11 March 2014
Dear Parent/Carer
Fraserburgh Academy
Aberdeenshire 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. The
headteacher 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 support provided for young people for whom English is not their first language and
the impact of the ‘Fraserburgh Learner’ and the ‘Progress Panel’. 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?
Most young people are keen to learn and feel that teachers are helping them to
become more confident. They feel safe and cared for. In most lessons, young people
behave well, particularly when engaged in stimulating and challenging tasks. They
find the new way of supporting them to work harder called ‘Fraserburgh Learner’ is
helping them improve their learning. In the best lessons, young people are actively
involved in developing their understanding of a subject and working together to
improve their knowledge and skills. They would like more opportunity to talk to their
teachers about how they are progressing and what they need to do to continue to
improve. The Pupil Leadership and Learning Council (PLLC) is beginning to give them
more of a say in how the school makes improvements. The council’s achievements,
such as the Aspire magazine, are positive and it now needs the opportunity to help
staff to improve learning. Overall, young people’s learning experiences are not of a
consistently high enough quality across the school. Young people do not always
understand what they need to do to improve and too often they are not actively
engaged or suitably challenged in lessons.
The majority of young people develop a range of useful knowledge and skills through
taking part in school activities and out-of-hours clubs. The school has the highest level
of participation in football of any school in Aberdeenshire with seven squads playing
regularly. They have achieved success and taken part in international visits to Spain
and the Netherlands. Young people develop valuable team working and performance
skills by participating successfully in the Rock Challenge. A number of young people
demonstrate commitment and responsibility by participating in the health and wellbeing
Young Leaders group. About fifty young people show leadership and act as role
Education Scotland
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Transforming lives through learning
models by helping to run the PLLC. Senior pupils have good opportunities to be
leaders, for example through peer mentoring or the prefect system. Younger pupils
would benefit from similar opportunities. Across the school, a good number of young
people enhance their musical skills by participating in the various orchestral groups
and choirs. Commendably, senior pupils organised a fundraising week and raised
over £7000 for a local charity. This helped young people to understand how they can
have an impact on their local community. We have asked the school to develop
rigorous systems to track and monitor the skills young people develop by participating
in school activities and out-of-hours clubs.
From S1 to S3, most young people are making appropriate progress in their learning.
From S4 to S6, young people’s attainment is generally well below the national average
and well below schools which serve young people with similar needs and
backgrounds. In mathematics, young people perform generally well above the national
average. In too many other subjects, young people perform well below the national
average. Significantly more young people choose to leave the school in S4 and S5
than in schools with similar needs and backgrounds. Almost all young people who
leave school in S4, S5 or S6 enter employment, training, further or higher education.
How well does the school support young people to develop and learn?
Almost all staff work hard to provide a supportive learning environment for young
people. Most teachers plan lessons carefully. They now need to continue work to
ensure they plan suitably challenging activities for higher-attaining young people.
Specialist support staff should share in this planning. Some lessons are too
teacher-led and, as a result, are not motivating or engaging enough to ensure young
people remain focused on their learning. Specialist staff provide good support for
young people with English as an additional language. They also ensure many young
people are supported in special programmes, small groups and as individuals in class
and in the enhanced provision. The school works with a number of partners such as
the National Autistic Society to deliver specific programmes for young people. These
partnerships would benefit from improved planning to maximise the impact they have
on all young people across the school. We have asked the staff to review the way
specialists and class teachers provide support to meet the needs of all young people,
to ensure they achieve as highly as possible.
Overall, the school provides a curriculum which meets the needs of almost all young
people, in line with Curriculum for Excellence. From S1 to S3, the curriculum is well
planned to provide choice, enjoyment and, increasingly, challenge for young people.
There are good opportunities for young people to develop important literacy and
numeracy skills. For example, the librarian works effectively to develop and assess
some aspects of literacy. From S4 to S6, the curriculum is well designed and provides
flexible routes for young people to gain qualifications. There are well-planned
opportunities for young people to develop skills useful for learning, life and work.
There are effective links with the local college which provides a wide range of useful
courses, for example relating to energy engineering. Staff are making good progress
in planning courses at S4 to deliver National Qualifications. Problems with staff
recruitment and retention mean that the school has flexible arrangements in place to
make sure young people are taught all of their subjects. In a few subjects, the
arrangements are not effective enough to help young people to learn as well as they
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could. Staff should continue to involve partners more fully in planning and developing
improvements to the curriculum, particularly as young people move from primary into
secondary school and from S4 to S6. This will continue to increase the range and type
of subjects and experiences on offer to young people.
How well does the school improve the quality of its work?
The new headteacher is supporting staff in using information from self-evaluation
activities to improve learning, teaching and outcomes for young people. The staff and
leadership team have correctly identified where improvements are necessary and are
developing a clear plan to ensure these improvements are made. Young people,
parents and staff are confident the school is in a good position to improve. Senior
leaders are aware that they need to do more to take into account the views and ideas
of pupils, parents and staff. The headteacher has improved the way the school
communicates with parents, and this is an area for further improvement.
The new headteacher has had a very positive impact in a short space of time. He has
quickly gained the trust of the school and its community. Depute headteachers are
supporting the headteacher well to share his vision of what the school can achieve
with all staff and the local community. Staff are very keen to use new opportunities to
take the lead in whole-school developments.
This inspection found the following key strengths.
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The common sense of direction shared by staff and the new headteacher.
Young people’s awareness of their role in society, for example in raising funds for
charity.
The quality of learning, teaching and achievement in mathematics.
We discussed with staff and Aberdeenshire Council how they might continue to
improve the school. This is what we agreed with them.
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Improve the expectations of staff and young people of what can be achieved
across the school and raise young people’s attainment in national examinations.
Ensure that self-evaluation activities lead consistently to improvements in young
people’s experiences across the school, including how well their learning needs are
met.
Develop leadership opportunities for all young people, with a focus on helping to
improve learning and teaching.
Work with partners to continue to increase opportunities for young people to learn
within and out of the school.
What happens at the end of the inspection?
The new headteacher has made an immediate positive impact on the work of the
school. The new leadership team is demonstrating the capacity to improve outcomes
for young people. However, the headteacher has been in post for only a few months
and as a result of our inspection findings we think that the school needs more time to
make necessary improvements. Education Scotland’s Area Lead Officer will discuss
with Aberdeenshire Council how best to provide support for the school in order to build
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further capacity for improvement. He will maintain contact to monitor progress. We
shall ask Aberdeenshire Council, working with the school, to provide us with a progress
report within eighteen months and decide at that point whether a further inspection is
required. Parents will be informed of our decision.
David Gregory
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/Fras
erburghAcademyAberdeenshire.asp
If you would like to receive this letter in a different format, for example, in a translation
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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