Press Release
Mid Yell Inspection report published
Shetland Islands Council has committed itself to improvement action for Mid Yell Junior High School following a mixed report from Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education (HMIe) which identified some key areas for improvement.
These include issues to do with the way pupils’ learning is planned and monitored, and the need to set pupils more challenging work to encourage them to achieve more.
"We will work closely with the Mid Yell School community and HMIe to bring the quality of learning at Mid Yell Junior High School up to the highest standards, which is what we demand from all our schools," said Director of Children’s Services Helen Budge. "We are working closely with staff at the school to deal with the issues raised by the report and to build upon the examples of positive practice in the school.”
Mrs Budge stressed that as well as highlighting areas where action was needed, the HMIe report had identified the following strengths.
- Children's learning experiences in the nursery and the arrangements staff make to ensure children's confident start at P1.
- Well-behaved and welcoming young people.
- The quality of staff's care and welfare for young people.
- The partnership arrangements with a wide range of agencies which make a strong contribution to young people's learning.
She added, "I would also say that the nursery department was assessed as "good" in three areas: 'Improvements in performance", "Children's experience" and "Meeting learning needs'".
Chair of the Education and Families Committee Betty Fullerton said, "Our young people are our future and while there is much to be proud of in the education provision at Mid Yell, there are improvements highlighted as necessary and these willbe made. I can guarantee parents in Yell, and their children, that this will happen."
Mrs Budge added that an Action Plan for addressing the issues in the report was already being developed and put in place. She said, “This will cover the three areas that we agreed with the inspectors needed to be improved between now and their follow-up inspection in a year’s time:
- Ensure that all young people have consistently high-quality and challenging learning experiences.
- Improve the curriculum to build more effectively on young people’s prior learning.
- Strengthen arrangements to monitor young people’s learning and achievement so that all young people make suitable progress”.
Mark Lawson, Headteacher of Mid Yell Junior High School, commented, “I thank the HMIe inspectors for their input as we look to improve the service we provide. Work has already started on addressing our action plan and with the ongoing support of our pupils, parents and community. I am confident that we can make the changes required to ensure all our pupils have the best possible learning experiences.”