Inverness Royal Academy is a six year comprehensive school serving an extensive area around Inverness. The associated primary schools are Aldourie, Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Inbhir Nis, Cauldeen, Farr, Foyers, Hilton, Holm, Lochardil, Stratherrick. and pupils living in the catchment area who attend St. Joseph’s and Bishop Eden primaries. As with all other schools, parents living outwith the catchment area can request that their children be placed here. At present around one hundred pupils living outwith the catchment area attend Inverness Royal Academy. Since August 2007 S1 pupils have been able to have their curriculum taught through the medium of Gaelic.

Inverness Royal Academy was founded in 1792, when it replaced the town Grammar School. The Grammar School appears to have developed directly from an earlier school which began with the founding of a Dominican Priory in the Friars Street area of the town in about 1223. Thus the Academy stands at the modern end of an educational development which reaches back over more than seven centuries.

In 1793 a Royal Charter was obtained from King George III and, as Inverness Royal Academy, the school operated on the Academy Street site until 1895, in which year it moved to Midmills Road in the Crown area of the town. In August 1979 the school moved to the new Culduthel site where it is now located. The school bell and bust of Hector Fraser are both linked with the former Grammar School.

The Academy aims to provide each pupil with a wide range of challenging experiences in a safe, caring environment, so that each individual pupil can make the best of his or her talents.