17 December 2013
Dear Parent/Carer
Kirkintilloch High School
East Dunbartonshire Council
Recently, as you may know, my colleagues and I inspected your child's school. During
our visit, we talked to parents and young people and 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 young people to do their best. Senior
managers shared with us the school's successes and priorities for improvement. We
looked at some particular aspects of the school's recent work, including: the impact of
the school’s approaches to parental engagement; teachers’ use of tracking and
monitoring to improve young people’s learning experiences and attainment; and
developments in the S3 curriculum. As a result, we were able to find out how good the
school is at improving young people's education.
How well do young people learn and achieve?
Almost all young people are very well behaved, polite and articulate. Relationships
between staff and young people are mutually respectful and young people feel very
well encouraged and supported to achieve their best. Young people respond very well
to the many opportunities they have during lessons and activities across the school to
work together and independently. They often lead aspects of learning, confidently
share ideas and support each other in tackling challenging questions. Young people
work successfully with class teachers and personal support staff to review their
progress and to set targets for their achievements. Consequently, they are often
highly-engaged, active learners aware of their own strengths and how to improve their
work. Staff should continue working to ensure this is consistently the case during all
lessons across the school. Recent restructuring of the Pupil Council continues to
improve the extent to which young people’s views can contribute to continuing
improvement in the work of the school.
Many young people in Kirkintilloch High School increase their skills and achieve
significant success in a range of sports, the expressive arts, enterprise projects and
through volunteering and leadership development programmes. Senior pupils make
strong contributions to support pupils from Campsie View School who share their
campus. They also contribute successfully to planning and running Active Schools
events, including for neighbouring primary schools. As a result of the school’s
anti-sectarian education, almost all young people from S1 to S6 demonstrate a strong
understanding of equality and diversity issues. The school’s commendable
contributions to Holocaust Memorial Day have increased awareness of this across the
Education Scotland
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Transforming lives through learning
school and in the community. An increasing number of young people are working to
gain formal accreditation of their achievements through, for example, Saltire awards
and The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Young people use their e-portfolios well to
record their achievements. The school should continue working with partners in
community learning and development to ensure all young people access opportunities
for achievements and understand the skills and attributes gained from these. The
school has had considerable success in raising attainment in recent years. Almost all
young people are making good or very good progress from S1 to S3, including in
literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. The school is developing approaches to
track and monitor young people’s progress across the curriculum in S1 to S3. Young
people’s attainment in national qualifications is above the national average in S4, and
in line with the national average in S5 and S6. Attainment from S4 to S6 is
significantly better than in schools serving those with similar needs and backgrounds.
Consistently over recent years, almost all young people leaving school have secured
and sustained a positive destination.
How well does the school support young people to develop and learn?
Across the school, staff plan activities and tasks very well to meet the needs of young
people. In almost all lessons, the pace of learning is suitably brisk. The pupil support
team works closely with a wide range of partners to ensure young people are very well
supported and achieve. Professional learning opportunities on some specific barriers
to learning have successfully increased teachers’ confidence in responding to such
needs. Class teachers make effective use of the detailed pupil profiles which provide
advice and information on how they can best support young people. The range of
strategies used includes appropriate differentiation of materials, setting individualised
targets and effective deployment of support assistants to work with young people
during lessons. We have asked the school to review its approaches to individualised
education plans to ensure teachers, parents and young people are more fully involved.
The school has highly effective approaches to support the pastoral needs of all young
people. Innovative approaches to parental engagement have successfully ensured
young people and their families are supported, particularly at key points of transition,
during times of crisis and when young people are having difficulties with particular
skills. The recent partnership between teachers and parents to help a number of
young people in S2 improve their reading skills is a good example of this approach in
action. Young people feel very well supported in their learning through key initiatives,
such as homework clubs, study revision, mentoring and buddying. A small group of
staff are working with young people to further increase out-of-school hours study
support through creative use of information and communications technology (ICT).
In consultation with staff, parents, pupils and the wider community, the school has very
successfully developed a curriculum which meets the needs of all young people within
its local community. The aims and principles of Curriculum for Excellence are firmly
embedded in the work of the school. From S1 to S3, young people are experiencing a
broad general education. Through the ‘Two from Model’, young people choose twelve
subjects to study in depth during S3. This model continues to give young people a
broad experience. It also allows them to specialise and develop their knowledge and
skills in aspects of subjects in which they are particularly interested. This approach
seeks to ensure they are well prepared for moving into S4 and beyond. Staff across
the school increasingly provide exciting projects which allow young people to link and
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apply their learning across a range of contexts. The school plans, as part of its
commitment to rigorous self-evaluation, to evaluate the success of the model
throughout the current session. Staff continually review, evaluate and develop courses
and programmes for curricular areas and subjects. They ensure that young people are
developing their literacy and numeracy skills, and their health and wellbeing across all
subjects. As a result, all young people are benefiting from improved learning
experiences that develop their skills through inspiring real-life contexts. The school
works very effectively with a number of partners to help deliver a relevant curriculum
for young people from S4 to S6. At these stages, young people can choose from a
wide range of options and pathways to meet their individual needs. These include
vocational courses at further education colleges and attendance at neighbouring
schools to study some courses. Young people are able to study courses in
mechanics, beauty and hairdressing as well as psychology and Scots Law. The
school is part of a very effective cluster management team involving staff from
associated primary schools and the local authority. This partnership working ensures
young people build effectively on their previous learning as they move through primary
school and on into secondary school. Focused work in modern languages, social
subjects, art and design and science means that young people have particularly good
opportunities to develop their skills in these curriculum areas. The school is now
building on this effective practice in other curricular areas. As a result of the school’s
exemplary work to increase parental engagement in learning, young people moving on
from P7 to S1 and their parents feel confident, secure and excited about the transition
to secondary education.
How well does the school improve the quality of its work?
The headteacher has skilfully led the school through a challenging period of change
and improvement. He is very well supported by the highly committed, hardworking
senior management and staff team who are clearly focused on improving outcomes for
young people. In a relatively short time, the culture and ethos of the school have been
transformed, and young people’s achievements, including in national qualifications
have improved year on year. The school successfully encourages young people to
have high aspirations of what they can achieve in school and in their lives beyond
school. Almost all staff are reflective practitioners. They make effective use of the
school’s comprehensive self-evaluation toolkit to review practice and improve their
work. Senior managers set high expectations for learning and teaching across the
school. A rigorous calendar of quality assurance and moderation ensures continuous
improvement. A culture of ongoing professional dialogue focused on improving
teaching and learning is evident amongst many staff teams across the school. As a
result, teachers’ understanding of best practice has increased. Senior managers and
principal teachers should continue to support and challenge all staff to ensure the
highly effective practice evident in many lessons is consistently demonstrated across
the school. The headteacher promotes leadership development across the school and
many staff seek additional leadership responsibilities that increase the school’s
capacity for continual improvement. Staff in departments increasingly seek the views
of young people and use these to reflect on their work. The school very much values
the views of parents and partners. Parents are asked to evaluate all events which they
attend and to communicate with staff about any issues, concerns or ideas for
improvement. Staff respond quickly and efficiently to any concerns raised by parents.
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This inspection found the following key strengths.
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Young people’s exemplary conduct and pride in their school.
Wide ranging support for young people from staff and partners.
Significant and sustained improvements in young people’s attainment.
The quality of the curriculum from S1 to S3.
Innovative approaches to engaging parents in their children’s learning.
The headteacher’s strong leadership of improvements in the school.
We discussed with staff and East Dunbartonshire Council how they might continue to
improve the school. This is what we agreed with them.
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Continue developments to ensure robust tracking and monitoring of young people’s
skills progression, attainment and achievements across the curriculum in S1 to S3.
Continue to ensure consistently effective self-evaluation, professional review and
development and the sharing of good practice to further extend the creative and
innovative practice which exists in the school.
What happens at the end of the inspection?
We are satisfied with the overall quality of provision. We are confident that the
school’s self-evaluation processes are leading to improvements. As a result, we shall
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. We shall work with the school and East Dunbartonshire Council to record this
innovative practice and share it more widely.
Patricia Watson
HM Inspector
Additional inspection evidence, such as details of the quality indicator evaluations, for
your school can be found on the Education Scotland website at
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inspectionandreview/reports/school/primsec/Kirki
ntillochHighSchoolEastDunbartonshire.asp
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please contact the administration team on the above telephone number.
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.
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