Education Scotland
Foghlam Alba
Learning community inspection
A report by Education Scotland
Inspection of the learning community
surrounding Kelso High School
Scottish Borders Council
17 January 2012
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.educationscotland.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
Kelso Learning Community includes the settlement of Kelso, a small market town,
together with nine very small rural villages. The total population of Kelso Learning
Community is 11,421. Most of the socio-economic indicators do not show the
Kelso area as one of high need in the Scottish Borders, and as such the
resources and staffing targeted at this area are less than most other learning
communities. However, trends over the last year indicate growing pockets of
significant need in the town of Kelso and its’ rural hinterland.
2. Particular strengths of the learning community
•
Developing partnership with the school focusing on disadvantaged young
people.
•
Townscape Heritage Initiative work with local groups.
•
High quality employability work with disadvantaged adult learners.
•
Innovative focus on young people developing services.
3. How well do participants learn and achieve?
A few Community Learning and Development Service (CLDS) staff and partners
have a strong focus on working with disadvantaged groups. A wide range of local
groups offer effective learning opportunities in sports, music and culture for young
people and adults. A few CLDS staff now have increasingly effective partnerships
with the local high school to support vulnerable young people. The use of awards
to recognise achievement in sporting activities is well established and the range of
awards on offer is increasing. An effective and successful programme supports
adults who wish to return to employment. A few CLDS staff and partners who
work on employability programmes plan effectively and use information well to
influence the design and development of their approaches. CLDS have a new
system to manage information on participation levels which is still at an early
stage of development. As a result, most CLDS staff lack an overview of trends in
participation levels and as a result, are unable to plan effectively. There is not a
systematic approach for recording young people’s wider achievement across
providers. In addition, there is no available data to measure how CLDS in Kelso
is progressing against similar comparators. While CLDS and partners focus their
work to improve health and wellbeing, information is lacking on the impact on
health improvement.
1
Young people
A few young people, particularly those who are disadvantaged, make significant
gains in their learning and confidence through their involvement in CLDS
programmes. Young people who work in the Borders Production Unit and in
sports, dance and cultural activities all grow in confidence and gain important
skills for learning, life and employment. A few young people in the Kelso area are
very actively involved in the design and development of youth services. Young
people in programmes such as Youth Chex, Wired and Youth of the Borders all
make a significant difference to their community by providing funds and media
services. A few young people are now extending this approach to developing
services to include schools in areas such as the Scottish Borders Youth
Commission on Bullying. This work shows some positive signs of development
that will lead to impacts for learners. Young people in the local high school work
effectively as peer educators in the Face 2 Face and the Share programmes.
However, this work is still at an early stage of development. Young people in the
Borders Forest Trust, Youth Borders and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Youth Scotland also act as effective trainers for teaching staff and
successfully raise awareness of youth related issues. A few staff make use of
Curriculum for Excellence in their work in health and wellbeing. Despite strong
links between local schools and community youth organisations, the majority of
youth organisations are not yet implementing Curriculum for Excellence. CLDS
and partners do not yet have a systematic approach to recognising achievement.
Numbers of young people in CLDS youth clubs in Kelso are low and the general
quality of facilities is poor.
Adults
A small number of adult learners participate in CLDS learning programmes in the
Kelso area. Home Care workers have increased their skills and confidence as a
result of workplace literacies. This has helped workers to achieve necessary
workplace qualifications which has helped them to sustain their employment.
Almost all learners on the Prepare to Care programmes successfully progress to
employment and further education. CLDS staff make an effective contribution to
these partnership programmes by building capacity and offering accreditation.
More could be done to consistently track learners’ progression and capture the
impact of learning experiences. Kelso library and Skills Development Scotland
work together in an innovative way to provide employability services in the area.
Their highly effective partnership response to the closure of a local employer
resulted in almost all learners finding new employment. Partners effectively meet
the learning needs of adults and this has resulted in a high proportion gaining new
jobs. Learners in the CLDS English for speakers of other languages (ESOL)
provision make successful progress but there are small numbers of learners in
this area in the ESOL programme. A consistent approach to planning, evaluation
and quality is now needed to sustain and extend the impact of programmes.
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4. How well are communities developing and achieving?
Skilled and active community groups operate in the Kelso Learning Community.
A few groups are making an impact on their community including Future KELSO,
Towncentre Heritage Initiative and Sprouston Festival Committee. Future KELSO
have been involved in the development of the one-way system in the town centre
and the refurbishment of a local park that resulted in increased use of this facility.
A few local groups develop services in response to need, for example, Sprouston
Hall Committee secured a lease for land to increase their car park and develop a
community garden in response to demands from the community. A few groups
such as the Yetholm Allotments Association and the Kelso Community
Woodlands Group now deliver services in response to local rural needs. Friends
of Kelso Museum and Future KELSO engage actively and successfully with public
agencies on community regeneration projects. They are now key partners on the
Townscape Heritage Initiative and have secured significant funding for town
centre regeneration. While a few groups are successful, other groups would
significantly benefit from structured support to help them set outcomes, monitor
progress and provide evidence of the impact of their work in the community.
Productive networks for community groups across the learning community are
limited and as a result, support opportunities are missed. Community groups
would benefit from networking opportunities to share skills and practice and
increase the impact they have on their community. CLDS knowledge and
intelligence about community groups who operate in the Kelso area is currently
too limited. Young people have too few opportunities to take part in the life of the
wider community. Opportunities for community groups to be involved in decision
making now needs to be improved.
5. How effective are providers in improving the quality of services?
A few adult learning providers make effective use of strong partnerships that
enables staff to evaluate information from learners. These relationships also help
them to track learners’ progress and plan for improvement. CLDS are starting to
develop a more supportive training approach to allow staff to reflect upon their
practice. However, this is at an early stage of development. As a result, there
remains significant room for further improvement in the evaluation of outcomes
and impact by most staff. There are significant inconsistencies in how staff track
learners’ progress and in how they plan for improvement. In addition, there is no
joint approach to self-evaluation across the Kelso Learning Community. While
CLDS reports on progress of its programmes to stakeholders, there is not yet a
systematic Kelso-wide approach to regularly reporting on the progress of all
learners.
6. Does the learning community have a clear sense of direction?
Some staff in CLDS, local schools, libraries and SDS are developing their
approaches to address new challenges. CLDS staff and senior staff in the school
are developing an effective partnership to support vulnerable young people.
CLDS staff have made a positive start to involving young people as service users
3
to help design services. This work should continue and be linked to the
implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. CLDS staff should seek to improve
their leadership of learning. This would ensure more effective and joined up
approaches to planning, tracking learners and undertaking joint self-evaluation.
CLDS should ensure that all provision is of a consistently high quality in order to
better meet the needs of learners in the Kelso area.
7. What happens next?
There are significant improvements needed and CLD providers do not yet have a
good understanding of their strengths and areas for improvement. Our District
Inspector along with the local authority will discuss the most appropriate support
in order to build capacity for improvement and will maintain contact to monitor
progress. We will revisit the learning community to check on progress within one
year of publication of this report.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the local authority and
its partners.
•
CLDS and partners in local schools and community organisations should
further develop their approaches to implementing Curriculum for Excellence.
•
CLDS should extend and improve community capacity building activities,
particularly in the rural villages.
•
CLDS should improve approaches to planning, tracking, monitoring progress
and recognising learner achievement in the Kelso area.
• CLDS and partners should improve their approaches to self-evaluation.
4
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”.
Education Scotland evaluates five important quality indicators to help monitor the
quality of learning communities across Scotland. Here are the results for the
learning community surrounding Kelso High School.
Improvements in performance
Impact on young people
Impact on adults
Impact of capacity building on communities
Improving services
Managing Inspector: Philip Denning
17 January 2012
5
weak
satisfactory
good
weak
weak
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.educationscotland.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 enquiries@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk or
write to us at BMCT, Education Scotland, 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 or alternatively you can
contact www.educationscotland.gov.uk to our Complaints Manager, at the
address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
Crown Copyright 2012
Education Scotland