Montrose Academy
Angus Council
21 September 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) inspects schools in order to
let parents1, young people and the local community know
whether their school provides a good education. Inspectors also
discuss with school staff how they can improve the quality of
education.
At the beginning of the inspection, we ask the headteacher and
staff about the strengths of the school, what needs to improve,
and how they know. We use the information they give us to help
us plan what we are going to look at. During the inspection, we
go into classes and join other activities which young people are
involved in. We also gather the views of young people, parents,
staff and members of the local community. We find their views
very helpful and use them together with the other information we
have collected to arrive at our view of the quality of education.
This report tells you what we found during the inspection and the
quality of education in the school. We describe how well young
people are doing, how good the school is at helping them to learn
and how well it cares for them. We comment on how well staff,
parents and young people work together and how they go about
improving the school. We also comment on how well the school
works with other groups in the community, including services
which support young people. Finally, we focus on how well the
school is led and how staff help the school achieve its aims.
If you would like to learn more about our inspection of the school,
please visit www.hmie.gov.uk. Here you can find analyses of
questionnaire returns from young people, parents and staff, and
details about young people’s examination performance. We will
not provide questionnaire analyses where the numbers of returns
are so small that they could identify individuals. Where applicable
there will also be a report on the learning community surrounding
the school.
1
Throughout this report, the term ‘parents’ should be taken to include foster carers,
residential care staff and carers who are relatives or friends.
Contents
1. The school
2. Particular strengths of the school
3. How well do young people learn and achieve?
4. How well do staff work with others to support young people’s
learning?
5. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving their
school community?
6. Does the school have high expectations of all young people?
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
8. What happens next?
1. The school
Montrose Academy is a non-denominational school which serves the
community of Montrose and the surrounding rural area. The roll was
891 when the inspection was carried out in June 2010. Young
people’s attendance was above the national average in 2008/2009.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Support for children moving from primary to secondary education.
•
Staff contributions to an inter-disciplinary project.
•
Partnerships with other agencies and local companies.
•
Young people’s involvement in charitable and fundraising activities.
3. How well do young people learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
In most lessons, almost all young people are attentive and on task. In
a few classes they are highly motivated and enthusiastic. They
collaborate well and, increasingly, staff are giving them opportunities to
do so. Most young people are not sure how much progress they have
made and do not know how to improve their work. In most classes,
almost all young people behave responsibly towards each other and
their teachers. Overall, they can express their views confidently but
have few opportunities to do so. A number of young people are
unhappy about how staff deal with bullying and poor behaviour.
Young people are actively involved in personal and social education.
They are developing a range of skills through clubs and activities in
school and in the community, including organising a Burns lunch and
fundraising work for charity. Many have gained awards for their
participation in work experience and residential experiences. The
pupil senate successfully recommends changes to improve the school.
At S1/S2, the majority of young people achieve appropriate national
levels in reading, writing and mathematics. Overall, at S4 to S6, young
people perform notably less well than those in schools which serve
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young people with similar needs and backgrounds. Over recent years,
results in national examinations have shown little improvement,
although there are early indications that performance in some key
measures is rising. Most pupils with additional support needs are
making satisfactory progress. At all stages, young people could attain
and achieve more. Almost all young people leaving school progress to
higher education, further education, training or employment.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Overall, young people experience a broad and balanced curriculum.
However, the quality of courses taught across the school is variable.
The school has taken positive steps to implement Curriculum for
Excellence, including the development of whole-school approaches to
literacy, numeracy and health and well-being. Staff have delivered a
successful project on rural Angus to help young people at S1/S2 to
make connections in their learning across a range of subjects. At
S3/S4, Skills for Work courses provide good opportunities for young
people to develop their skills for life. At S5/S6, the curriculum does not
provide clear progression routes for all learners beyond S4. All
learners have access to two hours of high-quality physical education
from S1 to S6. There is no religious and moral education at S5/S6.
The school has very effective approaches to support children move
confidently from primary into secondary school.
In a few lessons, staff set tasks at the right level for individuals.
However, this practice is not consistent. At times, teachers do not take
sufficient account of young people’s prior learning and tasks and
activities are not demanding enough. Overall, the pace of learning is
too slow and young people are capable of making better progress.
Support for learning staff work effectively with young people who need
extra support in their learning, in both mainstream classes and in small
group settings outwith the classroom. Young people receiving
additional support in small group settings are sometimes missing out
on aspects of learning in subject classes. The school needs to review
the role of support for learning staff to enable the support service to
meet the needs of all young people better.
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4. How well do staff work with others to support young people’s
learning?
The school works with a wide range of partner organisations to help
broaden young people’s learning. The school is developing a clearer
overview of partnership working and the contributions that partner
services can make to young people’s learning and achievement.
There is scope to strengthen partnership working with parents and to
involve them more in school improvement activities. Parents feel the
school deals with problems promptly. The school’s arrangements for
consulting with parents on sensitive aspects of relationships and
health education are not consistently effective.
5. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving
their school community?
Senior managers are committed to school improvement. Staff have
started to evaluate the quality of the school’s work more regularly but
practice is variable across the school. The school has identified
appropriate areas for improvement. However, the pace of change is
slow. Senior managers need to ensure that the planned
improvements bring about positive changes to young people’s
experiences. Young people are not sufficiently involved in evaluating
the work of the school. The school does not yet have a robust and
rigorous system in place to monitor and track young people’s progress
across the curriculum.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all young people?
Across the school, relationships between staff and young people are
positive. Most young people are well behaved and keen to learn.
Staff do not have consistently high expectations of young people’s
achievements, behaviour and presentation of their work. The school
has effective arrangements to ensure the care and welfare of young
people. Staff are aware of their responsibilities in keeping young
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people safe and in promoting healthy lifestyles. The school has
achieved Health Promoting Schools accreditation from Angus Council.
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The headteacher knows what is required to improve learning and
teaching in the school. The senior management team is committed to
bringing about positive changes to classroom practice. Leaders at all
levels need to be clear about their responsibilities in driving forward
improvements. There are examples of effective teamwork within the
school but this good practice needs to be implemented more
consistently across the school.
8. What happens next?
We will carry out a follow-through inspection visit within one year of
publication of this report and will report to parents on the extent to
which the school has improved. Following that visit, we may continue
to check the improvements the school has made. We may also carry
out a second follow-through inspection within two years of the original
inspection report. If a second follow-through inspection visit is
necessary then it will result in another report to parents on the extent of
improvement that the school has made.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Improve the quality of learning and teaching and approaches to
meeting the needs of all young people.
•
Raise attainment and review approaches to tracking and
monitoring young people’s progress.
•
Implement more rigorous arrangements for evaluating the quality of
the school’s work.
Quality indicators help schools, education authorities and inspectors to
judge what is good and what needs to be improved in the work of the
school. You can find these quality indicators in the HMIE publication
How good is our school?. Following the inspection of each school, the
Scottish Government gathers evaluations of three important quality
indicators to keep track of how well all Scottish schools are doing.
Here are the evaluations for Montrose Academy.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
weak
satisfactory
satisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Ken McAra
21 September 2010
6
satisfactory
satisfactory
When we write reports, we use the following word scale so that our
readers can see clearly what our judgments mean.
excellent
very good
good
means
means
means
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
means
means
means
outstanding, sector leading
major strengths
important strengths with some areas
for improvement
strengths just outweigh weaknesses
important weaknesses
major weaknesses
If you would like to find out more about our inspections or get an
electronic copy of this report, please go to www.hmie.gov.uk.
Please contact us if you want to know how to get the report in a
different format, for example, in a translation, or if you wish to
comment about any aspect of our inspections. You can contact us
at HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or write to us at BMCT,
HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm House, Almondvale Business
Park, Almondvale Way, 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.
You can find our complaints procedure on our website
www.hmie.gov.uk or alternatively you can contact our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
Crown Copyright 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education