School is top of the class
Inspectors praise work of academy
Auchinleck Academy is top of the form after receiving a good school report.
The school was visited by a team of inspectors from Education Scotland in November, where they spoke to parents, carers and young people, as well as the headteacher and staff.
During their visit, they looked at the quality of leadership, learning and teaching, and young people’s achievements and well being.
They summed up the leadership of change as very good, learning, teaching and assessment as good, raising attainment and achievement as good, and ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion as very good.
The inspection team found some real strengths:
The strong strategic leadership provided by the headteacher is highly valued across the school community. Along with the senior leadership team, his consistent reinforcement of the shared vision and values has inspired and strengthened leadership across the school. High e x p e c t a t i o n s h a v e encouraged a climate of continuous improvement and raised the aspirations of young people.
school’s nurturing and caring ethos, which runs through all aspects of school life, is promoting and developing the wellbeing of young people. This is evident in the high level of commitment of staff to continually improve the experiences and outcomes for all young people.
The impact of steps taken to seek, listen and respond to the views of young people.
Improvement s i n attainment in the senior school, particularly in literacy and numeracy. The school succeeds in supporting almost all young people to move to a positive destination on leaving school with increasing numbers entering higher education.
Head teacher Peter Gilchrist said: “I am delighted that the report is a very positive one.
“Indeed, it is the best from those seven secondary schools inspected so far using Education Scotland’s new toolkit ‘ How Good Is Our School? 4’.
“Although a nerve– wracking experience for staff, working with the inspection team provided us with focussed discussion on what we need to do to make the school even better.
“It was also good to see that in the areas for improvement all recommendations are that we continue to develop our good practice.
“Once again, many thanks to all parents and pupils for your positive comments on the school.”
L o o k i n g t o t h e future, several areas for improvement were agreed with the headteacher and East Ayrshire Council.
to monitor attainment over time to ensure that all young people have a path through the curriculum that allows them to make the best possible progress throughout their time in school.
Continue to improve learning and teaching across the school. Whilst there are examples of high quality learning and teaching, there remains scope to provide a more consistent and engaging learning experience across all classes.
Moving forward, senior leaders should continue to involve staff, parents, partners and young people in focussing and streamlining the school’s priorities for improvement.