That's according to the Council's Head of Education, Learning and Leisure for Marr, Heather Hamilton. She was responding to a concern raised by Marr Area Councillor Jill Webster, during a debate on the latest analysis of examination results and attainment, for both secondary and primary schools in the area.

Councillor Webster asked what the education authority could do to help S6 level pupils at Banchory and other senior schools, some of whom tended to drift in their final year, once their higher exams were behind them and they were waiting to go on to university, or find a job.

Heather Hamilton said that the education authority was doing a lot to help pupils during that transitional year, with a wide range of activities and courses but she said that she would like to get parent bodies more involved, in a bid to make the transitional year as smooth as possible. She said also that the authority was continuing to look at ways of widening pupils' life experience.

The rector of Banchory Academy, Sheila Di Maio – one of the school heads attending the meeting – said that many pupils were now taking a gap year, to do something different and that was helping them to focus their thoughts on where they wanted to go in life.

Councillor Richard Stroud, Chairman of the Council's Education Committee said that he was impressed with the wide range of courses and activities being offered at all the area's senior schools.

Councillors were told in the report that a decline in the standard of girls' writing is one of the challenges for teachers at secondary schools in the Marr Area. The analysis of examination results and attainment at both secondary and primary schools, showed that writing standards, for both boys and girls, continue to trail the levels set in mathematics and reading.

The report said that, while pupils at secondary schools in Marr (Aboyne Academy, Alford Academy, Banchory Academy and Gordon Schools, Huntly) continue to achieve the national benchmark level in mathematics and reading, writing remained below that level, although pupils were showing "steady improvement."

Arresting a decline in girls' writing standards and, to a lesser extent reading, was also a challenge for teaching staff.

In primary schools, writing levels revealed a "small improvement" that was "slightly above the Aberdeenshire average." However, there was a significant difference between the writing skills of boys and girls and one of the challenges for teachers was to "continue to work to improve the attainment of boys in writing."

But the report said that across all three curriculum areas, reading, writing and mathematics, pupils at Marr area primary schools performed well and, in reading and maths, exceeded the national benchmark "by a significant margin."