Learning community inspection
A report by HM Inspectorate of Education
Inspection of the learning community
Douglas Academy
East Dunbartonshire Council
30 March 2010
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. Where applicable, you will also be able to find
descriptions of good practice in the learning community and, in many instances, a
report on the secondary school closest to the learning community.
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 Douglas learning community area comprises the communities of Milngavie
and Baldernock. The catchment area of Douglas Academy comprises four
non-denominational primary schools and one denominational school: Milngavie,
Craigdhu, Clober, Baldernock and St Joseph’s Primary Schools. In total around
14,300 people live in the area which is one of the least socially deprived areas in
Scotland. The community has higher than national averages for older residents,
house ownership levels and educational attainment.
2. Particular strengths of the learning community
•
Family learning and parenting support programmes that make a positive
difference to families.
•
The extensive range of well-developed voluntary organisations who attract
high numbers of volunteers.
•
The quality of work by libraries and community learning and development
(CLD) staff with elderly groups and people with learning disabilities.
•
The effective involvement of local people in decision making and delivery of
services in community organisations.
3. How well do participants learn and achieve?
Community learning and development and community services (CLDCS) staff and
partner organisations are beginning to make more effective use of information
from a range of sources to plan their work. There is a now a team plan with clear
targets and senior staff regularly monitor progress. There is growth across some
areas of CLD activity in Milngavie such as community safety, family learning,
volunteering and debt counselling. Numbers of participants in these learning
areas are increasing. Numbers of volunteers are increasing. CLDCS staff are
starting to offer a wider range of programmes to meet this demand. Staff
increasingly focus their services to work with disadvantaged groups, such as
young people who are risk of missing out and adults seeking employment. This
provision meets local priorities such as enabling young people and adult learners
to enter employment or further study. However, there is a lack of baseline
information. Management information systems are just beginning to be applied to
the work of CLD and their partners in the Milngavie area. As a result, CLDCS
cannot effectively map and monitor progress in key areas of work such as
progression and learners attainment and achievement.
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Young people
Youth provision in Milngavie is beginning to offer an increasing range of
opportunities for learning activities and support young peoples’ personal and
social development. Where youth work activities focus upon learning, these result
in significant impacts in the lives of young people involved by increasing their
confidence and employment skills. There is an increasing focus on issue based
and locally specific work with projects on bullying, health, domestic violence,
music and the arts. These activities increase young people’s confidence and
skills. There are initial developments to develop young people as mentors for
younger age groups, but these are still at an early stage of development. CLDCS
staff work effectively with disadvantaged groups of young people to help them
achieve positive destinations after they leave secondary school. Staff are
developing increasingly positive relationships with the school to support this work.
There is further scope to work with local schools on the implementation of
Curriculum for Excellence. Young people’s achievement in community-based
activities is not well recognised. The use of accredited and non-accredited
awards programmes is still developing and there is a need to increase levels of
progression and completion within the award programmes on offer. There are
insufficient opportunities for young people to have their views heard through the
local media or community planning forums.
Adults
There is a broad range of adult learning activity taking place in Milngavie. There
is an increasing focus on learning targeted at priority groups such as parents,
those with mental health problems, elderly people with caring responsibilities, the
unemployed and victims of domestic abuse. Family Learning programmes are
effective. The Triple P programme, the Toddlers in East Dunbartonshire Initiative
(TEDI) project and the Library Service are making a significant difference to
parenting skills in partner primary schools, nurseries and mother and toddler
groups. CLDCS staff work effectively in partnership with a local college and the
voluntary sector to deliver community based adult learning programmes. They
are responding effectively to identified needs such as the Digital Inclusion Project
with elderly carers. The quality of teaching and learning in most adult learning
programmes is strong. In most cases learners benefit from their learning which
makes a considerable difference to their personal, family and working lives by
improving their confidence and providing entry to employment. Most learners are
showing progress against their individual learning plans. However, there are
insufficient opportunities for some learners to progress to accredited learning.
Some community based adult learning programmes do not include or take
sufficient account of the needs of the individual Learners with respect to the
content and pace of learning or the planned outcomes. While family learning and
employment focused programmes work well with disadvantaged groups, CLDCS
should make use of existing networks and partnership arrangements to identify
wider learning needs and engage with other disadvantaged groups.
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4. How well are communities developing and achieving?
Milngavie is a vibrant community with many active, confident and skilled
individuals and groups. There are many well-managed community and voluntary
organisations with high numbers of skilled volunteers. These organisations
deliver high quality services that meet local needs in areas such as care for the
elderly, tourism and local heritage. They actively seek support from public
agencies and their own networks as they require. Community groups and public
agencies work very productively together. A wide range of local authority services
and partner agencies provide high quality support to local groups. This includes
CLD, Neighbourhood Services, Funding and Access Officers, the Ranger Service
and the local Volunteer Centre. Public agencies work well together to refer
community organisations who ask for support to the appropriate provider.
Community organisations make effective use of the funding they receive through
the Community Grant Scheme to develop and deliver services. While most
organisations have active management committees, there are insufficient
opportunities for young people to influence and shape decisions and priorities in
the area. CLD should develop their role to support local organisations to engage
in community planning, particularly in developing the local economy of Milngavie.
5. How effective are providers in improving the quality of services?
CLDCS staff and partners are beginning to take account of learners’ views and
gaps in services. This has resulted in new provision such as the Digital Inclusion
Project for elderly carers, Family Learning and in the Employability programmes.
Staff in these programmes focus on outcomes and can demonstrate impact with
increased numbers of participants. CLDCS have produced their first Standard
and Quality report and self-evaluation is improving. In addition to this, CLDCS
and most partners regularly report to stakeholders through a well-produced
magazine that focuses upon the experience and views of learners using case
studies and interviews. CLDCS staff have developed a self-evaluation plan
covering East Dunbartonshire. They are starting to undertake self-evaluation on a
regular basis, but this is still at an early stage of development. There is a need to
continue to develop a collective approach to self-evaluation. CLDCS should seek
to gather the views of wider groups of learners in their approaches to improve
services and progression for participants.
6. Does the learning community have a clear sense of direction?
CLDCS staff and partners demonstrate increasing leadership of learning in
Milngavie. There is a now a clear team plan to guide CLDS staff activity. Staff
are beginning to lead learning in a number of projects such as Family Learning.
There are high levels of commitment and leadership by local people in leading
community projects such as the Milngavie Youth Café and the Milngavie Book
Festival. There are high levels of trust and strong partnerships in the area. Many
learners contribute through volunteering and progress to management
committees of local organisations. There is still further work and training needed
to develop team leadership in the Milngavie area, especially with regard to
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implementing Curriculum for Excellence. There is a need to offer young people,
particularly those in the local youth groups, leadership opportunities and a chance
to contribute to community planning.
7. What happens next?
There are some important improvements needed, but because CLD providers
have a good understanding of their strengths and areas for improvement, and
communities are achieving well, we have ended the inspection process at this
stage. We will monitor progress through our regular contact with the education
authority.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the education authority
and its partners.
•
Increase the opportunities for progression and accreditation from youth
work and adult learning programmes.
•
Develop and extend activities to strengthen CLD and partners in planning,
targeting and self-evaluation.
•
Continue to develop and extend partnership with local schools to support
the development of Curriculum for Excellence and Lifelong Learning in this
area.
•
Increase the involvement of young people in local decision making.
•
Increase the links between CLD learning programmes and local economic
development.
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Quality indicators help CLD providers 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 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 Douglas Academy.
Improvements in performance
Impact on young people
Impact on adults
Impact of capacity building on communities
Improving services
Managing Inspector: Philip Denning
30 March 2010
5
satisfactory
satisfactory
good
very good
satisfactory
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 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education