18 February 2014
Dear Parent/Carer
Irvine Royal Academy
North Ayrshire 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 supporting
all learners, partnership working and progress made in taking forward Curriculum for
Excellence. 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 behave well and enjoy positive relationships with each other and
their teachers. They feel safe and treated fairly by staff. However, there are important
weaknesses in the overall quality of young people’s learning experiences and the
outcomes they achieve. Most young people have a positive attitude to learning and
are motivated when teachers ensure they are actively engaged in lessons but this
could happen more often. Across the school, young people’s learning experiences are
not of a consistently high enough quality and often lacking in challenge. Overall,
young people are too passive in their learning and rely too much on direction from
teachers. They would benefit from experiences which develop their independence,
creativity and ability to take responsibility for their learning. They have begun to
evaluate their own learning, but would benefit from more feedback from teachers that
accurately identifies their strengths and development needs. A few teachers involve
young people well in discussing their learning. This practice needs to be more
consistent across the school. Overall, young people are not sufficiently aware of their
progress in learning. Those in the senior stages conduct themselves well and act as
positive role models for their younger peers. Young people from across the school
develop their citizenship skills by leading or taking part in fundraising activities or
community events. Young people benefit from being involved in a range of sporting
activities including the local and nationally successful school football teams.
The school does not have a clear enough view of young people’s progress from S1 to
S3, including their progress in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. Based on
performance data provided by the school young people’s progress across curriculum
areas is not of a consistently high enough quality. Senior managers acknowledge the
need to develop a more robust and rigorous approach to assessing young people’s
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Transforming lives through learning
progress and achievements from S1 to S3. Overall, in national examinations across
S4 to S6, young people consistently achieve less well than the national average and
schools which serve young people with similar needs and backgrounds. Targeted
support and subject study days led to almost all young people achieving five awards at
Foundation level or better by the end of S4 in 2013. Young people achieve well at
Advanced Higher level by the end of S6. Almost all young people go on to further
study, employment or training on leaving school.
How well does the school support young people to develop and learn?
The school has good links with a range of partners to improve young people’s
wellbeing. Guidance and support for learning staff are very knowledgeable about the
young people and families with whom they work. They now need to work more
effectively with teachers across the school to ensure all young people achieve as
highly as possible. There are important weaknesses in the school’s arrangements for
meeting the needs of learners across the school. In some lessons, teachers ensure
young people’s learning needs are met through a suitable range of tasks and activities.
However, too often teachers do not set activities at the right level of difficulty to
challenge all young people sufficiently. Overall, teachers need to increase the pace of
lessons and raise the levels of challenge and expectation. In doing so, they need to
take more account of young people’s prior learning and attainment. Some young
people who require additional support for their learning have personal education plans.
These plans should have clear and specific short and long-term targets relevant to
young people’s needs to ensure they make suitable progress.
There are important weaknesses in the quality of the curriculum across the school.
The school has recognised the need to provide a curriculum which better meets the
needs and aspirations of its community. Staff are familiar with the Curriculum for
Excellence guidance for their curriculum areas. However, this guidance could be used
more effectively to provide a coherent and progressive learning experience for young
people from S1 to S3. Subject courses and programmes at these stages require
significant improvement. The school’s approaches to developing young people’s skills
in literacy and numeracy and their health and wellbeing across all areas of learning
also require significant improvement. Teachers need to develop their arrangements
for linking learning across different subject areas. This will ensure young people have
better opportunities to apply and develop their learning in new contexts. The
well-established ‘ISEA’ and ‘ILIVE’ projects planned in partnership with the Maritime
Museum provide young people with relevant contexts for learning. Overall, there is a
need for teachers to plan more appropriately to ensure all young people receive their
entitlement to a broad general education from S1 to S3. The school is improving how
effectively it works with the local college and community partners to increase learning
and career opportunities for young people from S4 to S6. These contributions could
be improved through better joint planning and evaluation. Department staff are
beginning to build stronger links with their colleagues in the associated primaries to
ensure programmes and courses build well on young people’s prior learning. There
are improving arrangements to support young people leaving school and those
preparing for the world of work.
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How well does the school improve the quality of its work?
In her very short time in post, the headteacher has gained the respect and confidence
of staff, young people, parents, and partners. She has accurately identified the
required actions to improve the quality of education at Irvine Royal Academy. The
depute headteachers are engaging with their revised roles and responsibilities,
complementing the work of the headteacher. As a team, they are now in a position to
give staff a much stronger lead and direction to ensure that the necessary
improvements to the school’s work are well-embedded across the school. Curriculum
coordinators and principal teachers need to take greater responsibility for driving
forward improvement within their departments and across the school. Overall, the
school’s approaches to self-evaluation and planning for improvement have not had a
strong enough impact on the quality of young people’s experiences and achievements.
However, the headteacher has recently taken important steps to improve the
consistency and rigour of the school’s arrangements for evaluating the quality of its
work. These now need to be sustained and to lead consistently to improvements
where necessary. Staff have been developing approaches for monitoring young
people’s progress in their learning. This should be continued further to support
learners in raising their attainment. The school needs to raise the profile of the pupil
council and use young people’s views more effectively in planning for improvement.
Many would like more say in the way they learn and decisions that affect them in
school. The school is working to recruit a Parent Council.
This inspection found the following key strengths.
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The headteacher’s highly professional start in identifying and beginning to address
school improvement priorities.
Young people’s aspirations for the school to improve its standing in the community.
The positive support which partners provide for aspects of pastoral support, and
some areas of the curriculum.
We discussed with staff and North Ayrshire Council how they might continue to
improve the school. This is what we agreed with them.
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Strengthen leadership at all levels to complement the high standards set by the
headteacher.
Improve young people’s attainment at all stages.
Revise the curriculum as a matter of priority, to provide experiences which meet
young people’s needs more fully.
Ensure that self-evaluation leads to the necessary improvements in young people’s
experiences and their levels of achievement.
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What happens at the end of the inspection?
As a result of our inspection findings we think that the school needs additional support
and more time to make necessary improvements. Our Area Lead Officer will work with
North Ayrshire Council to build capacity for improvement, and will maintain contact to
monitor progress. We will return to carry out a further inspection within one year of
publication of this letter. We will then issue another letter to parents on the extent to
which the school has improved.
Fiona Robertson
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/Irvin
eRoyalAcademyNorthAyrshire.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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