Denny High School
Falkirk Council
1 March 2011

HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) inspects schools in order to let parents
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, 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 there will also be a report on the learning community surrounding the school.
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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. How well do young people learn and achieve?
4. How well do staff work with others to support young people’s learning?
5. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving their school community?
6. Does the school have high expectations of all young people?
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
8. What happens next?
1. The school
Denny High School is a non-denominational school which serves the town of Denny and the surrounding villages. The roll was 1265 when the inspection was carried out in January 2011. This included 20 young people within Northfield. This on-site facility provides support for young people with severe specific learning difficulties, particularly those related to language and communication. Young people’s attendance was in line with the national average in 2009/2010 .
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2. Particular strengths of the school
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The success of the headteacher and senior leadership team in leading school improvement.
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Young people’s wide range of achievements.
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The positive atmosphere for learning with a strong sense of pride and community identity.
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Staff success in improving the life and work of the school.
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High-quality support provided by staff for young people with additional support needs.
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How well do young people learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Almost all young people are very positive about their school experience. Productive teacher–pupil interactions ensure young people feel valued, included and supported in their learning. Most are well engaged and motivated to learn. Young people are increasingly enjoying a variety of learning activities including the opportunity to use information and communications technology (ICT) and to work collaboratively. Staff should continue to plan learning which increases young people’s independence and responsibility. Staff need to make more effective use of questioning and feedback and sharing good practice. Greater consistency in these aspects will help young people to be clear about their strengths and what they need to do to improve further. Learners value the opportunities to share their views about the school but are not always well informed about what has happened as a result. Most young people in Northfield are motivated and
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successfully engage in their learning. They interact confidently with adults across the school and enjoy the challenge of mainstream classes.
Young people are increasing their confidence and self esteem through their involvement in an extensive range of opportunities for personal achievement such as musical, artistic, sports, cultural, community and house activities, assemblies and leadership roles. They are positive about how they are benefiting from these out-of-class learning experiences. Many have achieved success individually and as part of teams and groups in competitions and events. Young people develop their skills very well on the excellent dance programme, including the
Dance Academy. Achievement award programmes improve young people’s confidence and their capacity to contribute to the life of the school and community. The school recognises the potential to develop these further.
By the end of S2, young people are making appropriate progress in their learning with the majority of young people achieving appropriate standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Most do so in listening and talking. In recent years the performance of young people in national examinations from S4 to S6 has improved in most key measures of attainment. By the end of S4, the school’s performance varies between being in line with and below national averages. At general and credit level or equivalent the school performs in line with or better than schools serving young people with similar needs and backgrounds. By the end of S6, the school performs in line with those schools but overall below national averages. The school is aware of and has begun to address the gap in attainment by the end of S6 where girls significantly outperform boys in most of the key attainment measures. Young people in Northfield and those with additional support needs are making appropriate progress.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
The school’s vision and values have been reviewed to take account of the expectations of Curriculum for Excellence . At S1, the curriculum is
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broad and well balanced. It provides opportunities for young people to specialise and choose additional study from a range of options.
The school has consulted well with parents and staff in implementing these changes. The S1 Scottish Identity project helps young people understand Scotland better and its place in the world and to link their learning across subjects. At S3/S4 there is a wide range of course options with a number of flexible programmes which provide very good progression and meet young people’s needs well. The Cloybank and
Topps Farm rural skills courses are effective in motivating young people who are less engaged in the classroom context. The Alcohol
Social Norms project is an innovative approach to informing young people about the myths surrounding drinking habits. All young people in S4 undertake work experience and this is continued to S5 for those who want to participate. At S5/S6 young people can further broaden their studies through a range of free standing units and vocational courses. All young people in S5/S6 do not yet have a continuing experience of religious and moral education or physical education in line with national expectations. Overall, the school’s work in
Curriculum for Excellence is at an early stage of development and should be progressed more quickly.
Teachers know their young people well as learners. Staff receive critical information about young people in order that they can plan effective learning and provide appropriate support. Staff use a wide range of courses, materials and resources, including ICT, well to provide suitably challenging learning for higher achieving young people. Young people’s emerging interactive use of materials on the school website such as ‘Snowork’ helps them to extend and consolidate their learning. Overall, many of the in-class tasks and activities meet the range of pupil’s needs well. In a minority of lessons, tasks required to be more difficult and planned more carefully to meet the range of learner’s needs more effectively. An extensive team of dedicated and skilled specialist staff provide very good and well-coordinated care and curriculum support for young people including those with more complex needs. Support for learning staff and Northfield staff support young people successfully through a range of curriculum options and qualifications. They have supported staff
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well across the school to develop their curriculum, courses and materials. Further targeted use of these processes should now be used to support the development of Curriculum for Excellence .
Individualised educational programmes should be reviewed to ensure they are used more effectively to support learner’s progress.
4. How well do staff work with others to support young people’s learning?
Support for learning staff work with a number of different agencies and initiatives to effectively meet the additional support needs of young people, including speech and language therapy and Seasons for
Growth. Central Scotland Youth Service, Emergency Services and the
Royal Bank all make effective contributions to the personal and social education programme. The school has developed partnership working well to support vulnerable young people and their families. The locality team based in the school provides a useful link to the wider community through the community policeman and family support workers. Further partnership work with Community Education and the Wider Access to
School Project (WASP) needs to engage parents more in their life-long learning. Very effective school-college partnerships with Forth Valley,
Oatridge and Cumbernauld Colleges enhance course choice options for young people. The Parent Council enjoys good relationships with the school. It is positive about the level of discussion and their involvement in the school’s new vision statement, homework policy and Curriculum for Excellence .
5. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving their school community?
The school’s approaches to ensuring continuous improvement are both well-considered and well-developed. Processes are structured clearly and informed by staff, parents and learner views and classroom observations. Staff regularly reflect on their own practice and are increasingly involved in discussions with other colleagues about how
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to improve. They use the school’s tracking system ‘on the button’ to check young people’s progress effectively and to set realistic targets for improvement. In a few departments the approach to target setting and discussing young people’s progress needs to be more regular and consistent. A small number of senior young people are being mentored to help with their progress. Detailed analysis of each department’s attainment statistics is undertaken annually and priorities are identified where action is necessary. As a result of these initiatives attainment and the consistency and quality of learning and teaching are improving. Staff support each other well in contributing to whole school improvements such as the re-organised House system which is enhancing young people’s sense of belonging and achievement. The school is aware of the need to engage more parents more often in effectively evaluating the work of the school.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all young people?
The school has high expectations of all learners including those who have challenging home circumstances. It tracks carefully the attainment of all young people including those who are looked after or act as carers. Almost all young people behave well. Staff’s work in resolving difficulties through its restorative practice approach, is developing a greater sense of young people being included. The number of young people excluded from school has reduced and is below the national average. The school has appropriate procedures in place relating to child protection and to dealing with allegations and complaints. The arrangements for religious observance are appropriate and are being developed further through the House system. Young people’s awareness of diversity issues is being extended through their in-class work in several departments across the school but this good work needs progressed further. Young people in
Northfield would benefit from socialising with their mainstream peers more often. Staff need to ensure that the school’s reward system is applied consistently and fairly by all staff in all departments.
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7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The headteacher has a clear vision for enhancing all young people’s confidence to achieve. He has actively encouraged staff at all levels to be accountable and to take on more responsibility for improving their practice. As a result many staff lead well a range of successful whole school improvement groups. He has introduced a more effective, reflective and collegiate approach to evaluating the work of the school.
He is well supported by the depute headteachers, principal teachers and resource manager. Together they have ensured an appropriate and sustained focus on improving the quality of learning and teaching, on analysing attainment more rigorously and on providing more effective support for young people’s progress. Denny High School is an improving school. The headteacher, in providing a clear lead and strong commitment to systematically evaluating the work of the school and to continuous improvement, has enhanced its capacity for further improvement.
8. What happens next?
As a result of the very good quality of education provided by the school, we will make no further visits in connection with this inspection.
The education authority will inform parents about the school’s progress as part of the authority’s arrangements for reporting to parents on the quality of its schools.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school and education authority.
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Accelerate the pace of implementation of Curriculum for Excellence and ensure a continuing experience of religious and moral education and physical education for all young people in S5 and
S6.
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Engage more parents effectively in supporting young people’s learning.
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Continue to improve the quality of young people’s learning to further raise attainment.
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 Denny High School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs good good good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum very good
HM Inspector: Donald A Macleod 1 March 2011
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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 outstanding, sector leading major strengths important strengths with some areas satisfactory means strengths just outweigh weaknesses unsatisfactory means 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