Inspection of the learning community
surrounding Stranraer Academy
Dumfries and Galloway Council
6 May 2014
Transforming lives through learning
1. Context
Community learning and development (CLD) partners within the area of Stranraer
Academy were inspected by Education Scotland during March 2014. During the visit
Education Scotland staff talked to children, young people and adults. We worked
closely with local CLD managers, CLD providers, partners, paid staff and volunteers.
We wanted to find out how well partners are improving the life chances of people
living in the community through learning, building stronger more resilient
communities and improving the quality of services and provision. We also looked at
how well, paid staff and volunteers are developing their own practices and how well
partners, including schools are working together. We looked at some particular
aspects of recent work which were identified by partners including:


progress in implementing strategic guidance for community learning and
development; and
supporting youth transitions across partners.
2. How well are partners improving learning, increasing life chances,
promoting and securing wellbeing?
CLD partners are increasing their focus on early intervention and prevention which is
having a positive impact on improving the life chances of local people. Partners
have very good knowledge of the needs of the local community and have
established clear priorities to address these. Partners have a strong focus on
improving health and wellbeing and increasing employability. Incidents of anti-social
behaviour and school exclusions are decreasing as a result of earlier and more
effective intervention. Levels of attainment and achievement are rising across the
school and learning community although the numbers of young people achieving
positive destinations is declining. Partners do not have a system in place for sharing
information on learner achievements which makes it difficult to track overall
progress. They have identified this as an area for improvement. Partners recognise
a need to strengthen their approaches to progression for all learners and improve
their support for young people in their post school transition. They acknowledge that
improved planning and coordination of services would help to provide more options
and choices for young people in 4th, 5th and 6th year and increase opportunities to
support achievement. Although partnership approaches to joint planning and
developing shared outcomes are improving, partners do not yet have systems in
place to gather evidence on their overall impact on performance.
Family learning provision is well established and is helping to increase confidence,
develop parenting skills and build family relationships. Further targeting and focus
on early years, would help support earlier intervention. The home link worker and
family learning coordinator, working in partnership with local primary schools, provide
highly effective support for young people during their transition from primary to
secondary school. They make good use of the Aiming for High programme which
helps young people to explore their concerns and build their confidence and skills for
learning. The drop-in facility operating in Stranraer Academy provides a safe place
for young people at lunchtime to meet and access learning and support from CLD
partners. Young people are accessing positive volunteering opportunities including
1
acting as peer mentors at the Youth Café in the local community. A few young
people are progressing to college courses as a result of the effective support and
encouragement they are receiving from staff and other volunteers. Participation in
Galloway Youth Peer Project is having a range of positive impacts on both adults
and young people with additional support needs. The project is helping mentors
develop their confidence, communication and social skills and is creating support
networks. Through their participation in these programmes, young people are
accessing opportunities to participate in award programmes including The Duke of
Edinburgh’s Award, Dynamic Youth, John Muir and Youth Achievement Awards.
Adult learners participating in English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) and
other programmes are increasing their confidence, improving their wellbeing and
building their employability skills. Adult learners could be better supported in their
learning through the use of individual learning plans and clearer progression
pathways. Partners should consider how they can improve their approach to
celebrating the achievements of adult learners. As the population of older people in
the learning community continues to increase, partners should develop their focus on
meeting their needs.
Young people and adults work well together to promote community activities that are
strengthening the learning community. These include litter picks, Stranraer Music
Town and the local folk festival. A range of community organisations including the
local churches and Apex Scotland are working together to address the impact of
welfare reform and increasing poverty through the provision of food banks. A wide
range of community organisations working in partnership are having a range of
positive impacts. This includes Building Healthy Communities addressing health
inequalities. The community resilience group involve local people in taking action to
tackle the impact of severe weather conditions and shaping and delivering local
services. There is a strong emphasis on community engagement which is measured
against Scottish Government’s targets for community engagement. Partners are
taking further action to enhance the participation of young people through the youth
involvement framework. Community groups value the support they receive and are
clear about the need for this to continue to strengthen their role and impact further.
CLD partners should consider how they can continue to build the influence of local
people. The waterfront development provides a good opportunity for them to
influence and shape services that will improve the local community. CLD partners
should develop clearer outcomes for building the capacity of the local community
and improve how they gather information on the impact.
3. How well are partners working together and improving the quality of
services and provision?
CLD partners are using a range of effective methods to evaluate how well they are
improving services. CLD staff have continued to evaluate their work against
planning priorities although they do not currently have a performance management
information system in place to gather evidence of impact. CLD partners use a range
of positive approaches to engage learners and stakeholders in self-evaluation and
are increasingly making effective use of social media to engage with them. There
are positive examples where services are working together in delivering services for
young people and supporting employability. CLD partners are beginning to plan
2
together and develop shared outcomes to promote health and wellbeing. There is a
strong commitment to workforce development which is having a positive impact in
developing approaches to Curriculum for Excellence and Getting it Right for Every
Child. Linking workforce development to i-develop and the competences for CLD
would help strengthen opportunities for further development of staff and volunteers.
CLD partners provide good quality support and opportunities for volunteers to
develop their skills. Building Healthy Communities provides a good example of
volunteers being supported effectively to ensure the delivery of sustainable services.
Overall, partnership approaches are having a positive impact in improving services.
However, partners now recognise the need to develop more formal partnership
approaches that will help improve planning, develop a clearer focus on outcomes
and enhance approaches to shared self-evaluation. CLD partners demonstrate
strong leadership and a clear sense of direction in taking forward the CLD strategic
guidance.
This inspection of learning and development in the learning community surrounding
Stranraer Academy found the following key strengths.




Strong focus across CLD partners to support and improve the life chances of
local people based on very good knowledge of priority needs.
Programmes that are resulting in positive outcomes for participants.
Community organisations which are shaping and delivering local services.
Leadership providing effective management of change and clear direction.
We discussed with partners how they might continue to improve their work. This is
what we agreed with them.



Build on partnership approaches to gathering, analysing and making use of
overall performance information to support improvement.
Continue to strengthen partnership across learning providers to further enhance
young people’s learning experiences, achievements and post school transitions.
Take forward actions resulting from needs assessments to continue to increase
focus on early intervention and prevention across partners.
4. What happens at the end of the inspection?
We are satisfied with the overall quality of provision. We are confident that the
learning community’s self-evaluation processes are leading to improvements. As a
result, we will make no further evaluative visits in connection with this inspection.
During the inspection, we identified aspects of innovative practice which we would
like to explore further. As a result we will work with the learning community and
education authority in order to record and share more widely the innovative practice.
Anne Gibson
HM Inspector
6 May 2014
3
Additional inspection evidence, such as details of the quality indicator evaluations,
for this learning community can be found on the Education Scotland website at
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inspectionandreview/reports/othersectors/com
munitylearninganddevelopment/stranraeracademylc.asp
If you would like to receive this report in a different format, for example, in a
translation you can contact the administration team on 01506 600381.
If you want to give us feedback or make a complaint about our work, please contact
us by telephone on 0141 282 5000, or e-mail:
complaints@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk or write to us, addressing your letter to
The Complaints Manager, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Livingston,
EH54 6GA.
Text phone users can contact us on 01506 600 236. This is a service for deaf users.
Please do not use this number for voice calls as the line will not connect you to a
member of staff.
Crown Copyright 2014.
Education Scotland
4