Inspection report published for Stromness Academy

An Education Scotland report has been published for Stromness Academy, following a routine inspection in March.  

The school was rated across four areas, with two weak and two satisfactory ratings – which has been described as ‘disappointing’. 

Work is now well underway at the school and within the local authority to tackle some of the issues identified in the inspection. 

The strengths of the school identified during the inspection were: 

• Young people are a considerable strength of the school. They are polite, welcoming and engage well with adults and visitors. They are respectful, articulate and demonstrate pride in their school, local community and heritage. 

• Senior leaders, working well with staff, ensure respectful relationships are evident across the school. This helps to create a calm and positive learning environment, where most young people feel cared for and valued.  

• Staff work with partners effectively to ensure young people experience a range of achievements and learning opportunities. These support young people to develop important skills, including teamwork and communication.  

The areas identified for improvement were: 

• Senior leaders should improve strategic leadership across the school. All staff should be clear on their role in supporting improvements that result in positive outcomes for young people. They should develop well-embedded approaches to measuring and evaluating the quality of the work of the school.  

• All staff need to improve the quality and consistency of learning and teaching across the school. Teachers need to embed positive classroom routines. They need to be more responsive to the needs of learners, including a majority who require increased pace and challenge in their learning.  

• Middle leaders and teachers need to work together to improve the shared understanding of national standards relating to the broad general education (S1 – S3). Teachers need to use assessment strategies better to measure the progress of learners more accurately. 

• Senior and middle leaders should improve their strategic overview of the attainment of young people over time. They should work with staff to improve their ability to use data effectively to advance their practice and raise the attainment of young people. 

Councillor Gwenda Shearer, Chair of the Education, Leisure and Housing Committee stated: “We welcome the engagement of Education Scotland as part of our continual improvement processes across our schools – but the inspection report for Stromness Academy is disappointing.    

“The report outlines that significant improvements are required at the school.  An improvement plan is in the process of being drawn up and the members of the Education Leisure and Housing Committee will be updated regularly on the progress of this plan. 

“Education Scotland inspectors will revisit the school to evaluate progress and based on the content of the report I expect that this may be more than once. 

“It is important, however, that we recognise that the school has undergone an exceptionally challenging ten years and that both Jane Partridge and Paul Barber, alongside their respective teams, have worked tirelessly to improve the ethos of the school by rebuilding confidence and partnership working, both essential components of a successful school.   We must not lose sight of the fact that within the school there is a significant amount that we should be proud of, not least the praise placed upon the pupils - praise which I wholeheartedly echo.   

“The real assessment of the strengths of the school will be how it rises to these challenges and meets the improvements it needs to make.  The management team at Stromness Academy, with the support of staff in the Education, Communities and Housing Directorate, are more than capable of improving on this position and we will be willing them on every step of the way.  

The full inspection report is available here: Stromness Academy | Inspection Report | Education Scotland. The report will come in front of Elected Members at a meeting of the Education, Leisure and Housing Committee tomorrow (Wednesday 4 June).