Learning community inspection
A report by HM Inspectorate of Education
Inspection of the learning community
surrounding Broughton High School
The City of Edinburgh Council
23 August 2011
We inspect learning communities in order to let those who use services and the
local community know whether learning communities provide appropriate learning
opportunities and help learners in their development. We are also interested in
how community and voluntary groups are helped to contribute to making
communities better places to live and work. At the end of inspections, we agree
ways in which staff and volunteers can improve the quality of learning for young
people and adults and how the impact of community and voluntary groups can be
further developed.
At the beginning of the inspection, we ask managers and staff about the strengths
of the learning community, 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 join other activities which young people, adults and community
groups are involved in. We also gather the views of learners, active community
members and staff. 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
provision locally.
This report tells you what we found during the inspection and the quality of
learning and development provided. We describe how well learners are doing
and how good the learning community is at helping them to learn. We comment
on how well staff, learners and groups work together and the difference they are
making in the learning community. Finally, we focus on how well the learning
community is led and how leaders help the learning community achieve its aims.
If you would like to learn more about our inspection of the learning community,
please visit www.hmie.gov.uk.
Contents
1.
The learning community
2.
Particular strengths of the learning community
3.
How well do participants learn and achieve?
4.
How well are communities developing and achieving?
5.
How effective are providers in improving the quality of services?
6.
Does the learning community have a clear sense of direction?
7.
What happens next?
1. The learning community
The learning community around Broughton High School takes in the electoral
wards of Inverleith and Forth. There are significant variations between the
two wards. Whilst the bulk of the catchment area lies within Inverleith, the
catchment also includes Granton and parts of Pilton. The proportion of jobless
people at 4.2% is higher than the Edinburgh figure of 3.2% and higher than the
Scottish average at 3.7%.
2. Particular strengths of the learning community
•
Active, well-managed community organisations.
•
Staff and volunteers who inspire learners to achieve.
•
Well-targeted and inclusive provision.
•
Effective partnerships.
3. How well do participants learn and achieve?
There is a good range of high quality youth work and adult programmes and
activities. Community learning and development (CLD) services effectively target
the more excluded and vulnerable section of the community. Agreed adult
learning targets are being met. Participation in family and adult learning activities
has increased. CLD partners make good use of locally gathered data to identify
and address needs. Participation in the adult learning programme is profiled and
used to address under participation. Trends such as the increase in Sudanese
population were effectively identified by CLD providers and quality provision
established in response. Participation by the Black Minority Ethnic population has
increased significantly. Local CLD service team plans, neighbourhood
partnership plans and worker plans clearly link to the Single Outcome Agreement.
Local neighbourhood planning is effective. Management information is not
currently disseminated effectively. CLD service and partners make good use of
accreditation to record young people’s achievement. Local completion rates for
Duke of Edinburgh Award are high at 100%. However, progress reporting to the
neighbourhood partnership is narrow focusing on participation rather than
completion rates. Wider accreditation opportunities are not being fully realised.
Young people
Young people enjoy access to a very wide range of excellent, well planned and
appropriately targeted learning opportunities and experiences. Very positive and
supportive relationships ensure all young people progress and achieve. Young
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people are actively involved in their community and are influential in
decision-making. Those experiencing considerable difficulties and challenges in
their lives, receive high quality personal support. This has given them a clear
sense of direction to their lives. Very good use is made of young people’s own
experience to guide and inspire others facing similar challenges. Young people
are included. Young people from a wide range of areas participate in well
structured open air provision. The Alcohol Initiative Collaboration provides
well-received support and advice on a range of relevant issues. As a result,
young people are modifying their behaviour. Projects such as Stepping Stones
provides excellent opportunities for young parents to progress on to training and
employment opportunities. This is increasing aspirations for themselves and their
children. High quality arts, sports and cultural programmes such as Inverleith
Youth Theatre help develop confidence and team working in young people. CLD
partners work well with Broughton High School to develop high quality learning
opportunities such as Initi-8 programme and Democracy Week as part of the
Curriculum for Excellence Senior Phase. Young people involved recognise the
value of the training and work experience in developing skills for life, learning and
work. A considerable number are successfully gaining employment as youth
workers. Completion rates of Duke of Edinburgh Award Bronze Award at FetLor
Youth Centre was 100%. MV Awards are used effectively to recognise young
people’s achievements in volunteering.
Adults
Committed CLD staff and partners lead high quality community learning
programmes which respond effectively to community needs. Unemployed adults
achieve qualifications for work and gain experience as volunteers. This helps
them progress into work and as a result, this is taking families out of poverty.
Speakers of English for speakers of other languages improve their English and
learning about local culture. They are now more included in the community.
Literacies learners improve their skills and confidence in the contexts of cookery,
driving theory and the workplace. Many learners are good role models for their
children and are more involved in their children’s learning. As a result of
participation in the Pilton Equalities Project adults with additional support needs
are now more confident in managing their money independently. Information
technology learners are using email to maintain connections with family, to update
their skills for work and to support voluntary groups. Community health initiatives
such as Pilton Community Health Project are making life-changing differences to
the health, wellbeing and resilience of vulnerable women and their families. CLD
staff and partners routinely encourage learners to volunteer. Learners continue to
develop their skills through high quality volunteer training. As a result, they have
become increasingly effective in responsible roles on management committees,
and as befrienders. Many learners feel better about themselves as they can give
something back to the community as volunteers. CLD staff are aware that they
need to increase opportunities to recognise and celebrate achievement and that
learners would benefit from better coordinated programming and information.
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4. How well are communities developing and achieving?
Community capacity building is characterised by a strong and proactive approach
by CLD and its partners. Partnership groupings work effectively to plan and
develop programmes and projects including successful funding applications.
Members of management committees and community groups receive strong
support and benefit from a range of available training opportunities. This helps
them to effectively plan, manage and evaluate the services they provide.
Community organisations deliver high quality social enterprises. These services
are inclusive, value social and cultural diversity and support vulnerable groups
and individuals. Projects and programmes such as Timebank make a significant
impact in local communities. They support participants to gain new knowledge
and skills, challenge and change attitudes and behaviours. This results in
improvements in their health and wellbeing and employment. However, some
community groups need to consider how best to recruit more adults into taking on
a leadership role. There is a good range of volunteering opportunities which staff
actively promote and support. Young people and adults of all ages receive
effective support that enables them to present a strong community voice. They
are confident in their abilities in identifying issues such as land use and bus routes
and influencing local decision making. Events are regularly organised which
encourage community organisations to work together and contribute to local
community planning. However, additional support may be required to ensure that
the Royston, Wardie and Pilton areas fully participate.
5. How effective are providers in improving the quality of services?
Providers use an effective range of methods to gather feedback from learners.
Feedback from Initi-8 trainees is improving future training. The CLD service
effectively uses questionnaire data to inform its work priorities in line with
identified need. Opportunities for service staff to improve their practice are very
good. Recent effective training has assisted staff and partners to be better at
setting outcomes and measuring impact. As a result, they are increasingly
engaging in more outcome-focused evaluation activity. Self-evaluation practice is
embedded across partners. Improvements to service planning and self-evaluation
guidelines are helping improve clarity and consistency. CLD teams have very
good opportunities to meet regularly to plan, reflect and share practice. Local
community groups such as Drylaw and Royston Wardieburn management
committees use self-evaluation effectively to improve their provision. Providers
use an effective range of methods to report progress to stakeholders. Service
staff make good use of social media networks to communicate developments in
the Drylaw skate park development. There is potential to simplify and streamline
CLD service evaluation paperwork, in order to make it more effective.
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6. Does the learning community have a clear sense of direction?
Partnership working is strong across the Broughton learning community.
Broughton High School staff engage well with a range of partners in delivering
effective programmes. CLD staff offer good leadership in taking forward
partnership working. Their contribution is well respected by partners. Inverleith
Youth Work consortium strategic plan offers a clear shared vision. Resources are
creatively shared across partners. However, there is a lack of clarity regarding
the role and function of some strategic and operational groups. Youth work
providers’ understanding of Experiences and Outcomes now needs to be
developed.
7. What happens next?
The inspection team was able to rely on the high quality self-evaluation provided
in the learning community. CLD providers have a good understanding of their
strengths and areas for improvement and communities are achieving very well.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the local authority and
its partners.
•
Clarify and simplify the roles and functions of strategic and operational
partnerships.
•
Further develop accredited learning opportunities for adults.
•
Develop use of Experiences and Outcomes within youth work practice.
Quality indicators help CLD providers and inspectors to judge what is good and
what needs to be improved in the learning community. You can find these quality
indicators in the HMIE publication “How good is our community learning and
development? 2”.
HMIE checks five important quality indicators to keep track of how well all Scottish
CLD provision is doing. Here are the results for the learning community
surrounding Broughton High School.
Improvements in performance
Impact on young people
Impact on adults
Impact of capacity building on communities
Improving services
Managing Inspector: Stewart Maxwell
23 August 2011
4
good
excellent
very good
very good
very good
This report uses the following word scale to make clear judgements made by
inspectors.
excellent
very good
good
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
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 2011
HM Inspectorate of Education