Girvan Academy
South Ayrshire Council
16 June 2009
This report tells you about the quality of education at the school.
We describe how young people benefit from learning there. We
explain how well they are doing and how good the school is at
helping them to learn. Then we look at the ways in which the
school does this. We describe how well the school works with
other groups in the community, including parents1 and services
which support young people. We also comment on how well staff
and young people work together and how they go about
improving the school.
Our report describes the ‘ethos’ of the school. By ‘ethos’ we
mean the relationships in the school, how well young people are
cared for and treated and how much is expected of them in all
aspects of school life. Finally, we comment on the school’s aims.
In particular, we focus on how well the aims help staff to deliver
high quality learning, and the impact of leadership on the school’s
success in achieving these 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 and details about young people’s
examination performance. Where applicable, you will also be
able to find descriptions of good practice in the school and 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. Examples of good practice
4. How well do young people learn and achieve?
5. How well do staff work with others to support young people’s
learning?
6. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving their
school community?
7. Does the school have high expectations of all young people?
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
9. What happens next?
1. The school
Girvan Academy is a non-denominational school which serves the
town of Girvan and surrounding area. The roll was 634 when the
inspection was carried out in April 2009. Young people’s attendance
was in line with the national average in 2007/2008.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
The positive relationships between staff and young people.
•
Young people’s enjoyment of learning together.
•
Young people’s achievement in a wide range of opportunities
outwith class.
•
The strongly supportive and caring environment for all young
people and staff.
•
The very effective arrangements to support young people when
they move from primary school into S1.
3. Examples of good practice
•
Shared Responsibility – international partnerships and developing
global citizenship.
•
Creative, visual promotion of the school within its community.
4. How well do young people learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Young people are confident and, for the most part, behave responsibly
in and out of class. They feel safe and well supported in school. Most
young people are motivated and work well with their teachers and
each other. They enjoy learning together. They respond
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enthusiastically to well designed opportunities to work independently,
think creatively or solve problems. Teachers should now work
together to develop these approaches more widely across the school.
Many young people develop important skills and confidence through a
range of sporting, cultural and other activities. These include taking
part in the annual school show, concerts, Burns evenings, drama and
debating competitions. Young people from the school have regularly
earned places at the International Space School in Houston, Texas.
Young people including the Burns Bairns take part in events in the
local community. A few develop their citizenship skills through
participating in the pupil council, organising various events and being
members of committees such as the Eco Schools Group. The school
should build on the success of these opportunities by ensuring that as
many young people as possible are participating. Staff should also
evaluate how these experiences promote young people’s learning and
achievement.
At S1/S2, the majority of young people achieve appropriate standards
in reading, writing and mathematics. A significant number of young
people do not build sufficiently on their attainment at P7 in these
areas. The school does not have a consistent approach to determine
progress by the end of S2 in other subject areas. Overall, at S4 to S6,
young people perform much less well than those in other schools
which serve young people with similar needs and backgrounds.
Results are below or well below national levels and are not improving.
Most young people leaving school progress to higher education,
further education, training or employment. At all stages, young people
could achieve more.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
The school provides a range of appropriate courses. Young people
can also choose from a number of vocational courses at Ayr College.
All young people at S4 have the opportunity of a week’s work
experience. Most young people receive sufficient physical education
and the school is working to ensure that all do so. Arrangements are
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appropriate for all young people to receive religious and moral
education. The school has made a good start in implementing the
national programme Curriculum for Excellence. Teachers across a
number of subjects are cooperating to deliver learning jointly. For
example, young people at S2 participate in a very successful
programme about the impact of the cocaine trade on both Scottish and
Colombian society. This project has received national recognition.
Staff are working with primary colleagues to develop literacy skills.
The school needs to widen this to other curriculum areas to improve
continuity in young people’s learning experiences from P7 into S1. To
raise attainment, the school will improve the curriculum next session to
provide better progression routes from S4 into S5/S6. The school
should now consult openly and widely to ensure its changing
curriculum meets young people’s needs fully.
In most classes, young people’s learning needs are met through a
suitable range of tasks, activities and resources. However, young
people do not always progress as well as they could. Across the
school, teachers do not always provide young people with activities at
the right level of difficulty to challenge them sufficiently. The quality of
support for young people when they move from primary school into S1
is very effective, particularly for those who may need extra help. Staff
successfully identify and meet the needs of young people with
significant additional support needs. These needs are well met in
lessons in the extended learning facility and in mainstream classes.
Some young people have individualised educational programmes but
these do not always help them make suitable progress in their
learning. Overall, young people receive very good pastoral care from
pupil support and guidance staff. The school recognises that it needs
to check young people’s progress across subjects more closely and
set them targets. Subject and guidance teachers require to work
closely together to ensure that these arrangements are developed
sufficiently to benefit young people’s learning.
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5. How well do staff work with others to support young people’s
learning?
The school works well with a wide range of partners to support young
people and extend their learning experiences, including strong links
with Ayr College. A number of young people are benefiting from a
course to help them prepare for work, which is delivered in partnership
with outside agencies. The school nursing service makes a valuable
contribution to young people’s learning about health and wellbeing.
The active schools coordinator liaises with the school to provide young
people with further opportunities to participate in community sports
activities. The school’s sports leader programme offers young people
coaching opportunities in local primary schools. Partners find the
school welcoming and good to work with. Links with community
learning and development partners need to be developed further to
raise attainment and community aspirations. Overall, most parents are
happy with the school. However, the school should address the
concerns of the significant number of parents who feel that the school
does not keep them well informed about their children’s progress or
ask them enough for their views.
6. Are staff and young people actively involved in improving their
school community?
The school needs to improve how it identifies its strengths and areas
for improvement, building on recent positive steps. In particular, all
teachers now need to work together to evaluate learning and teaching
and share good practice. Attainment information together with all staff,
young people’s and their parents’ views need to be used to bring about
improvement. Staff participate in working groups to improve different
aspects of the school. The pupil council has used allocated funds to
improve aspects of the school. However, a significant number of
young people are not aware of what the council does. Overall, young
people need to talk about how to improve their learning more often
together and with their teachers.
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7. Does the school have high expectations of all young people?
Staff and young people have positive relationships. Staff provide a
caring and supportive learning environment. Young people respond
well to what they are asked to do. However, across the school,
teachers have variable expectations of what young people are capable
of achieving. Teachers need to increase the pace of lessons and raise
the levels of challenge and expectation. The school has been
successful in improving attendance and reducing the number of
exclusions. The school uses display effectively in many learning areas
and corridors to exhibit young people’s work and motivate learners.
Arrangements for religious observance are appropriate.
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
Overall, the school does not have a sufficiently strong or clear sense of
direction. As a result, it has not been improving sufficiently. Some
teachers are developing innovative approaches within their subjects.
The school now needs to build on these approaches to improve
learning and teaching. Senior managers are not yet having sufficient
influence on improving learning and teaching. They need to work
more closely with the departments they link with to improve the quality
of learning and achievement.
9. What happens next?
We will carry out a follow-through inspection visit within one year of
publication of this report and will report to parents on the extent to
which the school has improved. Following that visit, we may continue
to check the improvements the school has made. We may also carry
out a second follow-through inspection within two years of the original
inspection report. If a second follow-through inspection visit is
necessary then it will result in another report to parents on the extent
of improvement that the school has made.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Improve attainment at all stages.
•
Improve how staff, young people and parents work together to
improve the school.
•
Improve the consistency in the quality of learning and teaching.
•
Continue to develop links with local community learning and
development partners.
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 Girvan Academy.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
weak
good
satisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
Managing Inspector: Nigel Lawrie
7
satisfactory
weak
16 June 2009
To find out more about inspections or get an electronic copy of this
report go to www.hmie.gov.uk. Please contact the Business
Management and Communications Team (BMCT) if you wish to
enquire about our arrangements for translated or other appropriate
versions.
If you wish to comment about any of our inspections, contact us
at HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or alternatively you should write in
the first instance to BMCT, HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm
House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
Our complaints procedure is available from our website
www.hmie.gov.uk or alternatively you can write to our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
If you are not satisfied with the action we have taken at the end of our
complaints procedure, you can raise your complaint with the Scottish
Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). The SPSO is fully independent
and has powers to investigate complaints about Government
departments and agencies. You should write to SPSO, Freepost
EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also telephone 0800 377 7330,
fax 0800 377 7331 or e-mail: ask@spso.org.uk. More information
about the Ombudsman’s office can be obtained from the website
at www.spso.org.uk.
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
Crown Copyright 2009
HM Inspectorate of Education.
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