How City College Plymouth achieved award-winning productivity gains

Like many of the best edtech innovations, City College Plymouth’s AI-powered Quality of Education app was developed in response to a simple question: how can we make life easier for our staff?

The college’s workload focus group went looking for answers. One of the main staff activities they decided to explore in more detail was the teaching observation process.

Paul Fanshawe, the college’s executive of business intelligence, growth and skills, says:

“If you’re tasked with doing observations, it takes a lot of time out of your working day."

“Alongside the time spent observing, there’s also the write-up, which typically takes around 30 to 45 minutes. Then comes the post-observation work, like identifying support or training needs. It’s a fairly intensive process, and as a college, we’re conducting up to 1,000 observations each year.”

Guided by the college’s digital strategy, and under the lead of Byron Love, the digital teaching, learning and innovation lead, the College set out to find a practical, cloud-first solution that would reduce the administrative burden for everyone. With the help of Nadia McCusker, the College’s director of quality improvement, they discovered a way to tackle the problem for free, using resources already at their disposal.

Powerful tools you already pay for

Google AppSheet is a flexible, no-code platform you can use to create your own apps.

Paul says:

“Normally, if you were looking to develop an app, you’d need up to three months of specialist support to write and test the code and reiterate the design. With AppSheet, you can deliver complex technical solutions with zero technical skills.

“You can activate this product that’s very likely already in your existing Google package. You don’t have to pay extra for it.

"For Microsoft users, there’s an equivalent called Power Apps, which for most colleges is included for free in your enterprise license.

“We built our app from the ground up and deployed it across the whole college in about six weeks. If we were to build another app now, we could probably do it in just over two weeks.”

Paul is quick to stress that their app-building success is a replicable feat for other institutions looking to follow in City College Plymouth’s footsteps.

“Any college could do what we’ve done. You’re already paying for the technology - you just need to identify your problem and allocate some time to solving it.”

More time for everyone

The college’s Quality of Education app has delivered time savings and vital analytics data throughout the organisation - from capturing the notes and reflections of the individual observer, through to big-picture strategic insights into training needs and development themes.

The observation feedback notes are automatically analysed using AI to produce actionable recommendations. The lecturer under observation gets signposted to the relevant self-serve training resources, and the college’s learning coaches and support specialists are notified about any particular training needs.

Staff members under observation are encouraged to actively engage with the feedback through 1:1 support and add their own reflections to the findings. The staff team have responded well to the new approach, which Paul attributes to the immediacy and consistency of the support provided.

“There was nervousness at first, but as soon as the first few people started to see it in action, it just flew.

“As a staff member, it feels less punitive and more developmental, because you’re getting immediate help to improve your classes. It becomes a more productive conversation.”

The quality team are also feeling the benefits, as the AI automatically sifts the staff data and picks out themes. This more granular approach allows the college to tailor its training days much more closely to the personalised learning needs of each individual staff member, as well as identify wider trends and gaps for development.

Rewarding innovation

Paul and the City College Plymouth team are still basking in their deserved win at the Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Awards - and everything that came with it.

“We’ve wanted to win the Beacon Award for digital for many years.

“We were up against two colleges we respect greatly (Basingstoke College of Technology and USP College). Being benchmarked against them really gave us that validation, that confidence that we’re a leading digital college."

Paul and Nadia were also invited to share their journey and insights at our Connect More 2025 event.

“We’ve built so many connections, with so many colleges reaching out, looking to share best practice - it's been fantastic.”

Since the award, teaching staff have begun to embed the AppSheet platform in the curriculum, with students in vocational subjects like hospitality and sports science now creating apps for their own learning purposes.

Paul and the team don’t intend to rest on their laurels. “As well as version two of our quality assurance app, we’re creating a route map for greater automation and better outputs in other areas, so watch this space!”