Strengths
Aspects for improvement
How well do young people learn and achieve?
Teaching, learning and meeting the needs of all
The quality of teaching remains good in most schools. Many teachers inspire learners by engaging them in discussions and using probing questions and effective explanations. The Assessment is for Learning initiative has encouraged many teachers to engage young people more in thinking about their own learning. Teachers and young people are making more effective use of ICT as a tool for learning and teaching although its full potential to transform learning has yet to be realised. The range of teaching approaches needs to be widened in a minority of schools, including matching approaches better to intended outcomes and to the learning needs of young people. Too often, young people can be passive observers in lessons. In many cases, the pace and depth of learning need to be increased with greater focus on more challenging thinking and learning.
THE TEACHING PROCESS/PUPILS’ LEARNING EXPERIENCES
DISTRIBUTION OF QUALITY INDICATOR EVALUATIONS IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL SECTOR 2005-2007
For many schools, improving the consistency of the quality of learning and teaching remains a priority. In a minority of schools, young people have too few opportunities to investigate issues for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions. Staff development needs to focus on how young people learn. In particular, staff need to engage all young people more actively in their learning and encourage each learner to think independently and creatively.
Curriculum innovation is improving the quality of learners’ experiences and meeting the learning needs of individuals more effectively. Some schools are using more real-life contexts, interdisciplinary approaches and studies of relevant issues. While subject disciplines continue to be a key strength in secondary schools, they now need to contribute better to developing interdisciplinary studies while retaining their own identity and integrity. By doing so, they will meet young people’s learning needs and help to eliminate the divide between academic and applied learning.
Schools are increasingly sharing responsibility for meeting learning needs across all staff. Many schools recognise that personal support, systematic regular conversations about progress and an understanding of what motivates young people remain the vital ingredients to success for each and every learner. Schools now need to ensure that they and their partners provide learning pathways that suit each individual young person. Strategic approaches include appropriate systems and policies in areas such as child protection and broader aspects of safeguarding, including identifying and supporting young people who are vulnerable or at risk of being marginalised. Where learners have additional support needs, in most cases staff identify these accurately and address them in a focused and flexible way. This is a strength in many schools. However, some schools need to ensure that the targets in individualised educational programmes and coordinated support plans are clear and that young people and their parents are fully involved in the process of setting and reviewing them. Some schools are meeting well the additional needs of increasing numbers of young people with English as an additional language, but more attention needs to be given to sharing and building on good practice in this area. Some schools are systematically tackling issues of gender imbalance in achievement.
Achievement
Schools are increasingly recognising and promoting more aspects of achievement for young people. A few are linking the diverse range of opportunities for achievement in and out of class and across subjects, to the needs of all learners. Within these experiences, they are encouraging the development of the skills, attributes and capabilities that comprise the four capacities. Such approaches now need to be prioritised in all secondary schools, particularly at the early stages. S1/S2 remains the phase of education that adds least value to the progress and achievements of many young people. Nonetheless, in some schools, subjects or classes, achievement in classwork at these stages has depth and intellectual rigour.
From S3-S6, most schools are beginning to make more use of a range of forms of accreditation to ensure greater recognition of achievement, including ASDAN, Scottish Youth Awards, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards Scheme and the Prince’s Trust XL programme. These and other youth awards are described in the recent publication Amazing Things.13
OVERALL QUALITY OF ATTAINMENT
DISTRIBUTION OF QUALITY INDICATOR EVALUATIONS IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL SECTOR 2005-2007
While the performance of young people in national examinations has remained good, evidence from inspections and national and international studies paints a mixed picture overall of young people’s attainment. Some improvements have taken place at S1/S2 although too many young people are still not achieving the expected levels by the end of S2. The recent Trends in International Maths and Science Survey (TIMSS) found that at S2, Scotland’s average score in mathematics and science had declined since 2003.
The Scottish Survey of Achievement (SSA) demonstrates that only around 50% of young people in S2 had well-established skills in reading and numeracy, though between 10% and 20% attained beyond the expected levels. Standards in writing remained static. Nevertheless, school inspections of English find that most young people who have not attained the expected levels by the end of S2 have improved well from their previous levels of attainment. Few schools systematically assess young people’s skills in listening and talking, a situation that needs to be addressed. In science, SSA results show that young people are not achieving expected levels at S2 and that there is little sign of improvement. The SSA findings also confirm inspection findings that young people’s ability to apply skills and knowledge in new situations and at higher levels of thinking need to be better developed. Across the rest of the curriculum at S1/S2, many schools have still to monitor progress and standards in a rigorous and systematic way.
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey conducted in 2006 shows that Scottish pupils aged 15 performed significantly better than the OECD averages in reading, mathematics and science, although other countries have overtaken Scotland. The performance of young people at S4-S6 in national examinations between 2006 and 2008 showed no notable trends.
Several key national performance measures, such as the percentages of pupils achieving five or more awards at SCQF levels 3, 4 and 5 by the end of S4 and the percentages achieving three or more awards at SCQF level 6 by the end of S6 have remained largely static. The need to raise levels of attainment at all stages in secondary schools is now an even greater priority. Improving attainment for those in S1/S2, for boys and for those who are looked after at home are particular priorities.
Curriculum
The quality of the curriculum in most Scottish secondary schools is good overall, and improving. Recurrent strengths are the breadth and coherence of the curriculum at most stages, and the discriminating use at the later stages of a wide range of Standard Grade and National Qualification (NQ) courses. However, too many schools consider changing aspects of curriculum structure and timetabling without having fully explored the impact of innovations in learning and teaching.
Encouraging a wider range of skills, attributes and capabilities, both outwith and within the timetabled curriculum, is becoming a more prominent feature in secondary schools. Most schools continue to place strong emphasis on personal, social and health education. Many have used the Determined to Succeed initiative as a stimulus towards improvement in relation to enterprise education and education for work and employability. Over the period of this report, many schools and education authorities improved their links with colleges in the context of the Skills for Work initiative and other part-time vocational programmes for pupils in S3 and S4. The strengths and weaknesses of the approaches adopted are set out in detail in Expanding Opportunities: a report on school-college partnership programmes in Scotland (2008). Some secondary schools have increased the opportunities available in school for practical, skills-based and applied learning. They are looking creatively at the practicality and benefits of on-site vocational learning to establish a more secure link between the school and employment opportunities in the local community. Some secondary schools work well together to provide a wider range of courses for learners. In the latter part of the survey, most schools have been increasing their emphasis on sustainable development education, through eco-activities and recycling. Only half have reviewed the extent to which the curriculum promotes sustainable development education on a coherent and sustained basis. Too few ensure good quality physical education at the senior stages.
Approaches to introducing Standard Grade or equivalent courses from S2 have met with mixed success. It is too early to detect any sustainable gain in later performance at the senior stages. Some schools have increased the pace of learning in a range of ways, for example by beginning early some aspects of Higher programmes prior to young people sitting their Standard Grade examinations in S4. The Schools of Ambition initiative has been used well to improve young people’s engagement in new or improved curricular pathways. Increasingly, creative solutions are being used to provide wider choice and remote access to courses. Using available advice, schools should improve the variety and makeup of curriculum pathways and their fitness to meet the future needs of each individual young person. Such approaches should include being able to deliver the detail of the skills, attributes and capabilities that underpin the four capacities.
STRUCTURE OF THE CURRICULUM
DISTRIBUTION OF QUALITY INDICATOR EVALUATIONS IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL SECTOR 2005-2007
Do secondary schools have a clear sense of direction?
Leadership is consistently good and improving in secondary schools. Fewer than 10% of schools had important weaknesses in leadership and only 1% had major weaknesses. Many schools have a clear vision and sense of direction based on shared values across the school community. The leadership of headteachers is a recurrent strength. Some schools are ambitious, particularly where staff at all levels pursue a shared strategic vision in a collegiate way, supported by senior managers.
Most depute headteachers are developing their strategic roles well. The contribution of school business managers is having a beneficial impact in allowing other senior managers to focus most of their attention on educational improvement. The quality of the contributions of principal teachers (or faculty heads) in quality assurance and leading learning is still unduly variable. In the best practice, leadership for learning is accepted as a principle that applies to all staff, including many who do not have promoted responsibilities but make important contributions to curriculum innovation and other school improvements. The need remains for leaders to work with others to find innovative ways of improving the curriculum to meet the full range of young people’s needs.
How well do staff work with others to support young people’s learning?
Almost all schools enjoy positive partnerships with parents and the wider community. School Boards and latterly Parent Councils usually provide very strong support. Stakeholders continue to be satisfied with almost all aspects of their schools. Schools are becoming more proactive in seeking out effective partnerships with a range of external agencies to the benefit of young people, particularly those needing more choices and more chances to succeed. While many schools recognise that improving links with primary schools helps progression in learning, too many do not build on what learners have achieved in P7. This prevents them from progressing as well as they could. There are few examples of effective partnerships between staff in schools and those in community learning and development or more widely as part of shared community initiatives.
Are staff and young people actively involved in improving the school community?
Staff in secondary schools have increasingly recognised their direct responsibility and accountability for improvement. The influence of rigorous self-evaluation has become key to sustained school improvement, for example using The Journey to Excellence including the third edition of How good is our school?. The processes and cycles of quality assurance in schools have become more consistent, as have the inter-relationships between self-evaluation, standards and quality reports and school improvement plans. Analysis of performance data is becoming increasingly sophisticated and rigorous. Most schools have suitable systems for monitoring and tracking the progress of young people. Observation of learning and teaching is an established feature in most schools. Sharing the good practice identified in class observation and peer observation by staff is becoming a prompt to professional discussion of learning, although the full impact of these approaches has yet to be felt. More schools are surveying the views of young people as part of their evaluation of courses, learning and teaching. However, few actively and continuously engage young people in making suggestions for improving learning and teaching, leadership, the curriculum, home partnerships and the school ethos.
Do secondary schools have high expectations of all young people?
Most schools have developed a positive climate of equality and fairness. Almost all have good processes for dealing with racial discrimination and bullying. Most have whole-school policies on race equality but concerted efforts to actively promote race equality and other equality issues systematically and progressively through the curriculum are not common.
The quality of pastoral care for young people and the positive ethos overall are strengths in almost all schools. This is reflected in what young people themselves say. In almost all schools, climate and relationships are constructive and encouraging. While many schools have small numbers of young people with particularly challenging behaviour, any issues arising are usually handled effectively. Most schools have clear and concerted strategies for promoting positive behaviour. Where practice is less effective, issues often relate to the need to engage young people more fully in their learning and to raise teachers’ and young people’s expectations of what they can learn and achieve. Schools continue to develop systems for monitoring the educational progress and wellbeing of young people at risk, although the impact of schools’ strategies on improving the achievement of these young people is not always fully realised. A key challenge for the future is in proactively developing approaches and partnerships to ensure that, as a universal service for children of secondary school age, schools get things right for each and every young person.