Learning community inspection
A report by HM Inspectorate of Education
Inspection of the learning community
surrounding Mackie Academy
Aberdeenshire Council
16 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 learning community around Mackie Academy includes the town of
Stonehaven and the coastal villages of Catterline, Inverbervie, Gourdon and
Johnshaven. The proportion of jobless people of working age population at 5% is
considerably lower than the Scottish average of 12% and slightly lower than the
rest of Aberdeenshire. The percentage of the population who are income
deprived is 7% compared to the national average of 17%. The area from the
Angus Border up to and including Inverbervie has recently been designated a
Regeneration Priority Area. At the time of inspection the local community learning
and development (CLD) team were without a member of staff due to long term
sickness absence. This was impacting on service delivery.
2. Particular strengths of the learning community
•
Effective, targeted youth work projects.
•
Effective, targeted adult learning.
•
Confident and effective community groups delivering quality services based on
identified local need.
•
High quality partnership working delivered through the Stonehaven Community
Schools Network partnership.
3. How well do participants learn and achieve?
CLD partners are making good progress in the use of data to inform improvement
planning. Improvements in monthly corporate reporting have recently been
introduced to better understand the information provided. Engagement with
locally elected representatives about performance reporting has improved. A
formal CLD Service improvement report has been approved by the Education,
Learning and Leisure (ELL) committee. Local councillor briefing events are
helping increase the level of understanding of the work of the CLD Service. The
quality of targeted youth work and adult learning provision is good. Adult learning
is focusing well on more vulnerable learners. The number of adult learning
opportunities and learner retention figures are improving. Support to vulnerable
young people is reviewed on a monthly basis by the Community School Network
(CSN) partnership. The CLD Service responded effectively to identified concerns
around young people and road traffic accidents by developing the Momentum
safe driver awareness programme. As a result of the 2008 peer review youth
work is now more targeted. CLD staff locally have been trained in use of youth
accreditation.
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There is a lack of more outcome-focused, measureable targets. There is no set
baseline from which to measure progress. Access to electronic data to better
inform decision making is not yet fully operational. Community profiles are not
fully up to date.
Young people
There is a good range of activities for young people including drop-in provision,
youth information, club and issue-based work. The COMET mobile provides a
high quality youth work resource in identified ‘hot spots’. Young people are well
supported and are encouraged to get involved in activities. Young people are
actively engaged in local decision making within Acoustic Youth Stage, the Skate
Park Group and the Stonehaven Young People’s Society. Targeted work focused
on the more vulnerable young people is making a difference and encouraging
them to become involved in other opportunities such as Mearns FM community
radio. Programmes such as Momentum, and Baby Think it Over effectively
engage young people in achieving positive outcomes. Successful learners are
progressing into volunteering, employment or college. A few young people have
undertaken Millennium Volunteer Awards. However, better use could be made of
accreditation to record young people’s achievements. There is a lack of youth
friendly premises to support effective youth work delivery. There are too few
youth work opportunities outwith Stonehaven.
Adults
There is a broad range of well attended learning opportunities in Stonehaven
provided by a range of CLD partners. Opportunities for progression and
attainment for English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) and computing
learners are good. Almost all learners are more confident as a result of their
experience and have become more successful learners. Staff are effectively
engaging sizable numbers of learners who are traditionally hard to reach. These
learners are being well supported to make important changes in their lives. As an
outcome of their learning, ESOL learners are able to access services such as the
doctor, hospital and library unaccompanied, as well as shopping and using the
telephone. The Peer Early Education Programme (PEEP) provides a very good
learning experience for all involved. It effectively tackles issues such as isolation
and is engaging vulnerable families in family learning. However, the impact of
learning on participants and the difference that learning has made to their lives is
not effectively captured. Adult learning opportunities for those living in areas
outwith Stonehaven are limited.
4. How well are communities developing and achieving?
Impact on the local community is good. A wide range of effective, volunteer-led
community organisations operate across the Stonehaven network. Community
members are confident, skilled, committed and active. Volunteers and groups
actively deliver high quality local services in response to local need. The flood
support group has raised over £10,000 to support residents affected by recent
flooding. Local people competently organise and run a range of local services
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and events such as Inverbervie Burgh Hall and Johnshaven Fish Festival. The
Friends of Stonehaven Open Air Swimming Pool committee manage a 13 week
programme which attracts over 30,000 visitors and provides 10,000 hours
employment for local young people. Groups are inclusive. The Aberdeen Foyer
project offers much needed support to young tenants. The Invercarron Centre
supports older residents to remain independent. However, community groups
play a very limited role in local decision making outwith their own group. The role
and remit of the Stonehaven Network Community Development Group is unclear.
Mechanisms for community involvement in local and wider decision making are
ineffective. Community groups do not feel that they are equal partners with public
services. Community activity across the learning community area is not well
captured or shared. As a result groups and partners are not fully informed of who
is doing what.
5. How effective are providers in improving the quality of services?
CLD partners use a range of effective methods to gather feedback from
participants and learners. These include consultation events and good use of
interactive techniques such as Voxur and Survey Monkey. CSN partners actively
engage in joint annual planning and evaluation. This is improving joint work and
increasing awareness of partners’ roles and remits. CLD Service staff are
increasingly engaged in self-evaluation and team reviews to improve services.
Good use is made of external peer evaluation to improve youth work provision.
Arrangements for CLD Service staff to reflect on and improve practice are good.
Regular service events and joint events with neighbouring authorities offer good
opportunities to share practice and improve networking. CLD Service staff
engage in joint evaluation with some partners such as the police in relation to
youth work projects. The CLD Service makes good use of local inspection
knowledge and experience to improve self-evaluation practice. Good use is made
of community publications, reports to the area committee, Mearns FM and local
press to report progress to stakeholders. However, CLD Service staff need to
further develop their understanding of the positive impact of their work on learners
to better inform and help embed their self-evaluation practice. There is scope to
further develop partner’s involvement in joint evaluation.
6. Does the learning community have a clear sense of direction?
The CSN provides an effective framework for local partnership working. There
are good examples of partnership working making a positive difference. CLD
Service staff engage well with young people in Mackie Academy through the
S1 drop-in provision and the COMET mobile information resource. Working
relationships with Mackie Academy and local primaries are good and improving.
Within the PEEP project adult learning staff work closely with social work
colleagues. However, at a local level there is no clear vision or agreed aims and
priorities shared amongst service providers and community. Historic practice is
diverting CLD Service staff away from CLD priorities. The respective roles of
community planning and CLD staff are not clear.
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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.
•
Develop youth accreditation opportunities.
•
Develop effective mechanisms which allow local communities to engage and
influence decision making as equal partners.
•
Improve sharing of local information, expertise across the learning community.
•
Review CLD service staff deployment in line with service priorities.
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 Mackie Academy.
Improvements in performance
Impact on young people
Impact on adults
Impact of capacity building on communities
Improving services
Managing Inspector: Stewart Maxwell
16 March 2010
4
satisfactory
good
good
good
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 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education