HM Inspectorate of Education
1st Floor, Endeavour House, 1 Greenmarket, Dundee DD1 4QB
t 01382 576700
f 01382 576701
e hmi.dundee@hmie.gsi.gov.uk
w www.hmie.gov.uk
23 August 2011
Dear Parent/Carer
Aboyne Academy
Aberdeenshire Council
Recently, as you may know, my colleagues and I visited and inspected your child’s school.
Throughout our visit we talked to many parents and young people and we worked closely with
the headteacher and staff. We wanted to find out how well young people are learning and
achieving and how well the school supports children to do their best. The headteacher
shared with us the school’s successes and priorities for improvement. We looked at several
aspects of the school’s recent work including the school’s assessment and tracking
procedures, partnerships with agencies to support learning and how young people make links
across what they learn. As a result, we were able to find out how good the school was at
improving young people’s education. I would now like to tell you what we found.
How well do young people learn and achieve?
Young people learn and achieve very well within a caring and vibrant school community.
They are confident, articulate and engaged in what they learn. They are able to reason,
evaluate and tackle problems well. In the best lessons, they are involved in searching
discussion and questioning by teachers which helps them to think for themselves. They use
the variety of feedback from teachers to understand their strengths and think about how they
can improve. Most teachers gather the views of young people about lessons in a range of
ways. More information on what is done with the views gathered would be welcomed by
young people. The mentoring programme helps young people to talk about their strengths
and how they can prepare better for external examinations. It would be helpful to extend and
develop the system for discussing and tracking wider achievements.
Young people achieve particularly well in a broad range of outdoor, sporting and cultural
pursuits, including orienteering and swimming. The successful activities programme,
including trips abroad, helps young people to develop their personal and social skills. Many
young people gain success in academic competitions such as ‘Maths in the Pipeline’ and the
‘GO4SET’ engineering competition. Young people in S2 progress very well in their broad
general education and the school has effective systems in place to assess them and
moderate assessments. The success of young people in SQA examinations is above the
national average. Higher results have recently seen significant improvements. The school is
maintaining a focus on Credit results. Young people with additional support needs make very
good progress from their prior levels of attainment. Almost all young people leave school and
go on to further study, employment or training.
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How well does the school support young people to develop and learn?
Overall, we think the school supports young people to develop and learn well. Staff know
them well as individuals and have high expectations of their work. Teachers and support staff
work together well to successfully match tasks and learning activities to the needs of
individual learners. Young people in the enhanced provision work well through their learning
targets and achieve success. Young people with social, emotional and behavioural needs
make very good progress in managing their behaviour. The school works very well with a
range of agencies to promote its inclusive approach to learning. There are particularly
effective links with the pupil support worker and the social work services. Staff in the support
for learning department need more support and direction in planning and monitoring young
people’s progress.
Teachers have made substantial progress in taking forward Curriculum for Excellence.
Teachers have developed new S1 and S2 courses with a focus on skills development and
learning which is relevant and enjoyable. Through enterprise projects such as ‘Auchtavan’,
young people link their learning very well across different subjects. Almost all young people
in S4 have a work experience opportunity. More young people across the school could
benefit from opportunities to develop skills for work through the schools links with local
employers and other partners. Young people with additional support needs follow
individualised programmes and achieve success.
How well does the school improve the quality of its work?
We are confident the school improves the quality of its work very well. The headteacher
provides a strong vision for the school and supports staff effectively to take it forward.
Teachers are clear about what needs to be improved and are supported in this through the
work of the deputy headteachers and faculty heads. Teachers provide continuing
professional development for each other and the teacher learning communities are
particularly successful in improving teaching. Young people are keen to lead and help to
improve the school. The pupil council is starting to develop as a group to help to improve
learning and teaching across the school.
Our inspection of your school found the following key strengths.
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Ethos and relationships between staff and young people.
Confident, articulate young people who value the school and the community.
Progress in aspects of Curriculum for Excellence.
Achievement of young people across a range of experiences.
Leadership across the school.
We discussed with staff and the education authority how they might continue to improve the
school. This is what we agreed with them.
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Develop a clearer vision, structure and organisation for the learning support department.
What happens now?
We are confident in the overall quality of provision, the school’s self-evaluation processes and
that these are leading to improvements. As a result, we will make no further evaluative visits
in connection with this inspection. During the inspection, we identified an aspect of innovative
practice which we would like to explore further in order to share the practice with others. As a
result we will work with the school and local authority in order to record and share more
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widely the innovative practice. We will ask the school, in discussion with the local authority, to
let parents know the outcome of the innovative practice visit(s).
Yours sincerely
David Gregory
HM Inspector
23 August 2011
Additional inspection evidence, such as details of the quality indicator evaluations, for your
school can be found on the HMIE website at
http://www.hmie.gov.uk/ViewEstablishment.aspx?id=6316&type=3
You can find our complaints procedure on our website www.hmie.gov.uk. Alternatively you
can contact our Complaints Manager at HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm House,
Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way, Livingston, EH54 6GA or by
telephoning 01506 600259.
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