Learning community inspection
A report by HM Inspectorate of Education Inspection of the learning community
Wallace School

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
3.
Examples of good practice
5. How well does CLD help the community to develop?
6. How effective are providers in improving the quality of services?
7. Does the learning community have a clear sense of direction?
8. What happens next?

1. The learning community
The learning community around Wallace High School includes the communities of
Raploch, Cornton, Riverside, Braehead, Logie, Cambuskenneth, Mercat Cross
Causewayhead and Bridge of Allan. The number of jobless people at 13.6% is lower than the rest of Scotland but higher than the rest of Stirling. There are a number of community regeneration initiatives in Cornton and Raploch. Local authority community learning and development (CLD) provision is provided by three distinct and separate services. These services have been the subject of review in recent months with revised structures implemented.
2. Particular strengths of the learning community
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Effective local partnership working.
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Targeted engagement with learners with disabilities.
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Effective community groups and individuals.
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High levels of volunteers.
3. Examples of good practice
Choices in Care
A 20 week access course that delivers appropriate and responsive training opportunities for More Choices, More Chances (MCMC) young people considering a career in the care sector.
Step into Learning
A partnership project working with people with long term mental illness.
LMIB – Sunlite Café
A voluntarily run and managed community café that offers opportunities for people recovering from mental illness or with learning disabilities to return to a ‘sheltered’ working environment.
Quality Action Group (QAG)
A group of adults with learning disabilities who work in partnership with Stirling
Council and other organisations to improve the lives of people with disabilities.
By visiting www.hmie.gov.uk you can find out more about these examples of good practice.
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4. How well do participants learn and achieve?
There is a good range of quality learning programmes on offer for young people and adults. Authority-wide targets set by the three CLD services are being met.
CLD services report progress appropriately as part of quarterly corporate reporting. Funding support to community groups has increased and adult learner volunteer numbers have increased. Youth Services are making positive use of youth accreditation focusing on broader achievement. There are some examples of CLD services responding to identified trends . However, CLD providers knowledge of potential gaps in provision could be better informed. There is no systematic access to management information to better inform decision-making.
There is a lack of baseline information from which to measure progress and a need for more outcome-focused, measureable targets. Service plans do not clearly reflect joint working across the three CLD services.
Young people
Young people benefit from a good range of activities and projects delivered at both a city-wide and at a local level. There is a good range of local arts projects for young people. Young people’s art work has been exhibited at the MacRobert
Arts Centre. Young people are very well supported to develop employability skills.
They are supported to make more informed choices about future employment or training on access courses. A programme of youth engagement, Stirling Youth
Voice is beginning to strengthen young people’s involvement and impact within the community planning processes. Support to Members of the Scottish Youth
Parliament (MSYPs) also focuses appropriately on the young person’s needs, developing their skills beyond their representative role. Young people’s achievements are being positively recognised through accreditation and awards.
Young people are progressing from taking part in projects to acting as volunteers or taking on leadership roles. Participants from Choices in Care and The Duke of
Edinburgh’s Award at St Modans High School had increased their confidence levels and as a result, they were able to make presentations at the Scottish
Learning Festival. There is a strong ethos of partnership working underpinning youth work in the area. Some youth work provision takes place in high quality, well-resourced venues. However, opportunities exist to better recognise the achievements of young people through increased use of accreditation. The signing of the Stirling Youth Voice agreement with Wallace High School should be completed. Opportunities for issue-based work with young people within the
Twilight Basketball project should now be developed.
Adults
The range and impact of learning opportunities for adult learners, including adults with disabilities, is very good. Learners have increased confidence, self esteem and improved capacity to address issues in their lives. Learners are enthusiastic about learning and for some, this overcomes previous negative experiences.
Learners’ achievements are effectively celebrated including an annual adult learning awards ceremony. For many learners, their involvement is life changing.
They are progressing into employment, further education, community action and volunteering. Some learners are gaining qualifications, progressing from
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beginners computing to European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) classes.
Numeracy students are gaining Intermediate core skills qualifications. Adult learning provision is very inclusive and supportive to individual learners. Learners who have complex learning needs in the Have your Say and Key Words groups are working through Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network
(ASDAN) modules. Effective use of volunteers is increasing the support to individual learners in group settings. All adult learning volunteers are well supported to attend initial training. Currently 15 are attending a personal development award in initial training in adult literacies (ITALL). Some volunteers would benefit from a more systematic approach to their development post-training.
There is scope to develop learning programmes which address local economic and regeneration needs.
5. How well does CLD help the community to develop?
Skilled, confident and very active community members deliver a wide range of services through a high number of community managed groups. Projects such as the Cornton Comment community newspaper, the LMIB/Sunlite café and ACE
Cornton are enriching community life. Community members identify and address community needs very well and are committed to improving their communities.
Community organisations, with high levels of voluntary input, are making a significant contribution to improving the facilities, provision and activity within the area. The Crawford Hall management committee have successfully raised funds to maintain their hall and have extended it for young people to use. Community members are influential and actively involved in local decision-making. They work well with the local authority and other agencies to make improvements in communities. These include safety improvements in Darnley Park, better maintenance of cemeteries and influencing community planning issues around town flooding. They make good use of contacts with public agencies to achieve their objectives. There is a very high sense of ownership and commitment in the community to improving local services and facilities. Work with people with mental health illness and disability in the area is strong and very successful.
Projects such as the LMIB/Sunlite Café , Wolfcraig Training and QAG all work to include vulnerable people. Participants are building self esteem, developing confidence and returning to work through assisted work opportunities. However, some partnership work would benefit from more formal partnership agreements to safeguard the work and clarify roles. Support for more community organisations in the Wallace Forum to produce local community plans would help these communities to define, more clearly, the improvement priorities for their area.
6. How effective are providers in improving the quality of services?
CLD providers use an effective range of methods to gather feedback. Good use is made of learners’ stories in the ACE Cornton quarterly reports to record impact.
The locally developed QUEST evaluation tool is improving the evaluation of literacies provision. There is a strong commitment by managers across the three CLD services to improve self-evaluation practice. A peer review model has been piloted across services. External partners have benefitted from training on
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improving self-evaluation practice. The ACE Cornton project has adopted an established self-evaluation framework. Partner organisations contributed to the
Wallace initial self-evaluation exercise. Providers make good use of a range of effective methods such as local press coverage and DVDs to report progress.
However, there is no systematic approach to self-evaluation. Effective self-evaluation is not yet fully embedded in operational practice or amongst all staff. Levels of understanding and practice vary. Partner self-evaluation activity is still evolving. Some operational staff are not clear on the difference between outputs and outcomes. The impact of work on young people is not effectively measured. Youth work evaluations are more descriptive than evaluative.
7. Does the learning community have a clear sense of direction?
There is a strong ethos of local partnership working and relationships are built on mutual trust. All three CLD services are held in high regard by partners. There are good examples of local partnership work. Youth Services effectively support young people to participate in The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award within Cornton Vale
Prison. Young people are benefiting from shared resources through the Wallace
Youth Locality Plan Partnership. The Class Enemy project and Hidden Treasure exhibition are good examples of the strong and developing partnership between
Youth Services and MacRobert Arts Centre. Raploch partnership members are actively committed to making the partnership work. However, the Wallace Youth
Locality Plan does not specify outcomes for learners. Partnerships, whilst effective, are not formalised and therefore vulnerable. The future sustainability of some community-based provision is unclear.
8. 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 disengaged from evaluative activities early and 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.
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Better assess the learning needs of the community and develop a more targeted response.
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Develop more outcome-focussed planning.
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Embed more consistent self-evaluation practice at an operational level.
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Improve use of management information to better inform decision making.
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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 Wallace High School.
Improvements in performance
Impact on young people
Impact on adults
Impact of capacity building on communities
Improving services
Managing Inspector: Stewart Maxwell
15 December 2009 satisfactory very good very good very good satisfactory
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This report uses the following word scale to make clear judgements made by inspectors. very good satisfactory strengths just outweigh 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.
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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 2009
HM Inspectorate of Education