Inspection of the learning community
surrounding Bishopbriggs Academy
East Dunbartonshire Council
22 January 2013
Transforming lives through learning
1. Context
Community learning and development (CLD) partners within the area of
Bishopbriggs Academy were inspected by Education Scotland during
November 2012. During the visit Education Scotland staff talked to children, young
people and adults. We worked closely with local CLD managers, CLD providers,
partners, paid staff and volunteers. We wanted to find out how well partners are
improving the life chances of people living in the community through learning,
building stronger more resilient communities and improving the quality of services
and provision. We also looked at how well, paid staff and volunteers are developing
their own practices and how well partners, including schools are working together.
We looked at some particular aspects of recent work which were identified by
partners including:
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the development and impact of the Employability Partnership;
further development and new approaches to partnership planning; and
a decisive shift towards prevention in relation to current activity.
2. How well are partners improving learning, increasing life chances,
promoting and securing wellbeing?
The work of a range of learning community partners in Bishopbriggs is having a
strong and positive impact on improving people’s life chances. Improvements in
performance have been achieved in a number of important areas including increases
in the number of young people achieving in programmes such as those provided
through the Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network, John Muir
Trust Awards and The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. High numbers of volunteers
work effectively in a wide range of activities and support services, including large
numbers of young people from both Bishopbriggs Academy and Turnbull High
School. Partners have a good knowledge and understanding of the needs of the
learning community.
An increasing focus by partners on improving employability is helping young people
and adults gain important skills and make progress. Targeted young people are
being helped to re-discover their motivation and re-engage with learning through
effective work by support staff engaged in the employability partnership. As a result,
targeted young people, some of whom feel they have achieved little in school, are
achieving accredited qualifications, developing new and practical skills, attending
regularly and considering their future options. There is scope for employability
partners, with schools, to look at earlier intervention in this work focused on
preventing young people from losing their motivation to engage fully in learning.
Young people across the learning community feel safe and are active in a range of
voluntary sector youth organisations, local church based youth groups and after
school activity clubs. They value the experience and confidence gained as a result
of their participation. The East Dunbartonshire Cycle Cooperative (EDs Cycle
Co-op) is a very strong example of partnership working helping children, young
people and families to achieve important learning outcomes and improvements to
the environment across school and community activities. Those taking part have
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raised awareness of cycling and road safety, promoted participation with all schools,
engaged with national and European Union politicians, including visits to The
Scottish Parliament, Westminster and Brussels. The organisation has secured
significant levels of funding to promote cycling in East Dunbartonshire and influenced
Council policy on local speed limits. Primary schools are enthusiastically involved
and have extended participation to include interdisciplinary and outdoor learning as
part of their approach to Curriculum for Excellence. The project has had a very
strong impact on the confidence, health and wellbeing of children and young people
taking part.
Adult literacy and numeracy learners and English for speakers of other languages
learners are making good progress in achieving learning goals. A growing focus on
family learning is supporting parents effectively. The Families and Schools Together
(FAST) programme has improved parental relationships and engagement with
Auchinairn Primary School. Those taking part have established a new group
(FACT – Families in Auchinairn Coming Together) to provide weekly play sessions
for parents and children to participate in social activities and to learn together.
Across programmes with all age groups, partners are effective in providing tailored
support to vulnerable individuals and assisting people to overcome short–term
crises. This is a strong feature of the family learning programmes through which
parents are being very effectively engaged in supporting their children’s learning and
improving their own mental health and wellbeing. In New Directions work adult
learners are finding new career directions, establishing new small-scale businesses
and regaining motivation. Intergenerational learning and support is a strong feature
in the Silver Surfer programme supported by volunteers from Bishopbriggs
Academy. Young people taking part are developing communication and leadership
skills through teaching older adults computing skills in community settings.
Volunteer Champions have successfully promoted high levels of volunteering by
local young people from Bishopbriggs Academy and Turnbull High School.
Bishopbriggs is a community with a large number of very effective volunteers, local
groups and organisations. There are some strong examples of active community
members influencing decisions. Participation in elections to The Scottish Youth
Parliament is higher than the national average, local residents groups and the
Community Council have influenced recent planning decisions, the EDs Cycle Co-op
has very proactively influenced road traffic policies and partnership working between
local voluntary sector groups and the Council is strong. A volunteer led advisory
committee oversees funding arrangements for the Council’s Community Grants
scheme. Schools, both primary and secondary make a strong contribution to
building a stronger, more resilient and more inclusive community.
Partners and local residents would benefit from clearer more succinctly stated
shared priorities or a shared stated vision for Bishopbriggs. Local level community
planning arrangements are underdeveloped. Schools and learning community
partners could do more to build on and establish consistent approaches to shared
planning and assessment of learners’ experiences and outcomes.
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3. How well are partners working together and improving the quality of
services and provision?
The Council’s CLD service has a well-developed approach to planning for
improvement through self-evaluation. The effective implementation of the Project
Planning and Evaluation (PPE) has been supported by an intensive programme of
staff training and development. This has assisted staff to improve self-evaluation
and reporting. Plans are well-focused on impacts and outcomes and relate clearly to
analysis of need. The PPE tool effectively and clearly links work to team plans,
service plans and council objectives. Partners know the needs of the community
and communicate well with each other to benefit participants. More formalised and
consistent approaches to shared planning for improvement are now being put in
place, including plans to enable partners to use the PPE tool through a web based
system.
Regular and effective use is made of learners’ focus groups to evaluate the impact of
programmes. Partners use a variety of means to report effectively to their
stakeholders including new media. Through effective training staff are becoming
more skilled in using a range of methods such as peer evaluation, focus groups and
critical friends to gather evaluation evidence on the impact of their work. Volunteers
and part-time staff benefit from regular and high quality training and professional
development. This helps staff to make progress in employment and access further
learning and training. Good use is being made of national professional development
resources including i-develop. The involvement of partners in shared continuing
professional development is increasing, for example in developing leadership skills
through the practitioner forum. More joint training amongst learning community
partners with school staff on the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence could
further strengthen shared planning for improvement. Arrangements for school
cluster planning of health and wellbeing could benefit from the wider perspective of a
number of learning community partners.
This inspection of learning and development in the learning community surrounding
Bishopbriggs Academy found the following key strengths.
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Active and highly motivated young people who contribute positively to community
life.
Strong work with vulnerable groups and individuals which is improving life
chances.
High levels of volunteering and very active community groups.
Strong and consistent commitment to improving provision by all.
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We discussed with partners how they might continue to improve their work. This is
what we agreed with them.
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More consistent use of Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes and
development of broad general education and senior phase planning with schools
and other partners.
Continue to develop approaches to tracking and monitoring learner progress and
achievements with partners.
Further development of joint planning and self-evaluation with schools and
partners.
4. What happens at the end of the inspection?
We are satisfied with the overall quality of provision. We are confident that the
learning community’s self-evaluation processes are leading to improvements. As a
result, we will make no further evaluative visits in connection with this inspection.
During the inspection, we identified an aspect of innovative practice which we would
like to explore further. As a result we will work with the learning community and
education authority in order to record and share more widely the innovative practice.
Peter Hamilton
HM Inspector
22 January 2013
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Additional inspection evidence, such as details of the quality indicator evaluations,
for this learning community can be found on the Education Scotland website at
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inspectionandreview/reports/school/primsec/Bis
hopbriggsHighSchoolEastDunbartonshire.asp
Please contact us if you want to know how to get the report in a different format, for
example, in a translation. You can contact us
at enquiries@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk or write to us at BMCT, Education
Scotland, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
If you want to give us feedback or make a complaint about our work, please contact
01506 600200, or write to us at the above address or email:
feedback@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk.
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 or alternatively you can
contact www.educationscotland.gov.uk to our Complaints Manager, at the address
above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
Crown Copyright 2013.
Education Scotland
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