoint external examiners. This is a further example of the quality assurance practices from the validated courses being adapted to suit the needs of the flexible performance programmes of the School, a development for which the School is to be commended.
33 These events demonstrate initially the School's relative uncertainty with the formal processes of validation, but then its willingness to engage with them for its own internal programmes and use them robustly. The audit team has confidence that the School appreciates the value of adopting these processes for the refinement and improvement of its programmes, and will continue to develop increased security in their use.
The monitoring and review of programmes
34 As with the development of validation processes, the regular monitoring and review of programmes has developed following the requirements of two of the School's validating Universities. The agreed process is described in the Handbook, but has yet to be fully implemented.
35 The School's Directors of Music, Drama and Technical Theatre each produce a summative annual report during the autumn term of the following year. The reports are considered either by the Collegiate Board of the University of Kent or the appropriate course board of City University during the spring term; the audit team was able to confirm this process through the minutes of meetings. Additionally, the Handbook requires the ABSC to oversee the monitoring of each course and for the School's Academic Board to consider the Directors' reports. There is evidence that Academic Board receives the reports, but ABSC has yet to develop its full role in monitoring, a matter to which it would be advisable for the School to attend.
36 The Handbook describes reports as including discussion of general activities; minor changes to the courses; future plans; responses to external examiner reports; staffing; enrolment statistics; resources; and infrastructure. Cohort statistics are compiled by departments, although the Registry is currently taking over responsibility for this work. The reports for 1996-97 (the most recent available) which the audit team saw were variable in length and fullness, from the scant (for Technical Theatre) to the reasonably comprehensive (for Acting), while only one (for Music) included responses to external examiners' reports. Together, however, with the minutes of the various meetings, the reports did contain evidence of an active qualitative review, particularly in relation to student achievement and staffing matters. There is also evidence that the annual monitoring process has initiated significant amendments to assessment regulations and practice on both the Acting and the Music awards.
37 The quantitative monitoring and analysis contained in the reports appeared less secure. Each report presented some statistical evidence of the student achievement in the year in question, but not all presented a cumulative analysis of student progression. Cohort statistics, where included, have not been presented in such a way as to enable the School readily to identify, for instance, withdrawal or failure rates across the four years of the BMus or make distinctions across the principal study specialisms. The School might wish to review its presentation of statistical evidence as it refines its monitoring processes, to assure itself that possible problems are identified at an early stage (see below, paragraph 59).
38 Notwithstanding the School's relatively embryonic formal monitoring processes, considerable informal monitoring has been implicit in the practice of collaborative working prevalent throughout both theatre awards. The very individual nature of the music programmes makes this much more difficult to achieve, although the extent of performance work and continuous contact with external professionals provide a level of monitoring practice.
39 Periodic review has developed as the School's degree programmes have required revalidation, and the School now has a forward programme of course review. The procedure follows that of initial validation, with the addition of a meeting between the review panel and existing students, and gives a major initiation and oversight role to ABSC. As noted above, the intervention of ABSC in the pre-scrutiny of the MMus revalidation appeared to have encouraged and confirmed a more satisfactory review process.
40 Some of the School's responses in validation documents to questions posed by its validating partners seemed to the audit team to read like unrealised statements of intent. There is, for example, a marked discrepancy between the section on 'Staff Development' in the revalidation submission for the BMus at the University of Kent and the then or current reality. A Staff Development Committee was not active at the moment of revalidation, yet the School maintains in the Revalidation Submission that such a Committee kept minutes and reported to Academic Board. The team understood that the proposal to give strength to staff development through the setting up of a committee fell victim to the general rejection of the draft of the Quality Assurance Handbook in March 1997; yet the original description still featured in the revalidation submission being considered as late as October 1997. Since that time, the School has recognised the necessity to make sure that statements on matters relating to quality assurance are confined to what can be demonstrated as a working reality; a welcome development.
External involvement in monitoring and review
41 The greatest level of external involvement in the design, monitoring and review of programmes comes through informal channels. The majority of the teaching staff comprises self-employed professionals whose careers outside the School necessarily engage with the performance industry. Similarly, the School regularly draws on the services of external directors and conductors for special project work with the students. It also more formally calls on the advice of external academic staff in the development of its programmes, although this element is less prominent.
42 The wealth of its informal, day-to-day engagement with music and theatre education and the professions gives the School confidence in the levels of its external referents. Nevertheless, the audit team noted that external friends were called upon in a variety of guises: as examiners, validators and assessors. Valuable though such inputs undoubtedly were, the team questioned whether the School was exposing itself to as wide a variety of external advice as it might. As it increases its proportion of degree and formal diploma programmes, the School will wish to consider the necessity of expanding its formal sources of advice across the higher education sector, the better to benchmark its own awards against those of a wider higher education community than that of the conservatoires alone (see also above, paragraph 30 and below, paragraph 84).
Responsiveness to change in demand
43 The School is very conscious of the changing shape of the music profession and the increasing need to offer its students a more wide-ranging musical education, to fit them for a variety of possible careers in music, other than as virtuoso or solo performers. This imperative has led it to seek validation for its programmes as degrees; to re-shape its post-degree programmes into a comprehensive, PGDipMus; to introduce the programme of Continuing Professional Development; and to underpin its awards with a strong and directed Performance and Communication Skills element.
44 These developments are an integrated part of the School's strategic planning, and are led from the highest level. The audit team found much evidence that they were also welcomed and appreciated by students and many staff; so much was clear from the consultation process surrounding the Handbook. It appeared to the team, however, that there had been a considerable period of necessary adjustment with the older tradition of prioritising technical musical excellence per se, and that support for the changing vision and ethos was unevenly spread across the School as a whole. What is not yet universally accepted, and has resulted in a period of necessary adjustment, is that it is possible to make minor reductions in the number of one-to-one lessons without jeopardising standards; that there are aspects of performance education which can be dealt with in different ways; and that an institution needs to continuously examine its teaching and learning methods in a constructive discussion between all those involved. In its efforts to encourage all sections of the School to understand and appreciate the need for these changes, the School might wish to consider the necessity of increasing the opportunities for its staff and students to make a more active contribution to framing and articulating its corporate strategy. Likewise as the School continues to develop along the path entailed by its strategic vision it will be helpful for it if the Music and Drama Committee extends its membership to include elected representatives of the staff and students of the School. This could also create the context within which the Music and Drama Committee could address the necessity to play a more direct part in framing the School's corporate strategy.
45 The School's commendable responsiveness, at the highest level, to changing patterns of musical education and the 'music market place' must, the audit team believes, be seen as part of the continuous review of its programmes that it has undertaken over the last 10 years, albeit without formal monitoring and review systems. The team is less convinced about the School's responsiveness to student expectation and the changing student profile.
Teaching, learning and monitoring the student experience
The educational experience in the School
46 As the Handbook states, 'the School is committed to a learning environment in which all members have the enthusiasm, energy and capacity to pursue performance, teaching and research with individual excellence and collective purpose'. It follows that a great deal of the teaching and learning is structured around the development of performance skills, in terms of both technical expertise and personal artistic communication. As noted above, the School was also aiming in its degree courses to broaden the curriculum beyond performance alone, and in different ways it now endeavours to produce a more rounded graduate. The School's Prospectus also makes clear the strongly practical and vocational aspects of its courses, which seek explicitly to provide a training for a profession, and maintain very close links with the working world of actors, stage managers and musicians. This aspect is particularly marked in the postgraduate and professional development programmes. Despite these shared general objectives across the School's subjects, the audit team found that there were substantial differences in the educational experience of students. For many music students, their learning was almost exclusively shaped by the quality of the teaching in their Principal Study and by the relationship with their instrumental tutor on a one-to-one basis. For acting and stage management students, in contrast, group work and the team experience of play production was at the centre of their learning experience. The team found that these differences in the experience of learning and teaching were also expressed in a considerable level of separation and independence in the practices of the different subject areas in the School.
47 The audit team explored with staff of the School the way in which it understood and identified quality in its educational provision. Factors which were identified included the high standards of admission (through demanding audition procedures), the professional standing of staff, the strong performance and production ethos which was personally testing for students and allowed them to be judged by the profession, and the career success of many of the School's students. The team was also able to gain an insight into quality considerations through definitions of learning outcomes provided in the Quality Assurance Handbook. Helpful information on the aims and outcomes of courses was also given in the handbooks for individual courses and programmes of study in the School. These varied considerably, however, in style and presentation. Some were more informative and 'user-friendly' in addressing the student learning as a progressive developmental experience, while others were more centred upon the syllabus and its assessment. Students had found the course and programme handbooks informative and useful in structuring their work. Although the programme aims and outcomes provide a framework for quality in teaching, the team was not able to identify the ways in which the achievement of these objectives was evaluated in the School. While commending the School on its commitment to establishing such definitions of quality and identifying the achievements expected of its students, the team would recommend that the School considers the desirability of seeking to develop more consistency in the communication and evaluation of its learning objectives.
Monitoring and review of teaching, learning and assessment
48 The primary responsibility for the organisation of teaching in the School lies with the Directors of Study and the heads of department. This responsibility includes the appointment of large numbers of part-time staff, and it was clear that the experience and the professional reputation of this latter group of staff were critically important for the quality of teaching in the School. The audit team found that the professional relationships between staff meant that the evaluative perspectives on the work of staff, and therefore on the processes of teaching and learning, were inherent in the educational process rather than formalised. Thus in the Music Department, monitoring of teaching and learning would mainly take place indirectly at the assessment stage, when the results of the 'master/apprentice' learning relationship were shown in the student's performance, usually assessed by a number of staff including an external assessor. With the drama and stage management courses, there was constant opportunity for staff to observe each other's work in what was effectively a team-teaching environment, and frequent staff meetings were held in which there could be discussion of the teaching processes. Both of these approaches were, however, likely to be informal and the consistency of their application and their reliability could not be taken for granted.
49 The School recently took an unusual and exciting step to support educational development and change through the appointment of a group of staff as course tutors (see above, paragraph 25). It was clear to the audit team, both from the records of meetings of course tutors and from its discussion with these staff, that they have seen themselves as 'change agents' with a strong involvement in quality and improvement. Many of their meetings have included reports on development in teaching and learning within the School's departments and sections, which took into account evaluative discussions with students. The course tutor group has devoted much time to the exploration of the distinctive educational culture of the School and has made considerable progress in achieving a higher level of interaction and cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas. The team welcomed this commitment of the course tutors to a high level of debate on the quality of student experience and the approaches to learning in the School. At the time of the audit, however, course tutors and their work were not firmly integrated into any structural arrangements within the School, and it was not clear whether these posts were to be a permanent feature of its work. Notwithstanding this, the team commends the School on the appointment of the course tutors, and on their work in creating a more cohesive learning environment.
50 While undoubtedly valuable, the considerations of teaching and learning outlined above were not managed or incorporated into the work of the School in a systematic way. Many valuable initiatives and innovations in teaching and learning were taking place in the School which were worthy of wider discussion and invited the sharing of good practice. It was therefore unfortunate that it was not possible to identify any arrangements for the assurance of teaching quality which were more formal and which could help the School as an organisation to evaluate the quality of its teaching and learning. As noted below (see paragraph 100), there was no appraisal system for its staff, nor any systematic peer observation of teaching. Outside the loosely organised course tutor group, there appeared to be no established forum or committee, and few regular opportunities, for the formal discussion of teaching and learning strategies.
51 Although boards of studies include in their terms of reference the aim 'to promote new ideas in teaching and course development', the audit team was disappointed to find very few examples of debate on such issues in the minutes of boards (although the boards had discussed a range of assessment-related issues). Similarly, the annual reports of departments to the Academic Board contained little mention of pedagogic debates or concerns. The School may therefore wish to consider the advisability of establishing a formal focus for the discussion and evaluation of teaching and learning strategy. This might be done by widening the remit of ABSC, and by developing more fully the information requirements from annual departmental reports, together with their consideration by that committee.
Resources for learning and teaching
52 The School benefits from modern purpose-built accommodation, which includes two theatres, three large performance/rehearsal spaces, and a 46-studio practice annex, and studios for audio-visual recording and electronic music. The teaching and learning activities of the School are heavily performance-based and this places considerable resource demands on the School with regard to the availability and management of space. The School has recently carried out a comprehensive review of its space needs, and the relationship of the accommodation available to the delivery of the curriculum. The Music and Drama Committee of the Corporation has considered these reports. One major change proposed was a restructuring of the teaching year.
53 The audit team heard that the best use of the available accommodation is accomplished by an effective booking system organised from the School's front desk, which allocates studio teaching rooms, and practice and rehearsal rooms to students. A Music Assistant has responsibility for orchestral administration, covering the booking of instruments, the organisation of rehearsals, helping students to manage their time effectively, and supporting all ensemble work.
54 The School possesses an extensive specialist library with over 75,000 items including sound and video recordings, music scores, play, film and radio scripts and a wide range of reference and context material. There is an on-line catalogue. A small networked computer suite provides access to the Internet and e-mail communications for all students. All students new to the School attend a Library induction and tour, and further tuition support is provided for small groups. The Library produces an annual report on its services.
55 In its discussions with students and staff, the audit team heard that although students valued the library facilities, they found that the opening hours were limited (especially in view of the pressure of study demands during the day for drama students). The information technology facilities were held by students and some staff to be currently inadequate to meet the needs of the School, especially in view of the growing impact of email as a communication tool in a dispersed academic community with many part-time staff. There was only limited input of library staff into course development and planning, and the team could not detect any ways in which a co-ordinated review of learning resources had taken place in relation to the changing curriculum.
The effectiveness of academic advisory, tutorial and counselling services
56 The audit team found that the School had no common policy for advisory and tutorial support, and its courses operated in different ways. One course allocated students to personal tutors, and the CPD programme of the School has a framework of individual mentoring relationships. On the BMus programme, the four Year Tutors have an overview of the progress of each individual student and provide guidance on their progress. The impression the team gained from students, however, was that the close individual teaching arrangements were the primary point of contact, and that if they experienced difficulties, students would turn to the Director of Music. This was because few other staff have offices, and communication with part-time staff was sometimes difficult. In general, students who met the team viewed the tutorial support arrangements as informal but broadly effective. They welcomed the appointment of the course tutors as an additional avenue of communication on pastoral matters and academic guidance, although some students were unsure of the exact role of these staff. The School may find it appropriate to make this aspect of the role of course tutors more explicit and better integrated into course management. It may also wish to consider the desirability of securing a more consistent approach to tutorial support across its programmes.
57 It follows from the above that the tutorial arrangements for giving the students feedback on their progress and achievement in their studies also varies considerably between the different programmes of study offered by the School. Course handbooks seen by the audit team contained clear details of the study and assessment requirements for the various stages of progression, but only one handbook included a section which described clearly how feedback on progress would take place. For Music students, the most important feedback was that received on a regular basis within the context of their instrumental studies with individual tutors. These students receive feedback on individual pieces of assessment and were also able to arrange to meet, at their request, with course tutors or the Director of Studies to discuss their work. It was not, however, clear to the team how Music students were able to gain information about their overall progress on the course.
58 The Drama Department has followed a policy of recording student achievement whilst not disclosing marks - other than when directly requested to do so - in order to foster the collaborative commitment of students and to lessen the possibility of creating a misleading impression of the overall pattern of individual development. In the later years of the Acting course, students' project work is evaluated on a group basis, and progress discussed in tutorials. Student self-assessment arrangements have recently been introduced within the Stage Management and Technical Theatre programme. Discussing the School's student record systems with staff, it appeared to the audit team that some of the subject areas in the School maintained fairly detailed files on the overall development of students. It was not clear to the team, however, how these were used with the students. The introduction of course tutors has provided an additional and more independent point of communication for feedback on progression. The team found that the majority of students in the Department believed that they were well informed, mainly through informal contact, about progress in their work.
59 The audit team was interested to hear of the variety of approaches to monitoring and discussing student progress, and noted the general view held by staff and students that they were adequate and effective. Nevertheless, the team considered that the largely informal and sometimes discrete nature of this aspect of academic communication might mean that some students could be overlooked and so be unclear or even misled about their development and progress in their chosen area of study. This was a particularly significant issue in those areas of the School's work where individual performance was still the central focus of assessment. The attention of the team was drawn to one such area in which a large proportion of students had failed in the final year of their course; circumstances which might have been avoided if earlier indications of progress had been available. The School might therefore wish to consider introducing arrangements which ensure that every student receives a formal statement on their progress, agreed by all the staff teaching them, at appropriate intervals in their studies, a suggestion which the School will wish to consider in tandem with that made in paragraph 37 above.
60 Drawing together some existing support elements, the School's Department of Welfare Services was established in 1996 and offers students assistance through its counselling service and advice on financial and health matters. The Head of Welfare Services is a full-time post, leading a team of 11 part-time staff which includes counsellors, a chaplain, a student health adviser, and advisory experts in Alexander technique and Shiatsu. The Student Health Adviser has a particular role in providing the necessary specialist medical attention to support students in relation to their professions and advising on health risks and prevention. The services available through the department are made known to students through briefings during the induction period and the first year and, if necessary, through reports to course committees; the Department carries out confidential surveys of students to assess their satisfaction with the service. The Department welcomed the appointment of course tutors and, through them, had been able to strengthen the network of support and contribute to discussions of the educational culture of the School. However, the Department is not represented on the committees of the School and the audit team found no evidence of formal links with other departments. The Head of Welfare Services reports annually to the Principal and the Welfare Services Report is considered by the Academic Board, which in 1997 had noted areas of good practice. Students endorsed the work of the Department and had high regard for its management. The team commends the School on the establishment and the effectiveness of its Department of Welfare Services, and on the links that the latter has sought to forge with staff and students.
61 The audit team heard strong concerns expressed by several students relating to the lack of a professional careers advisory service in the School. The School does offer lectures and career guidance sessions to students in their final year of study, but not all students are able to attend, and some students expressed doubts about their usefulness. Staff with whom the team met confirmed that there were no formally structured arrangements for qualified advice on careers or professional work, although such a service had been planned for the second phase of development of the School's Welfare Services. The School will wish to consider the advisability of reviewing the appropriateness and adequacy of the current level of careers advice available to its students.
The evaluation of support for teaching and learning
62 The audit team observed that the School appears to have no mechanism for integrating the planning and evaluation of its learning support services with the review of course delivery. As noted above, linkages between the services and the departments are generally weak, although the team welcomed the recent invitation to a representative of the Library to attend all academic committees.
63 The reports provided by the learning support services, while they were thorough and useful, are not discussed in committee or widely communicated. As a result, the audit team considered that there was a danger that there would be some difficulty in communicating and debating the impact of changing demand and student needs. For instance, one support service was described as being 'stretched to translucency', and students confirmed that pressures on it were creating problems of adequate support; but there was no evidence that persuaded the team that this information had been available in the decision-making levels of the School which could affect resource allocation.
64 The audit team recommends that the School consider the advisability of strengthening the integration of its learning support, welfare and advisory services into the more general management of student learning on courses and programmes of study. It will also wish to reflect on how it can best evaluate the effectiveness of these services within its wider consideration of the quality of student experience.
Student grievance and appeals procedures
65 At the time of the audit, the School had recently published a Student Code of Conduct, containing rules and disciplinary procedures relating to students in the School. The document includes a complaints procedure for use in the School but the audit team noted with surprise that the procedure did not include any provision for students to bring a grievance or complaint against a member of staff, or make provision for students to register any concerns about the educational provision and services of the School.
66 The students whom the audit team met were not clear about the School's arrangements for grievance or complaint and the team could find no standard source of such information. The student course and programme handbooks contained little reference to these matters - with only one handbook explaining the local arrangements for appeal against exclusion from the course. A similar lack of information is to be found on academic appeals against assessment decisions. For the validated programmes, the appeal arrangements are the responsibility of the validating Universities. One of these, City University, publishes a Student Handbook for students in validated institutions, which contains details of appeals procedures. However, this was not well known to students in the School. On the other hand, the team heard that students knew that the Registry of the School was the source of advice on appeals. The team saw evidence of cases of appeal, which had been properly managed, with the School drawing on advice from its validating body as necessary. It was not clear to the team, however, what procedures were in place for appeal in relation to the School's own awards.
67 The School may wish to consider the advisability of giving greater and more consistent prominence to its internal procedures for dealing with student complaints or grievance, thus fully meeting the expectations of the DfEE's Charter for Higher Education (see below, paragraph 103). The School may also wish to include within its course and programme handbooks a statement on the student right of academic appeal under its validation arrangements, and to develop analogous procedures for its own awards as necessary.
Academic standards, student assessment and the classification of awards
Academic standards
68 The School states as its purpose to 'provide the highest attainable quality of education and professional training'. It seeks to do this by attracting the 'most gifted teachers and students', thereby creating the culture and environment within which all can achieve their full artistic potential. It sees the major conservatoires as its principal institutional comparators, and monitors its standards through its direct engagement with the performance professions. Beyond this, the School does not articulate a formal policy on standards.
69 However, like many conservatoires, the School places significant emphasis on input measures for maintaining standards, with consequent weight given to the admissions process. Candidates have both formal auditions with a small panel of staff, where staff work with them on their performance pieces, and interviews with a member of the Directorate. Judgements on both auditions and interview are recorded on standard forms. The audit team saw examples of the scrupulousness with which these judgements are recorded and checked throughout the admissions process, and students spoke highly of the fruitfulness of the interaction approach, not least in giving them confidence in their own ability.
70 Documentation and discussions with staff also revealed that the School is moving towards a definition of output measures. The new Handbook includes a general section on Course Expectations; these are expanded in like sections relating to each of the major programmes and reproduced in course handbooks. Although couched in understandably general terms, these sections indicate a commendable attempt to define from the awards the overall outcomes for successful students, and it is clear that considerable thought and effort has gone into the descriptors.
Student assessment and the classification of awards
71 As reflected in their differing traditional cultures and geneses, the approach to assessment appears sharply divided between the theatre and music divisions of the School. The BMus revalidation document states that 'underlying the work and life of the School is a commitment to the principles of performance...which characterise a conservatoire'. In support of this priority, the assessment scheme and methods have been shaped towards the achieved performance of the individual student. A complex set of regulations, cross-referencing between grades and double-crediting sought to allow the gifted performer full rein, but proved over-elaborate. In response to external examiner concerns and other contrary evidence, staff moved to simplify the options and make the assessment scheme more readily understood by students and the many part-time tutors.
72 As well as the statements on course expectations, course and programme handbooks contain information on assessment schemes and, sometimes, appeals information. Perhaps reflecting the emphasis on high performance standards, care is also taken to define unacceptable standards and procedures in the event of failure, with this finding significant prominence within the text. While accepting the value of explicitness within this practice, the audit team considered that the School might wish to reflect on the desirability of expressing its descriptors in the positive terms of achievement, rather than the negative ones of failure.
73 Much emphasis in the Music programmes of study and courses remains on the assessment of the Principal Study. The students are assessed by a panel of specialist assessors, which includes at least one external assessor and a member of the Directorate, whose function is in part to confirm comparability. Nevertheless, the School remains alert to the difficulties of ensuring consistency of standards, and in its 'Analytical Self-Study' identified this as a matter to be addressed. In a fruitful development, the School has devised a performance assessment system for its external examinations in order to secure some comparability in grading.
74 The audit team notes the honesty with which the School has acknowledged the issue as one of concern, and would wish to encourage its staff in taking forward the initiatives both in defining and publishing output descriptors and in standardising assessment criteria. In further developing its assessment frameworks, the School might at some stage consider it desirable to move from these initiatives towards the articulation of grade and level criteria, as a means by which its standards might be clearly defined and measured against national comparators.
75 In contrast to the very individual bias of the music assessments, both the BA Stage Management and Technical Theatre and, even more particularly, the BA Acting employ a self-consciously collaborative approach to teaching and learning, through basing learning and assessment on group and joint project work. This involves both staff and students in a constant, iterative discussion of performance achievement, leading to a real level of self and peer assessment, although not always formally couched in these terms. Internal comparability is thus not perceived as a matter of concern on these awards. However, further imaginative steps have been taken by the staff of the BA Stage Management and Technical Theatre in using the School's 'CLEAR Performance Assessment Scheme' model for devising their own marking criteria against a range of student performance.
76 In the area of Performance and Communication Skills (PCS), the audit team saw interesting examples of self-assessment records with which, it learnt, staff had been thinking through the possibilities of regularising such processes into more formal methods of assessment. At present, the use of such formal methods does not appear to be widespread, and students to whom the team spoke had not yet had the experience of being assessed by such formal methods elsewhere in the School. These examples suggest that there is considerable good practice in involving students in their own assessment and sharing with them a sense of appropriate standards. In developing its processes, the School might wish to consider how the experience of the PCS programme could be more regularly identified and instances of good practice from that and other programmes more widely disseminated.
External examiners
77 The School is bound by the procedures of its validating Universities for the selection and appointment of external examiners, although it is able to nominate appropriate academics for approval. It has so far used external examiners in the customary sense only for its externally validated degree programmes. It has nevertheless employed what it has called 'external examiners' for its own Graduate Diploma programme over many years.
78 External examiner reports are sent to the Registrar of the validating University, and then forwarded to the School for consideration by the appropriate board of studies. Staff team responses are reported to the validating University; to date through the annual reports prepared by the Directors of Music, Drama and Technical Theatre (see above, paragraph 35). The School has recently adopted a clearer structure to support and endorse the response internally before forwarding it to the appropriate University. Thus, the responses should first be scrutinised by the Academic Board Standards Committee, before being sent to the validating University. The audit team cannot comment on the efficacy of this procedure as it has not yet been fully operated, but notes that it is in line with other emerging measures to develop a robust internal quality assurance process.
79 From the documentation submitted, the audit team found evidence that, through whatever channel, the external examiners' reports were fully discussed and elicited lively qualitative responses. It was also clear that, in general, where serious concerns were expressed, the staff took steps to address them, as evidenced by the amendments to grading practice and course regulations described above, insofar as staff believed that the reports appropriately reflected the ethos of the School.
External assessors
80 The School has previously followed the conservatoire practice in including external assessors in the final Principal Study examinations in the music specialisms. The external assessors are chosen from distinguished members of the profession, and are appointed for one session, renewable for further years if appropriate. They are expected to complete a report on the achievement of each individual student, and since 1996 they have been asked to prepare a more general report also. Previously, the relevant Head of Department has been responsible for the selection and appointment of the external assessors, but it is the intention of the School that the ABSC monitor the process in future.
81 The School intends that, in future, reports of both external examiners and external assessors should be subject to the same internal scrutiny, and responses to them monitored by ABSC. The audit team found abundant evidence that staff within the School did discuss and respond positively to the input from both sources, but the new structures have been put in place too recently to allow the team to confirm the consistency of the School's formal oversight of the reports.
Reliance on external input for the validation of standards
82 The School places heavy reliance on its external examiners for securing its standards vis à vis other institutions. It likewise relies on both external examiners and external assessors to confirm the professional achievements of its students. The students are thus measured against the requirements of the profession and the academic world through the interaction of these different assessment régimes. Qualitatively, the triangulation encourages the confidence that the School has a reasonably secure measure of standards. The School does not, however, yet regularly monitor its awards data against national data, and does not appear to have developed a reliable means of assuring itself that quantitatively its students as a body achieve what might be expected of them.
83 External specialists contribute to the work of School and inform its quality assurance processes in a number of ways. The audit team heard repeatedly how important it was for the School to receive advice and judgement on its work from professional practitioners in music and theatre. The School has many areas of collaboration with the professional artistic life in London.
84 In this way, as members of the Music and Drama Committee pointed out to the audit team, the School also submits its students to the acid test of public performance. In keeping with its professional dimension and overall educational purpose, the tradition of the School is to engage as a continuous process with members of the profession of recognised standing. The majority of tutors are practising artists and all assessment panels for performance have included external members. The team noted that there was some evidence of the appointed external examiners likewise being encouraged to take a very full role in the details of the assessment practice as well as its outcomes, and, as the School moves further into the academic validation of its programmes, to act as friend, confidant(e) and advisor in that development. The School might wish to consider whether such a close relationship is wholly advisable in the assurance of its assessment standards, and seek to separate the roles of advisor and examiner a little more distinctly as its range of validated awards increases (see also above, paragraphs 30 and 42).
Feedback and enhancement processes
85 Many members of the School, both staff and students, drew attention to the fact that the size of the School and the high level of staff-student contact in its work meant that a great deal of feedback was built into its processes in ways which were informal but nevertheless broadly effective. The audit team noted a generally shared conviction regarding the confidence of students to raise matters and the openness of staff to debate them. Perhaps as a result of this informal culture of responsiveness, the development of more formal arrangements for feedback and evaluation has been a matter for critical debate, and tentative introduction in the School.
Student representation
86 The Students' Union is a body funded by the Corporation, which also provides a sabbatical post for the position of President. The Union has recently been able to create a post of Student Representative Co-ordinator. The Union has also published, with the support of the School, an informative and helpful Students' Union Guide. The audit team heard from the officers of the Union strong expressions of interest and concern regarding their role in representing effectively the views of students on policy and academic matters. Notwithstanding this, the team found that the Union was still regarded by the majority of students and staff in the School as being primarily concerned with extra-curricular activities. The team concluded that the School's recognition of the representative, consultative and supportive potential of the Union was still at an early stage of development and that the Union's view of its own potential was only just beginning to mature. The team commends the School on the recent strengthening of the Union but also suggests that further discussion of its role and responsibilities would now be appropriate.
87 The School involves students in its decision-making processes by participation in committees at several levels. The President of the Students' Union and four elected students are members of the Academic Board. Officers of the Students' Union are invited to attend meetings of the Directorate for specific items. The audit team noted, however, that ABSC, which has a remit to 'report on the quality of student experience', has no student members. All the boards of studies for validated programmes include in their membership student representatives from the main subject areas of the programme and the Board meetings include student matters as a formal item, also providing a formal process for obtaining a student response to questions connected with teaching and the curriculum. Student representatives on the School committees confirmed that they received agendas and papers for meetings and were invited to contribute at boards of studies. The team was told that there was less clarity regarding the procedural arrangements for the meetings with the Directorate. The team was not able to identify any formal arrangements for training student representatives, or for supporting students in their participation in committees. The team did however hear of good practice in one subject area, where there were regular arrangements in place for student representatives to consult with other students and gather issues for report before the Board of Studies meeting. The School may wish to consider the advisability of reviewing the involvement of its student representatives in its academic and policy discussions and to consider ways in which students can be more effectively prepared for participation in the work of committees (see above, paragraph 44).
Student feedback
88 Individual students are able to communicate their views on their study experience through a variety of channels. Full-time staff are in regular and close contact with students in production and performance work, and expect to hear their comments and concerns. The Directors of Studies follow an 'open-door' policy, and for many students they are the first point of enquiry and of comment on courses. The course tutors have also taken on a significant role in student consultation, and believe that a part of their task is to act as a communication channel between students and the School's management. In some departments, course tutors meet with students on a regular one-to-one basis to discuss their progress and experience with the programme. More formal arrangements were also reported to the audit team. In some departments of the School, general meetings are held once a month with all students on a programme, and action points identified in the meeting are noted. One department had recently introduced a 'focus-group' discussion with students, while another had introduced written questionnaires relating to the student experience of the course. The locus of good practice seemed to the team to be within the Technical Theatre/Drama divisions; with fewer part-time staff than other divisions, and a mode of team working that is integral, it is not surprising that the student feedback should be better established in these divisions.
89 The initiatives outlined above were recognised by the audit team, as was the fact that in a relatively small organisation, feedback and reflection can often be carried out effectively through more informal processes. It also found that, while many students with whom it met were in favour of a more systematic approach to feedback, the majority also expressed satisfaction that they could make their views known if necessary. Nevertheless, the team concluded that the commitment to the introduction of student feedback arrangements is uneven across the different subject areas of the School, and that there is little consistency in the pattern of information sought from students in relation to their learning. In this context, the team was interested to note that the School had been strongly encouraged by its validating Universities to obtain student feedback in a more systematic way, perhaps by use of a standard course questionnaire. This issue had been a matter for protracted debate in ABSC, where it was considered by one member to be 'a long term problem within the School'. ABSC had received a paper giving a thorough review of the approaches to student feedback in the School, and the responses of departments to a more standardised approach. The Committee had not, however, yet been able to recommend a policy in this area. This was partly due to an understandable concern regarding the resource implications of distributing and analysing a standard School-wide questionnaire. It also seemed possible to the team that there was some confusion in the School between the students' assessment of their own learning (ie self-assessment, peer assessment, or profiling) and their feedback on the quality of the general learning experience offered by a course (including evaluation of teaching effectiveness). The team also observed that the discussion of feedback questionnaires in the School had focused very closely on the experience of individual course programmes, whereas one potential benefit from such feedback is an evaluation of the centrally provided learning resources (see above, paragraph 55).
90 The audit team welcomed the recognition in the School's 'Analytical Self-Study' that there was a need for universal student feedback, and it appreciated the seriousness with which the School's committees had debated this major aspect of quality assurance. The team agreed strongly with the School's own view that this is a major challenge which needs a more structured approach. It recommends, as a matter of necessity, that the School now acts rapidly to develop a framework for student feedback, which is appropriate to its needs, but at the same time consistent and generally applied across its courses and programmes of study.
External feedback
91 The School benefits from many sources of external feedback including external examiners, external assessors, professional practitioners and public audiences. The perspective of the professions is also provided by the presence on the Academic Board of three external representatives of high standing, with relevant professional expertise in the main areas of the School's work. One could add to that list the advice and support on aspects of academic development that are available to the School from its validating Universities. The audit team also observed that from time to time the School had invited external consultants to advise on areas of its work; for instance its management and committee structure, or the work of its Registry.
92 The audit team considered that together these different relationships provide the School with a high level of external information and advice on the quality of its work and heard how, in the different subject areas of the School, the perspective of individual external professionals was valued and used. What was less clear to the team was how the School draws on outside advice in a more co-ordinated and general way on the quality of its work. Although the external membership of the Academic Board can undoubtedly be valuable, the team noted that the School has not established any general advisory body from the professions which might assist it in ensuring its responsiveness to developments in the artistic professions, and the maintenance of academic standards within the School. Thus the flow of external advice, and the response to it, were focused almost entirely at the level of the department. The team could not therefore be entirely confident that the School has the necessary arrangements in place to assure the effectiveness of this process in informing the quality of its provision. In the light these comments, the team recommends that the School considers the advisability of strengthening further the role of the Academic Board Standards Committee in taking a general overview of external perspectives upon the work of the School and the standards of its programmes.
Quality enhancement
93 The audit team heard of many examples of innovation and good practice at the level of the section, department and course within the School. The evidence from staff indicated that many of these developments are not widely shared, and that the cultures of different subject areas in the School are quite sharply divided. This sense of particularity of discipline makes it difficult to share the many areas of demonstrated good practice more widely across the School, and to develop more fully the artistic collaboration which is a part of the School's aims. Several students and also some staff whom the team met regretted that the potential for collaborative cross-School projects was not further advanced, but they found it difficult to see how such initiatives might be taken forward.
94 One positive development in this respect had been the appointment of the course tutors. The records of the initial meetings of this group of staff showed a ferment of new ideas for creating a more cohesive learning environment in the School, and for a number of shared initiatives. This work had led to the first annual Guildhall Festival. The audit team gained the impression that the exchange of ideas in this forum had lost some impetus and direction in the course of the year. Nevertheless, the course tutors group provides very valuable opportunities for a 'horizontal' sharing of ideas, for the promotion of cross-School innovation in teaching and learning, and for a sharper focus on enhancement and improvement.
Staff appointment, development, promotion and reward
95 The School staffing establishment in 1997-98 consisted of 37 salaried academic staff (Directors, some heads of department and teaching staff), 45 salaried members of support services, 16 salaried members of the Initial Studies Department and 450 hourly paid teaching staff. Salaried staff are employees of the Corporation of London. The part-time staff are largely self-employed and their services are bought in by the School; the audit team was made aware that there was no contractual relationship between either the School or the Corporation and the part-time teaching staff. Some part-time staff had been contributing to the School's teaching programmes for decades; some had part-time loads that equated to over 20 hours per week.
96 The School's administration has access to the personnel expertise of the Corporation of London, the policies of which it is required to follow. With part-time appointments, there has been recent evidence of a formal procedure for appointing and approving singing teachers, involving a panel of professors; but, disappointingly, this experiment has not been sustained. Otherwise, the audit team was informed, appointments might depend on invitations or contacts with colleagues familiar with a potential candidate's strengths; in one case, the familiarity was strengthened by a family link. This intimate method of appointments (described by one appointee as 'organic'), even if it results in absolutely no diminution of standards, does raise issues of equal opportunities and does appear not to be consistent with the Corporation's declared policies in this area. Although the team was told that the School complied with the Corporation's advertising policies and appointments procedure, the School will wish to consider the necessity of engaging in early discussions with the Corporation on the consistent implementation of the latter's personnel policies and procedures.
Part-time staffing matters
97 It follows from the School's pursuit of excellence that it seeks to recruit the very best staff. In music, many of its part-time staff are prestigious performers in professional orchestras as well as being reputed teachers, and it is their pre-eminence and the prospect of working under their tutelage that attracts students from all over the world. Because part-time staff are self-employed, the audit team was told that their employment by the School tended not to be a result of a public advertisement but rather a recognition of a need that a specific (possibly unique) outside provider alone could meet. This purchaser/provider relationship has implications for matters such as induction for part-time staff, staff development, appraisal and promotion, none of which appears to take place. It also challenges the capacity of the School to communicate effectively to all its teaching staff questions of fundamental importance to quality and standards. The team heard that the School was aware of the difficulties that the procedures described in the Handbook caused for part-time staff, some of whom had a significant but nevertheless peripheral relationship with the School. The matter is of obvious importance given the fact that, as a whole, part-time teachers represent by far the largest employment group and that some part-time staff also play substantial managerial roles as heads of department or course tutors.
98 Attendance at meetings for part-time staff is variously dealt with, some contributing free time out of goodwill and loyalty, others in receipt of some remuneration. The involvement of part-time staff in quality assurance activities, while sometimes impressive (as witnessed by their knowledgeable engagements with the audit team) can also be patchy or serendipitous (with the drama departments, by and large, being more successful in integrating part-time staff, mainly because they are fewer and because of the predominance of team working). The School will wish to consider the necessity of ensuring that all its part-time staff are familiar with its quality assurance arrangements, its assessment policies and procedures, and that all apply such policies and procedures consistently.
Staff development and appraisal
99 There is a well-established staff development scheme within the Corporation of London which is open to staff members of the School (although knowledge of this opportunity is not uniform) and School funds are also available for staff development, disbursed in accordance with a code of practice. Evidence of collective staff development in formal and less formal contexts (for example, away days) was encouraging; and the Handbook gives examples of staff training (professional training; higher degrees and teacher training; training in Information Technology; Corporation courses for senior and middle managers; and training for staff working in Welfare and Student Services). But the volume, purpose and effectiveness of this activity appeared to the audit team to pass without comment.
100 The locus of responsibility for identifying School-wide staff development needs, for judging priorities against funding constraints or for eliciting individually perceived staff development needs is unclear and there is no explicitly articulated School staff development policy. The audit team was told that 'staff development is a no-go area in conservatoires', an approach which seems to have underpinned a conscious decision not to have a staff development committee within the School. In this context it was not surprising that many of the staff who met the team were unfamiliar with issues of staff development and appraisal (and even less with their relationship to academic quality assurance), and that the School had yet to develop a formal scheme of staff appraisal. The School will wish to consider the necessity of introducing formal staff appraisal and staff development processes which will enable the coupling of personal developmental needs and corporate needs and serve to support a cross-School strategy on teaching and learning.
101 It was not possible for the audit team to discern any procedure for rewarding staff for contributing significantly to the quality of the School's provision. A staff handbook is, however, in the process of development. The team welcomes this initiative and recommends it as a necessary step to bring greater clarity on issues such as staff appointments, terms and conditions of part-time staff, staff development, appraisal and rewards. An essential component of such a staff handbook will be a statement on equal opportunities.
Content of promotional material relating to academic provision
102 The School is fortunate in that one of its units is the Guildhall Press.
The quality of publications by the Press is high and the content accurate,
as far as the audit team could ascertain. None of the students met by the
team raised any concerns. Indeed, many acknowledged that the promotional
material was of only secondary importance in their decision to apply to
the School: reputation was what mattered.
Expectations of the DfEE's Charter for Higher Education
103 In making its preparations for the audit, the School had reviewed the standards laid out in the Charter document with regard to good service, support and advice to students, and concerning the information given to them about the structure and regulation of courses. While the special status of the School regarding funding and fees meant that not all sections of the Charter were necessarily applicable, it was the judgement of the School that the majority of expectations was already met through its existing arrangements and the audit team was able to confirm that the course handbooks, the Students' Union Guide, and the recently published Student Code of Conduct addressed some of the Charter's information requirements. The School has made copies of the Charter available to its students, but the team was not able to identify any students, or officers of the Students' Union, who were familiar with the document. In their discussion with the team, members of the Corporation Music and Drama Committee were interested to learn of the existence of the Charter. The School will wish to consider the advisability of constructing an explicit Charter statement, appropriate and relevant to the work and culture of the School and, within that context, reviewing and strengthening the channels of communication, at the School-level, regarding the entitlements of students, the services available to them, and the support that they can expect, as well as the responsibilities and requirements that are laid upon them.
Conclusions and points for further consideration
104 Guildhall School of Music & Drama aims to provide the highest attainable quality of education and professional training in music and drama. It has a tradition of innovation of which it is justly proud. Currently, in response to the changing demands of the external employment market, it is seeking to adjust the balance between developing in students the highest standards of performing skill and developing other qualities of individual autonomy, curiosity, leadership, flexibility and risk-taking. Such a large strategic shift and its consequences are not yet articulated in any Corporate Plan that plots the development of the School over the next five years or so. Yet this shift has inevitable implications for the curriculum, assessment, teaching and learning methods, learning resources, staff development and therefore the structure by which the quality of provision can be assured. The Directorate has shown itself to be admirably aware of these implications and has itself demonstrated those wider qualities that the School is wishing to instil in its students. Whilst being protective of the School's autonomy, the Directorate has provoked the curiosity of colleagues into looking at systems and processes largely alien to previous ways of operating; it has encouraged flexibility and it has taken risks.
105 The audit team acknowledges the persuasiveness of the School's description of itself as 'an institution which combines the standards and organic processes typical of its traditions with more formal current standards of public accountability in education', but questions whether the current balance is likely to serve its ambition to change. The School needs to recognise that quality assurance procedures are not just a matter of public accountability; if they are seen only as such, then they will justifiably be regarded as restricting requirements imposed in order to comply with external demands. This latter view, which has some prevalence within the School, is likely to be unhelpful to it in its further development. Elsewhere in higher education, the most convincing and productive adoption of quality assurance processes is built upon a recognition by an institution that it needs to assure itself, not others, of the quality of its provision. This internalisation ought to come close, the team believes, to what the School means by 'organic processes'; and this possible convergence should encourage those engaged in the journey towards a quality assurance framework fully attuned to the School's particularities yet more recognisable as consonant with mainstream higher education systems.
106 The audit team recognises that the size and homogeneity, and the intimate relations characteristic of the School, may constitute a basis for assuring quality grounded in less formal processes. It certainly would not wish to recommend the elaboration of highly systematised processes, most of which would impose unnecessary bureaucratic burdens whilst serving little purpose. But it does believe that informal processes can obstruct clarity of purpose, leave gaps undetected, disguise the difference between the important and the less important, encourage an acceptance of the satisfactory rather than a desire to enhance quality and prevent a confident assessment of corporate progress. It seemed to the team that the School was seeking to avoid the latter dangers without falling into the former. It is hoped that the recommendations in this report will prove helpful as the School reflects further upon and develops its arrangements for the quality assurance of its provision and for safeguarding the standards of the awards to which it leads.
107 The audit team commends the School for:
i its commitment to excellence in artistic performance and the lively interaction between staff and students made possible by a belief in informal systems and in staff accessibility (passim);
ii its willingness to open up its internal conversation to the external audience of auditors (paragraph 21);
iii the seriousness with which it is engaging with accepted quality assurance procedures and the advances it has already made (paragraphs 23 and 32);
iv setting up the Academic Board Standards Committee to oversee key activities in academic quality assurance and the maintenance of academic standards (paragraph 24);
v its responsiveness at the highest levels of management to changing patterns of musical education and the 'music market place' (paragraph 44);
vi its commitment to establishing definitions of quality and identifying the achievements expected of its students (paragraph 47);
vii the appointment of the course tutors, and their work in creating a more cohesive learning environment (paragraph 49);
viii the establishment of the Department of Welfare Services, and the links that it has sought to forge with staff and students (paragraph 60);
ix the recent strengthening of the role of the Students' Union (paragraph
86).
108 As the School develops its quality assurance arrangements it may wish to consider the necessity of:
i developing more fully the existing Quality Assurance Handbook, taking into account previous work, so as to relate to all appropriate aspects of the quality assurance process (paragraph 20);
ii examining the appropriateness of its approach to engaging external sources of advice with a particular view to clarifying the distinctiveness of the various roles and ensuring that these are separately and robustly discharged (paragraphs 31, 42 and 84);
iii engaging the Music and Drama Committee and the staff and students of the School in setting out the School's corporate vision in a way that reflects its tradition and culture (paragraph 44);
iv developing a framework for student feedback, which is appropriate to its needs, but at the same time consistent and generally applied across its courses and programmes of study (paragraph 90);
v engaging in early discussions with the Corporation of London with a view to the consistent implementation of its personnel policies and procedures (paragraph 96);
vi pursuing a solution to the problems, found amongst part-time staff, of ensuring consistency in assessment, of uncertain familiarity with quality assurance matters and variable understanding of changes within the institution (paragraph 98).
vii implementing a more formal School-wide staff development and appraisal scheme so as to underpin a cross-School strategy for teaching and learning (paragraph 100);
viii producing a staff handbook in order to bring greater clarity on issues such as staff appointments, terms and conditions of part-time staff, staff development, appraisal, rewards and on equal opportunities (paragraph 101);
to consider the advisability of:
ix strengthening the remit of the Academic Board Standards Committee to include the discussion and evaluation of teaching and learning strategies and responsibility for taking a general overview of external perspectives upon the work of the School and the standards of its programmes (paragraphs 24, 32, 51 and 92);
x involving the support service providers more closely in the planning of its developing portfolio in order to secure a fully-rounded quality of provision (paragraph 29);
xi reviewing its presentation of statistical evidence as it refines its monitoring processes in order to assure itself that possible problems are identified at an early stage (paragraph 37);
xii making the guidance and pastoral role of course tutors more explicit and better integrated into course management (paragraph 56);
xiii introducing arrangements which ensure that every student receives a formal statement on their progress, agreed by all the staff teaching them, at appropriate intervals in their studies (paragraph 59);
xiv reviewing the appropriateness and adequacy of the current level of careers advice to students (paragraph 61);
xv strengthening the integration of its learning support, welfare and advisory services into the more general management of student learning on courses (paragraph 64);
xvi giving greater and more consistent prominence to its internal procedures for dealing with student appeals, complaints or grievance, thus fully meeting the expectations of the DfEE's Charter for Higher Education (paragraph 67);
xvii engaging in further discussion on the role and responsibilities of the Students' Union (paragraph 86);
xviii reviewing the involvement of its student representatives, with a view to receiving student input into all relevant discussions, and considering ways in which students can be more effectively prepared for participation in the work of committees (paragraph 87);
xix pursuing its consideration of an explicit Charter statement appropriate and relevant to the work and culture of the School so that it can simultaneously strengthen the channels of communication, at the School level, regarding the entitlements of students, the services available to them, and the support that they can expect, as well as the responsibilities and requirements that are laid upon them (paragraph 103)
and to consider the desirability of:
xx developing more consistency in the communication and evaluation of its learning objectives (paragraph 47);
xxi securing a more consistent approach to tutorial support across its programmes (paragraph 56);
xxii expressing its descriptors of standards in the positive terms of achievement rather than the negative ones of failure (paragraph 72);
xxiii moving towards the articulation of grade and level criteria, as a means by which its standards might be clearly defined and measured against national comparators (paragraph 74);
xxiv identifying instances of good practice in the PCS and other programmes for wider dissemination (paragraph 76).
Appendix 1
Governance and management arrangements
1 Governance
Guildhall School of Music & Drama is wholly owned by the Corporation of London and administered by its Music and Drama Committee.
2 Executive management
There are five areas of responsibility overseen by a Director who reports to the Principal: Administration, Drama, Initial Studies, Music and Technical Theatre. The School's Executive Group is the Directorate which meets weekly and has various committees each chaired by a member of the Directorate. The Head of Research and Development has overall responsibility for Performance and Communication Skills, staff development and research.
Within Music there is an Assistant Director and six Departments each with a Head: Music Studies, Strings, Wind and Percussion, Keyboard Studies, Vocal Studies and Composition. There are Heads of Courses for Advanced Instrumental Studies, Jazz & Studio Music, Music Therapy and Opera, and Co-ordinators for Postgraduate Studies, Performance and Communication Skills and Early Music.
The Department of Drama has Heads of Acting, Voice, Movement and Drama Studies. The Department of Technical Theatre has a Deputy Director and eight areas of study: Stage Management, Stage Craft & Technical Stage Management, Scenic Construction, Scene-Painting, Prop-making, Electrics & Lighting, Sound and Wardrobe.
The Department of Initial Studies comprises the Examinations Service and
the Junior School.
3 Academic management
Academic overview is with the Academic Board; the Academic Board Standards Committee; Boards of Study for Music, Drama, Stage Management and Technical Theatre, Music Therapy, Composition and the two Executive Committees of the Examinations Service report to the Academic Board. Assessment Boards are convened for all courses leading to an approved award.
4 Course Tutors
Nineteen members of the teaching staff, from all departments, were appointed Course Tutors in 1997. They have a general liaison role between staff, students and administration, and various specific responsibilities across the School and within departments. The Course Tutor programme is an innovation which contributes to organisational flexibility and cohesion between the different parts of the Guildhall community. It is co-ordinated by the Head of Research and Development, reporting to the Directorate, while the individual Tutors work closely with their respective department heads and the Directors of Music, Drama and Technical Theatre.
5 Major committees: roles
i Music and Drama Committee
Role
The Music and Drama Committee is a Committee of the Corporation of London
whose responsibilities include the Government of Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
ii Directorate
Role
Directorate is the executive committee for the School and meets fortnightly during term. It has responsibility to extend the vision of the School and to deal with the practicalities of management, including all financial and resources decisions.
Directorate committees
Finance and Personnel Committee; Physical Resources Committee with an Information Technology Sub-Committee; Research Committee; Development Committee; Guildhall Press.
Role
These committees have been established to assist the Directorate in particular areas of the School's work.
iii Academic Board
Role
The Academic Board meets termly to consider all reports from the School's Boards of Studies and related boards. It provides representation from interested parties within the School and from the professions and has the responsibility for maintaining and improving the educational quality of the School.
iv Academic Board Standards Committee
Role
The Academic Board Standards Committee ensures high quality in all educational areas. The Committee meets monthly with additional meetings as needed.
v Boards of Studies
Role
These Boards exist for courses leading to a degree or a diploma. The Boards of Studies are responsible both to the Academic Board of the School and to the Senate of the appropriate external validating institution. Their terms of reference, procedures and conduct have been specifically drawn up in accordance with the validating institution's regulations.
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