High school’s great marks

Nov 28 2008 by Our Correspondent, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

PITLOCHRY High School and Nursery Class has been praised by inspectors in a positive HMIe report published this week.

The school was found to be “very good” in five of the eight areas inspected, with the other three areas evaluated as “good”.

At the time of inspection – September 2008 – the school had 38 children in the nursery, 200 in the primary department and 171 in the secondary department.

Inspectors found that Pitlochry High has a number of particular strengths:

Mutually respectful relationships between staff and children, and between the school and its community

Wide-ranging and very productive partnerships between the school and community

The range and quality of pastoral care provided for all children

Confident pupils who achieve success in a wide range of activities in the school and community

The range and quality of help given to children with additional support needs

The positive impact on pupils of the school’s health promotion work

The headteacher’s encouragement and support for children and staff

Strong staff commitment to providing children with rich and varied learning experiences

The positive impact of library staff and youth workers on children’s confidence and their expectations of what they can achieve.

The report says the school has developed “very effective” partnerships with parents and the local community, which increases the range and quality of learning experiences for the children. The Headteacher is an effective leader with a clear vision for the school, it adds.

Lifelong Learning Convener, Councillor Liz Grant, said: “This is an excellent inspection report and I would like to congratulate everyone involved with the school. This report is one that Pitlochry High can be extremely proud of.”

The report identified two areas of improvement for the school and the Council to look at. These were:

Continue to share good practice in learning, teaching and meeting needs to help set consistent and appropriately high expectations across the staff

Build on existing strengths in self-evaluation by involving children more in monitoring their learning and planning how to improve it.