Dunoon Grammar School
Argyll and Bute Council
3 November 2009
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, you will also be able to find descriptions of good
practice in the school and 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. Examples of good practice
4. How well do young people learn and achieve?
5. How well do staff work with others to support young people’s
learning?
6. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving their
school community?
7. Does the school have high expectations of all young people?
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
9. What happens next?
1. The school
Dunoon Grammar School is a non-denominational school which
serves Dunoon and the surrounding area. The roll was 957 when the
inspection was carried out in September 2009. Young people’s
attendance was in line with the national average in 2007/2008.
At the time of the inspection the headteacher had been in post for just
over a year.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Confident, friendly young people who play an active part in the life
of the school and community.
•
Positive relationships between young people and staff.
•
Approaches to promote the care and welfare of young people.
•
Commitment of staff to the school and the young people.
3. Examples of good practice
•
Support for young people with additional needs when they move
from P7 to S1.
•
The impact of the school’s ‘DGS TV’ station on improving the
participation of young people in their school community.
4. How well do young people learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Most young people work well together and with their teachers in the
school’s pleasant, attractive accommodation. They are involved in
their learning and motivated by well judged use of praise. In a
number of subject departments they are showing increasing
creativity and confidence in tackling tasks using information and
communications technology. Young people respond well to learning
with each other and would benefit from more opportunities to do
this. A significant number of teachers do not discuss learning aims,
strengths and individual progress with young people regularly
enough. As a result, young people are not always clear about what
to do to improve their learning.
Across all stages, young people are developing personal and social
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skills successfully through a wide range of well-planned activities.
They have responded very positively to the recent series of
Homecoming Scotland events. These opportunities have extended
skills in, for example, designing jewellery and making and selling
tartan badges. Young people who run the in-house television
station ‘DGS TV’ have achieved national success in recording and
broadcasting weekly news and entertainment. Just over half of the
young people take part in activities outwith class, including musical
and sporting activities, debating and school shows. They have
good opportunities to take part in residential experiences. Teachers
are not regularly helping young people link the skills they develop
through activities they take part in out of class to their learning in
class.
Young people’s attainment in reading at S1 and S2 has improved in
recent years and a majority are attaining appropriate levels. By the
end of S2, fewer than half attain appropriate levels in writing and
just over half do so in mathematics. Attainment by the end of S4
and S6 is in line with national averages and better than in schools
which serve young people with similar needs and backgrounds.
Good performances at Credit and Intermediate 2 in S4 are not
consistently leading to high-quality results at Higher. Young people
with additional needs, including those with individualised
educational programmes, are making appropriate progress in their
learning. A significant number of young people in S5 and S6 are
learning new skills and showing responsibility for others by training
as sports leaders and gaining Community Service Awards. On
leaving school, almost all young people progress into employment,
further education or training.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Learners experience a wide range of activities and subjects from S1
to S6. They take part in a number of very positive initiatives such as
the Malawi project and “You can do anything” event for S2. The
school has taken some important first steps towards developing a
Curriculum for Excellence. Staff are developing experiences which
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link a number of different subjects. The school has recently
introduced opportunities to develop young people’s skills for work.
However, the curriculum has not improved sufficiently in recent
years to meet the needs of those young people who benefit from
more practical and vocational approaches to help them develop
important life skills. Young people from S1 to S4 benefit from
almost two hours high-quality physical education (PE) per week and
the school has begun to extend this provision into S5/S6. The
effective programme in personal, social and health education
(PSHE) from S1 to S5 contributes strongly to young people’s health
and wellbeing. Working groups are making limited progress
developing the school’s approaches to literacy and numeracy.
These are not yet well known or influencing practice across the
school.
Most teachers take appropriate account of individual learning needs
in choosing tasks, activities and resources. In many lessons, young
people learn at a rate which motivates and challenges them, and
they benefit from assessing their own and others’ learning. This
good practice needs to be extended across the school, particularly
to a few lessons which are too slow or which do not encourage
young people to think for themselves. The pupil support department
is improving its teamwork to good effect. Support for learning staff
skilfully identify young people’s learning needs and provide well
judged individual support. Behaviour support staff have positive
relationships with young people in their care and ensure that they
are included in the work and life of the school. Pastoral staff
provide high-quality and valued support to young people and their
parents. Staff have worked successfully with associated primary
schools and parents to develop a very effective programme to
support young people with additional needs to move confidently
from P7 to S1.
5. How well do staff work with others to support young
people’s learning?
The Parent Council supports the work of the school successfully
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and is involved in fundraising and community activities. Teachers
involve young people regularly in local events such as the Tall Ships
Race, the Cowal Highland Gathering and the Kirn Gala. Young
people find working with the Teen Challenge group and the campus
police officer to be particularly useful in developing their awareness
of the heath and social risks associated with substance misuse.
The school nurse involves local services appropriately in delivering
aspects of the PSHE programme. The attendance officer and
school social worker work closely with young people and their
families to support attendance and meet individual needs. A few
parents would like the school to let them know earlier if young
people are not making the progress expected in their learning.
6. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving
their school community?
Young people at S6 respond well to opportunities to taking a leading
role in supporting their younger peers. For example, over 30 serve
as student counsellors in the ‘SMILE’ drop in club. Others provide
support to learners in classes and assist in the delivery of PE and
out-of-school hours clubs. Young people would like a greater say in
improving learning and teaching, including through the pupil council.
Teachers are not making enough use of information about
attainment and achievement to check young people’s progress, or
to build on their earlier learning experiences to ensure they all make
progress in their learning. Senior managers have developed a
system of self evaluation which has not yet demonstrated the
required impact. There is a need for them to work consistently with
staff to ensure that learning, teaching and achievement are
improving. Teachers do not share good practice sufficiently with
their colleagues, for example through visiting other teachers’
lessons.
7. Does the school have high expectations of all young
people?
The school is caring and welcoming. Staff and young people
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respect each other and have a strong sense of pride in their school
Young people are confident and friendly. Staff have improved their
approaches to promoting positive behaviour. Teachers are highly
committed to the care and wellbeing of young people. Young
people feel safe in school. The school promotes equality and
citizenship skills through actively promoting health and wellbeing.
These experiences include the annual ‘Playfair’ days when young
people develop their awareness of racism, domestic abuse and
cyber bullying. The school has high expectations of young people’s
attendance and behaviour. Teachers do not always have high
enough expectations of young people’s learning in classes.
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The headteacher has engaged staff, young people and parents in
developing a new vision for the school, through developing positive
relationships with them. He is aware of the school’s strengths and
areas for improvement. The senior leadership team has taken on
revised duties which recognise the need for them to work more
effectively as a team. They should now give a clear and consistent
lead to staff, young people and their parents on how to improve the
school. Most principal teachers provide clear leadership and
direction. Staff are beginning to take on leadership roles in new
teams which have a sharper focus than previous working groups.
All staff now need to improve communication and teamwork and
develop the confidence to take on lead roles within and beyond the
classroom.
9. What happens next?
We are confident that, with support from the education authority, the
school will be able to make the necessary improvements in light of
the inspection findings. As a result, we will make no more visits in
connection with this inspection. The school and the education
authority will inform parents about the school’s progress in improving
the quality of education. Our District Inspector will maintain contact
with the education authority to ensure that the
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school improves its approaches to self-evaluation and that they
result in improved outcomes for young people.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the
school and education authority.
•
Improve the curriculum in line with Curriculum for Excellence.
•
Improve the impact of senior managers’ leadership and continue
to develop leadership at all levels.
•
Improve self-evaluation approaches and sharing good practice
across the school to improve the quality of learning and
achievement.
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 Dunoon Grammar School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
satisfactory
good
good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: June Orr
satisfactory
weak
3 November 2009
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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 2009
HM Inspectorate of Education