News
Inspection report published for Stromness Academy 2026
16 September 2026
Last year Stromness Academy was inspected by Education Scotland in March, with the resulting report rating the school as weak in two areas and satisfactory in two others. Subsequently, an improvement plan was created in conjunction with Orkney Islands Council's Education staff.
This year, in June, inspectors returned to the school to review steps taken and progress made since the original inspection, resulting in a follow up letter which confirms that progress has been made across all four areas identified in the original report, but highlighted that continued development is required.
During their visit, inspectors spoke with young people and worked with staff alongside senior management to find out what steps had been taken to address feedback in each of the identified improvement areas.
Senior management within the school has improved strategic leadership, including a successful review of the remits of senior and middle leaders. This has included the creation of new processes to bring clarity to continued improvement planning.
Teachers have improved the consistency and quality of learning and teaching across the school, enabled and supported by school-wide professional learning along with Stromness Academy’s own lesson evaluation toolkit.
There has been strong progress in developing a shared understanding of national standards for the S1-S3 broad general education years. Further to this, Senior and middle leaders have also made progress in improving tracking and using data related to attainment. Improvements have been made to whole-school monitoring systems and the use of national benchmarking tools, although this is at an early stage.
Gwenda Shearer, Chair of Education, Communities and Housing Committee, commented:
“This letter reflects the real progress the school has made, and is a - credit to Paul Barber, Stromness’ headteacher. The staff and young people have worked so hard together to embrace these improvements.
“It's particularly pleasing to see the strengthened leadership across the school, the greater consistency now coming through in learning and teaching, and the improving use of data to support young people's progress. There is still work to be done, and we recognise that, but the direction of travel is a clearly positive one.
“We remain fully committed to working alongside the school, its staff, pupils, and we will continue to support the headteacher and his team every step of the way as they carry this programme of improvement forward."
Inspectors will return to carry out an additional inspection within a years’ time, at which stage parents and carers will be written to with updates following that visit.
The full follow up letter and original report can be found here: Stromness Academy