Kinross High School's learning community working well
Last updated | 27/01/2012
The learning community surrounding Kinross High School has recently received an upbeat inspection report from HMI (Her Majesty's Inspectorate), highlighting a range of key strengths and the positive impact partnership working is making for young people, adults and communities.
Councillors will consider HMI's assessment of community learning and development (CLD) activities around the school at the next meeting of the Lifelong Learning Executive Sub-Committee on Wednesday 1st February 2012.
The strong and vibrant nature of the learning community, very effective integrated working at Loch Leven Community Campus, where the school is based, high quality learning and support programmes and the commitment and motivation shown by staff were all identified as particular strengths by inspectors.
Positive assessment of performance
Assessed against national quality indicators, the impact of the learning community on young people, adults and developing residents' abilities to take part in actions based on community interests, and improvement to services were all rated as 'very good', with improvements in performance viewed as 'good'.
Young people and adults both had access to very good learning opportunities, provided by diverse partners. Joint working was helping to effectively support vulnerable individuals, and all young people had the chance to develop confidence and important life skills and to contribute to their community through volunteering. The courses and other options provided were enabling both young people and adult learners to move onto employment and further learning.
Community groups and organisations in the area were strong and active, and very good community engagement had helped improve partnerships between the Council, other agencies and these groups. The work of CLD staff was leading to better uptake of the facilities at the community campus, particularly by older people, and staff had recognised the importance of continuing to develop their approach to further benefit the community.
Clear direction for service improvement
To develop the positive progress being made, Inspectors recommended greater use of recording systems to monitor and report on learning outcomes, further development of links to Curriculum for Excellence to achieve a broad general education, and the provision of more volunteering opportunities to support adult learners.
The report goes on to note that a range of highly effective approaches were being used to gather feedback from service users and other key partners in order to improve the quality of services provided. Clear targets for future development had been identified and Inspectors also encouraged more formal reporting to stakeholders. Overall, the learning community around Kinross High School was considered to have a clear sense of direction, with CLD partners committed to delivering jointly on priorities and improving services.
Lifelong Learning Convener, Councillor Liz Grant welcomed the report: "Since inspections of learning communities around secondary schools began, the Perth and Kinross area has consistently shown improvement in performance. The assessment of Kinross High School's learning community makes for very positive reading and reflects well on the community learning and development work we are doing around Perth and Kinross with our partners to support and empower residents."
