Charleston Academy, INVERNESS
Charleston Academy is a secondary school for pupils in Inverness.
- Attendance
- 86.5%
Data last updated 25 Oct 2026
Charleston Academy in detail
School in Scotland
Charleston Academy is a local authority school in Scotland. Scottish schools are inspected by Education Scotland rather than Ofsted, and Scotland does not publish school-by-school exam league tables.
Charleston Academy offers Gaelic-medium education.
In the 2025 pupil census it had 707 pupils and 12 pupils per teacher.
10% of pupils are registered for free school meals, 53% of pupils have an additional support need recorded and 10% speak English as an additional language.
20% of its pupils live in Scotland's most deprived fifth of areas and 5% in the least deprived fifth (SIMD).
Attendance was 86.5% in 2024/25, and 42.8% of pupils were persistently absent (missing 10% or more of sessions).
The 2026 school estate survey rated its buildings' condition as bad (D) and their suitability for teaching as poor (C); the school was 90% full.
95% of pupils who left in 2024/25 went on to a positive destination - further or higher education, training, work or volunteering, against 96% for its "virtual comparator", a matched group of pupils with similar backgrounds from across Scotland.
Compared with nearby schools
The nearest other state secondary schools to Charleston Academy are Inverness High School (0.8 miles), Millburn Academy (1.9 miles) and Inverness Royal Academy (1.9 miles).
Inverness High SchoolMillburn AcademyInverness Royal Academy
Getting there
The nearest railway station is Inverness Rail Station, about 1.3 miles away in a straight line.
8 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Charleston Academy (outside), 90 metres away.
Primary schools nearby
The primary schools closest to Charleston Academy are Kinmylies Primary School (0.2 miles), Dalneigh Primary School (0.4 miles), Muirtown Primary School (0.8 miles) and Central Primary School (1 mile). In Scotland, secondary places normally follow the catchment area, and each secondary school has associated primary schools; Highland publishes both.
Kinmylies Primary SchoolDalneigh Primary SchoolMuirtown Primary SchoolCentral Primary School
Sources: Scottish Government school statistics: pupil census, attendance and absence, school estate, leaver destinations (OGL); NaPTAN (Department for Transport)
Key Information
Scottish GovernmentInspection
HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland) last published an inspection of Charleston Academy in July 2025.
- 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessmentsatisfactory
- 3.2 Raising attainment and achievementweak
HMIE grades on a six-point scale: unsatisfactory, weak, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent.
Source: HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland), Open Government Licence.
About
Charleston Academy is a secondary school established in 1978, in the Kinmylies area of Inverness, Scotland. The present roll is 724 pupils.
From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
At a Glance
No
Boarding
No
Nursery
No
Special Measures
Keep up with Charleston Academy
Getting There
Bus Stops
Safety and surroundings
Road collisions within 500 m (2021 to 2025)
- Collisions
- 1
- Fatal
- 0
- Serious
- 1
- Children hurt
- 1
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 1 road collision in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 1 serious and 0 slight.
1 child aged 0 to 15 was hurt: 1 on foot.
0 of the collisions happened on a weekday between 08:00 and 09:30 or 14:45 and 16:30, holidays included.
The typical figure for schools in Highland is 0 (the median across 195 schools, same distance and years).
Serious and slight counts use the Department for Transport's severity adjustment, which allows for changes in how police forces record injuries; they are estimates, rounded to whole numbers. Distances are in a straight line. Source: Department for Transport, Road Safety Data (STATS19), Open Government Licence v3.0.
Commute and house prices
Feeder Primary Schools
Primary schools that likely feed into this school, based on proximity
Charleston Academy
Showing 10 of 13 linked schools
Questions parents ask about Charleston Academy
When was Charleston Academy last inspected?
HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland) last published an inspection of Charleston Academy in July 2025. Inspectors evaluated learning, teaching and assessment as satisfactory and raising attainment and achievement as weak, on a six-point scale from unsatisfactory to excellent.
What is the catchment area for Charleston Academy?
Scottish schools have catchment (zoned) areas, and Charleston Academy is no exception: children living in its zone are normally given a place there automatically. Families who want a different school make a placing request to Highland. Highland publishes the zone boundary.
How do I apply to Charleston Academy?
If you live in Charleston Academy's catchment zone your child is normally allocated a place automatically, and Highland will write to you. To ask for a place here from outside the zone, make a placing request to Highland - requests usually open in November and close in mid-March for the following August.
How many road collisions happen near Charleston Academy?
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 1 road collision in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 1 serious and 0 slight. 1 child aged 0 to 15 was hurt: 1 on foot. 0 of the collisions happened on a weekday between 08:00 and 09:30 or 14:45 and 16:30, holidays included. The typical figure for schools in Highland is 0 (the median across 195 schools, same distance and years).
Where is Charleston Academy?
Charleston Academy is at General Booth Road, Kinmylies, INVERNESS, INVERNESS, IV3 8ET.
Source: Department for Transport, Road Safety Data (STATS19)