Beath High School praised for supporting young people during the pandemic and leadership of headteacher.

Beath High School recently welcomed inspectors to the school where they praised the headteacher, senior leaders and staff team for their continued focus on improvement despite the challenges of the global pandemic.  Education Scotland Inspector’s initially visited the school in February 2019 where they identified a number of areas for improvement.

During their revisit in November 2021 they highlighted that as a result of the ‘highly effective and supportive leadership’ of the headteacher, Steve Ross and that under his leadership the school had a clear and shared vision for achieving excellence for the young people of Beath High School.  Staff have been involved in planning for improvement and have high expectations for all of their learners.

Inspectors met with all stakeholders, including young people and reported that there had been significant improvement in relationships across the school community which had led to a ‘calm and purposeful’ learning environment and ethos for all in the school.

The school were recognised for the ways in which they had supported young people during the lockdown periods and subsequent return to school where their top priority was on the mental health and resilience of their learners.

Head of Service, Shelagh McLean commented on the very positive findings from the visit and congratulated the headteacher, staff team and young people for their continued hard work and commitment to making Beath High School an excellence place for learning.

Inspectors concluded their report by saying that, “Understandably, the school has been responding to the challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. These have had a significant impact on the work of the school. Staff are implementing plans to support recovery. Staff have addressed the areas for development from the original inspection successfully. As a result, we will make no more visits to the school in connection with the original inspection.”

Headteacher Steve Ross commented: "‘Our school had a very positive engagement with the Inspector team recently. Once again we have benefitted from high quality collaboration with Education Scotland. Our young people were a credit to their parents and carers throughout the visit and exemplified the values we have worked hard to embed at Beath High School.

"On behalf of the whole school community I would like to make a public note of thanks to all my colleagues at Beath – they have gone above and beyond to ensure all our young people receive the very highest standard of education. This is despite the enormous challenges we have all faced throughout the pandemic. I am immensely proud of our staff team.

"We are now very much on our way to realising our ambition of creating one of the best schools in Scotland. To me, the people of Cowdenbeath, Kelty, Hill of Beath, Crossgates, and the surrounding area, deserve excellence in their school – and that is what we will continually strive for"