Holyrood Secondary School

Overview

The inspection team found a school with a “well-established, inclusive, ethos based on the Catholic Faith values” where interactions are predominantly “respectful, kind and considerate.” The headteacher is “highly regarded amongst the school community” for her strategy to improve attainment, and staff are praised for being “very skilled in identifying and implementing effective strategies to support young people who experience barriers to learning.”

Strengths

• A positive culture where “almost all interactions between young people, and between young people and staff are respectful, kind and considerate.”
• Effective leadership, with the headteacher’s strategy for improving attainment and achievement being highly valued.
• Teachers who “assess and check young people’s progress regularly” and are “pro-active in learning from colleagues within and beyond the school.”
• Strong support for vulnerable learners, resulting in young people “attaining and achieving very well” with “almost all moving to a positive destination on leaving school.”
• Evaluations of “Learning, teaching and assessment” and “Raising attainment and achievement” are both rated as “very good.”

Areas to improve

• Staff should ensure “all young people are appropriately challenged and given more opportunities to lead their learning” while building on consistent teaching approaches.
• Staff should continue to improve young people’s performance in literacy and numeracy in the senior phase, building on recent successful changes in English and mathematics.

Safeguarding

The report does not contain specific narrative comments regarding safeguarding arrangements, though it notes the school operates within a “well-established, inclusive, ethos” where interactions are respectful and considerate.