School: Culloden Academy
Head Teacher: J Vance
School Vision, Values and Aims:
Culloden Academy strives to be a:
CARING community which celebrates the creativity of all of our pupils. A school which works hard to
UNDERSTAND the individual circumstances of our pupils and to support them to achieve their potential. Where
LOYALTY and respect towards all members of the community are valued. Where a lifelong love of
LEARNING is central to all that we do; so that pupils can achieve their best, both now and in the future. We will always work hard to ensure that
OUR ETHOS is warm, welcoming and reassuring to pupils, staff, parents, partners and our community. We have a
DIVERSE CURRICULUM which responds to learners’ needs and ensures that our pupils receive the highest quality of learning and teaching. We are a school community where pupils are
ENCOURAGED to excel in many different ways within a
NURTURING space, where the warm and friendly atmosphere enables pupils to thrive.
Standards and Quality Report referencing your previous Improvement Plan and next steps.
Context of the school:
Culloden Academy is a school of approximately 1050 pupils set on the outskirts of Inverness. Our catchment area covers 6 primary schools- Ardersier, Balloch, Cradlehall, Croy, Duncan Forbes and Smithton. Over the course of the next decade our role is projected to rise to 1400 and so we anticipate some extension to the current buildings within that time.
A recent Highland Council Quality Improvement Team visit (September 2016) noted the following about the work of the school:
•The ethos in the school and in individual classrooms is positive, good relationships and mutual respect between staff and pupils is evident.
•Pupil’s views are taken seriously.
•Team work is a strength of the staff.
•Class teachers were well organised and well planned for their lessons.
•Pupils were motivated to learn, they participated willingly in tasks given and almost all were on task.
•Pupils reported that staff were helpful and encouraging.
•The ethos of inclusion is well embedded in school practice
•All staff are proactive in promoting positive relationships
•Pupils know who to go to if they have any problems.
•Support staff have a very good knowledge and understanding of learners on their caseload.
•School clubs support pupil’s physical and emotional wellbeing.
•Wider achievement within the school develops a sense of caring and broadens the horizons for pupils.
•Behaviour issues are taken seriously and dealt with well.
The Scottish Government’s Improvement Framework for Education has identified 4 key priorities for Scottish Education. Below is a summary of our work to date in responding to these priorities.
1) What have we done to improve attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy?
Moderation of teacher judgements to ensure consistency, observed lessons to share good practice and a culture of quality assurance to support continuous improvement have seen incremental improvements in attainment year by year.
Tracking, monitoring and mentoring in S4-6, facilitated by three reports for all S4-6 pupils has seen pupils receive appropriate support and challenge early enough to make a difference.
S6 pupils have been required this year to make 5 positive choices- this has resulted in a higher proportion of our S6 learners taking on ambitious programmes.
Literacy levels at S4 have risen for the last 5 years- whereas in 2012 39% of our S4 attained National 5 equivalent in literacy, in 2016 the figure was 60%.
Numeracy levels at S4 have also risen significantly since 2012- from 32% to 57% of our S4 cohort attaining National 5 or equivalent.
2) What have we done to close the attainment gap?
We have targeted support to children at risk of underachievement with the level of intervention decided by a bespoke risk matrix
We robustly analyse all of the attainment and achievement data we hold to identify gaps and trends. Using this we have identified appropriate interventions that we can use the Scottish Government Pupil Equity Funding to deliver.
All staff have been engagedin this task by a review of departmental courses to ensure they are not exacerbating the gap between those from most and least deprived backgrounds.
All staff have also been engaged through information sharing about research and school specific data and by the creation of professional learning opportunities.
3) What have we done to improve children and young people’s health and wellbeing?
We believe that we have strong relationships with partners including Social Work, CAMHS, Police and the Youth Action Team. We now have a Primary Mental Health Worker resident in the building which improves our access to information and support for our young people.
Our well established Solution Focused Meeting system allows us to intervene proactively and engage parents and partners in comprehensive decisions to support our young people.
The school’s PSE course has been well resourced this session and the lead PT is continuing to refine it to support our young people throughout their six years in school.
Transitions into and out of Culloden Academy are well managed- the transition for our most recent S1 cohort was very well received by parents and our ASG schools. Recent positive destinations data suggests that the percentage of our young people moving on to positive destinations is continuing to improve and now sits just below 96%.
We have introduced a Health and Wellbeing day this session to give our young people the opportunity to experience new activities which they will hopefully wish to continue with after the event.
We also continue to offer a comprehensive extra-curricular programme- both at lunch and after school- to give young people opportunities to engage in non-curricular activities which enhance their wellbeing.
We adhere to Highland Council advice about staff awareness raising and training with regards to Safeguarding, Equality and Diversity. We also share information with staff on a weekly basis about young people experiencing short-term difficulties impacting on their health and wellbeing and their capacity to engage in learning.
4) What have we done to improve the employability skills and sustained positive destinations of our young people?
Departments have embedded “Skills for learning, life and work” into their courses and as appropriate assess and support young people to develop their employability skills.
The Technical department have mapped out and shared with young people all the progression routes into employment that their courses offer- including which institutions our young people can progress to after they finish their studies with us. Other departments have now started to develop similar information for learners.
We use Twitter (@Cullodencareers) to publicise all opportunities for employment, apprenticeships and career relevant events. The school website is also being updated to make information more accessible to parents and pupils.
Gavin Murphy- who leads our work on the Scottish Government initiative “Developing the Young Workforce” (DYW) meets regularly with partners to identify and share opportunities for our young people to engage in Career Ready learning.
Our overall evaluation of the school’s capacity for continuous improvement:
* We are confident in our capacity for continuous improvement ☒
* We have some concerns about our capacity for continuous improvement ☐
Comment:We are confident that we have the systems, knowledge and capacity to continue to develop the school.
Quality Indicators from How good is our school? (4th edition) and where appropriate How good is our Early Learning and Childcare? / How are we doing?What’s working well for our learners? / What are we going to do now?
What actions will move us forward?
1.1 Self-evaluation for
self-improvement
- Collaborative approaches to self-
- Analysis and evaluation of intelligence and data
- Ensuring impact on learners’ successes and achievements
We have identified all of the key data that we hold on the attainment of our young people and departments have to analyse and explain this in QA meetings with Senior Management as appropriate. The data is also used to inform improvement planning and identify interventions as appropriate.
Regular meetings between departmental PTs and Senior Management support departments to deliver the agreed improvements. / We plan to streamline the report to focus more directly on the quality of learning and teaching. In doing so we will make reference to the messages in the Scottish Attainment Challenge Teaching Toolkit.
Staff training- probably at PT level- focused on the analysis and use of data to drive improvement will be delivered in session 2017-18
Ongoing
Quality Indicators from How good is our school? (4th edition) and where appropriate How good is our Early Learning and Childcare? / How are we doing?
What’s working well for our learners? (what are the features of effective practice in our school?) / What are we going to do now?
What actions will move us forward?
(improvement priorities highlighted in this area)
1.3 Leadership of Change
- Developing a shared vision, values and aims relevant to the school and its community
- Strategic planning for continuous improvement
- Implementing improvement and change
Senior Management promote and staff support an inward, outward, forward looking approach to developments- we always strive to identify and learn from the best practices in Scottish and international education when planning changes.
Data is gathered and analysed in detail. The results are shared widely and used to support and challenge the work of the school. Analysis of SIMD data is rigorous and comprehensive and is used to identify future school improvement priorities.
Our QA processes and particularly the bi-annual reports and resultant meetings support strategic improvement planning.
The regular meetings also allow us to respond to changes in circumstances not envisaged when original plans were written.
As mentioned above, grass roots pupil voice is a powerful element of our change management process. / In session 2017-18 we will be promoting these values in the physical space and in the curriculum.
Plan Staff meetings and in-service time more strategically to ensure we are supporting professional learning and continuous improvement.
Continue to engage staff in discussion about their data and what improvement priorities can be developed from it.
Continue to learn from other schools about the intelligent use of data.
Support and challenge to colleagues to continue to develop their skills and capacity.
Seek a more consistent and representative pupil group to work with SMT alongside senior prefect group.
Quality Indicators from How good is our school? (4th edition) and where appropriate How good is our Early Learning and Childcare? / How are we doing?
What’s working well for our learners? (what are the features of effective practice in our school?) / What are we going to do now?
What actions will move us forward?
(improvement priorities highlighted in this area)
2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment
- Learning and engagement
- Quality of teaching
- Effective use of assessment
- Planning, tracking and monitoring
Departments continue to offer a wide variety of activities to young people and make use of a variety of learning environments including classrooms, the school building, the school grounds, the local community and visits to locations such as the Highland Wildlife Park and Eden Court.
Feedback to departments from our learners is used to refine both course content and teaching approaches as appropriate.
Increasingly departments are making use of Google Classrooms to support learning and engagement. We still have some time to wait for the arrival of the 1 to 1 devices but are engaging with the potential of Google Apps for Education.
Departments regularly share good practice and successful lessons as one strategy to continue to develop the quality of teaching in the school.
Staff make effective use of assessment information to support learning. Formative assessment strategies are employed to generate useful feedback for learners and for staff. Summative assessment (formal tests) also gives information to pupils and parents about next steps in learning. Our enhanced senior school reporting ensures this information is shared with parents in good time to allow interventions.
Tracking and monitoring allows early identification of pupils at risk of underachieving. Subsequently, mentoring is put in place for these pupils. At BGE stage (S1-3) annual reporting of CfE Levels is monitored by department and by cohort to ensure that we promoting excellence for all from S1. / We will continue to look for opportunities to enhance our curriculum whilst consolidating the good that we do.
Staff meeting time given to sharing best practice and engaging with examples from other schools/current research.
Develop mechanisms for gathering pupil views which generate insightful information.
Staff will begin to engage with Highland Council’s online training resources for Google Apps for Education in anticipation of the arrival of Chromebooks during session 2018-19.
Continue to seek ways to share this information across the school.
Departments will continue to develop their assessment using the BGE curriculum benchmarks that have been released .
They will also have to amend some of their senior school approaches in light of the removal of units from National 5 for session 2017-18 onwards.
Quality Indicators from How good is our school? (4th edition) and where appropriate How good is our Early Learning and Childcare? / How are we doing?
What’s working well for our learners? (what are the features of effective practice in our school?) / What are we going to do now?
What actions will move us forward?
(improvement priorities highlighted in this area)
3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion
- Wellbeing
- Fulfilment of statutory duties
- Inclusion and equality
Staff meetings, both at interval and after school embed this ethos in our everyday practice, making sure that it is revisited weekly and refreshed.
We operate a system of positive behaviour management with increased use of merits, praise postcards, etc. to reward positive contributions.
All staff had Child Protection training. Our staff are vigilant of changes in pupils demeanour and presentation and regularly rise concerns with the appropriate staff. This is not only teaching staff as all staff recognise their responsibility in this area.
There are clear expectations around behaviour which are reinforced by staff. Support staff are also integral in this and raise concerns as they see them.
Visiting speakers are involved in PSE programme to promote pupils knowledge and engagement with factors affecting their health and wellbeing. These include RASASH who have been speaking about gender and consent to S5 pupils, Young Carers, Brook, Police etc.
Appropriate information is shared with staff to ensure they are empathetic to a pupil’s needs.
We have been extremely pro-active at looking at how we can address disparity for pupils in relation to the poverty related attainment gap. Every department has looked at how they can make positive impacts in this area and also looked at aspects of their curriculum which could cause challenges and found ways of addressing those.
Guidance and Support staff regularly use the SHANARRI indicators to discuss with pupils how they are doing and to gauge when to bring in additional support and agencies and in formulating Child’s Plans.
PTG’s now spend more of intervals and lunchtimes in office so available for pupils, their doors are always open. Trust is established and maintained through positive relationships and this is demonstrated in how we respond to groups of pupils when they get it wrong.
All pupils have staff with whom they can confide and who know them as an individual, whether that be registration staff, subject teacher, support staff, partners , Guidance or SMT. Registration staff and subject teachers regularly pass on concerns to PTG’s and Year Heads.