Garnetbank Primary School
1/ About our school
Our school, Garnetbank Primary School is situated in the Garnethill area of Glasgow. The 252 children
on our school roll are allocated to 10 classes, three of which contain children from more
than one stage. The total teaching staff is 13.1 FTE and includes the Head Teacher, a DHT and
a Principal Teacher. In addition we have 1.5FTE E.A.L. (English as an Additional Language)
teachers and benefit from the services of a Chinese Bi-lingual support teacher on one day a
week.
We have a good working relationship with local schools, Anderston Primary, Hillhead
Primary, Oakgrove Primary, The Glasgow Gaelic School, the local nursery, Renfrew Street Nursery School, and the the the associated secondary, Hillhead High School. Garnetbank Primary is well supported by the School Parents’
Council.
The School building is an early 20th Century four storey design and offers adequate
accommodation including three halls which are used for games, P.E. and assemblies. Throughout the session,
the external parts of the building have been undergoing an upgrade under the City Council’s refurbishment
programme and to date has benefitted from roof repairs, stone cleaning and improvements to the drainage
system.
The installation of new windows is currently being considered by Historic Scotland and internal upgrade work is
at the planning stage.
Although we have no green spaces within our city centre location, we make the very best use of the space
available. We were successful in receiving funding from the North West Environment Programme and have
used this to develop our unused space at the front of the school. Raised planting resourses have been installed to provide to provide opportunities for all pupils to become involved in learning aboutthe basic aspects of sowing,
growing and bio diversity in the area,
Following a long period of the whole school being surrounded by scaffolding, we have started to reinstate our
garden areas and expect our school building to have a very much enhanced appearance by summer 2014.
In the coming session we will continue to aim to provide a place where all children enjoy a safe and happy learning environment where personal development is promoted and supported and where diversity is celebrated.
We will continue to encourage the children to uphold our school values of
Integrity, Support, Co operation,Acceptance, Respect, Friendliness and to achieve our aims which are:-
To deliver a curriculum which encourages creativity, provides challenge and enjoyment, breadth, progression, personalisation and choice.
To enable each child to become a confident individual and successful learner.
To help develop each child into a responsible citizen able to contribute effectively to society.
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/ Our achievements this year.
Last year we identified four areas for improvement outlined on our School Improvement Plan for session 2013-2014. These were
- Introduce the use of Higher Order Thinking Skills (H.O.T.S.)in the classroom and during learning conversations.
- Extend and implement Teaching for Understanding strategies as highlighted in the Harvard/ Tapestry project.
- Promoting Positive Behaviour – Social and Emotional Wellbeing – a Glasgow City Council initiative.
- Streamline PLPs, use of Learning Logs and Records of Achievement.
Awards achieved include
Glasgow Schools’ Netball championship, Molendinar Award, FairTrade status,
Health promoting Schools status, third Green Eco Flag and a diamond “Determined to Succeed” award.
Getting it Right for Every Child underpins everything we do for children in the school, especially at times of transition.
Areas for development include:-
- Working towards Rights Respecting Schools status
- Improving our science curriculum
- Auditing our work on Health Promotion
3 / How well do children learn and achieve? (1.1, 2.1)
Garnetbank performs consistently well with children making very good progress. Many children achieve levels of attainment well beyond the minimum expected. Those children are provided with additional activities in order to provide appropriate challenge. The few who do not achieve the expected level and have been identified as having specific barriers to their learning are well supported allowing them to make progress and achieve as well as they can. Eg they may have a Pupil Support Assistant assigned to their class, be provided with additional support for learning in the form of Phonological Awareness Training or Developmental PE, support with English as an Additional Language or an Additional Support Plan to target their specific need.
Overall, children in the school make very good progress. We know from what children make, say, write and do that they are building on their prior learning and attaining levels as expected and beyond within A Curriculum for Excellence. Some of our children are registered in the school for relatively short periods of time. Many of these children arrive with no knowledge of English and/or have English as an Additional Language (E.A.L.). This can sometimes affect their ability to access the curriculum. These children are well supported by staff who have EAL as their remit, by classroom teachers who have an additional qualification in teaching English as an Additional Language and by a Chinese Bi Lingual Support teacher.
Most of the children who have an Additional Support for Learning Plan overtake their targets as expected within given timeframes.
From our monitoring programme where SMT members examine teachers’ forward plans, children’s work and hold learning conversations with pupils, we are confident that children in Garnetbank Primary School continue to make good progress and attain as well as they can. Pupils are able to think more deeply about learning and demonstrate this during learning conversations with their class teacher and members of the SMT. Following a visit from HMIe inspectors in November 2012, during which it was recommended that we provide more evidence of children’s attainment and achievement over time, we introduced the use of standardised testing in Mathematics and English Language. These tests are also diagnostic and so we will be able to identify any gaps in children’s learning and address these accordingly as well as use the results to inform next steps in learning. This session, these tests were administered to P2, P4 and P6. We will examine the results and compare these with children’s previous performance to ensure that progress is being made as expected. Where results show disparity with our assessment, closer examination will be given to results so that areas for development can be identified and addressed.
We work closely with colleagues across the learning community to “share the standard.” We have already agreed a system for moderating writing and have explored reading and talking and listening. We have also shared with colleagues our approach to the teaching of numeracy and mathematics. Next session, it is the intention of Hilhead Learning Community to explore the teaching and assessment of the science curriculum.
All our learners have benefited from a range of opportunities for personal and social development and achievement. P7 children enjoyed a week’s residential outdoor education at Glencoe and P6 pupils were afforded the opportunity to experience the same at Blairvadach. Garnetbank has achieved a Diamond Award for Team Partnership (formally Enterprise) and is an accredited Health Promoting School. We have achieved our third Green Flag as part of the ECO School’s Project and have had our FairTrade status renewed. Garnetbank has also achieved an “Effective Partnership Award” and had our “Buddy Award” renewed. Children have been immersed in activities which have resulted in these awards which continue to lead them to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.
.Wherever possible, we take advantage of our city centre position, to enhance pupils’ curricular experiences - visits to theatres, cinemas, museums, local parks, sports arenas and places of worship. In addition, we frequently invite ‘experts’ to speak about and provide resources to enrich topics we are studying.
4 / How well do we support children in their learning and development? (5.1, 5.3)
In Garnetbank, learners are motivated and engaged in the teaching and learning process as a result of teachers sharing learning intentions and agreeing with pupils what success looks like. Teachers take account of different learning styles and vary their approaches to teaching using a variety of Teaching for Effective Learning strategies eg visual, auditory and kinaesthetic approaches, collaborative group tasks, Active Learning, and Literacy Circles as well as direct teaching. We use Personal Learning Plans to enable children to have a clearer understanding of what they have achieved and what they need to do to improve.
Our school continues to benefit from the input of a Pupil Council. Each class from P1 – P7 has two representatives who meet regularly with the Head Teacher to discuss issues raised by their classmates and this provides a platform for our young people to have their voices heard on matters affecting them. Pupils are also involved in matters concerning them by their participation in the Health Committee, The Eco Committee, by being JRSOs and playground Buddies.
Across the school, we have adopted “Bounce Back” a PSD programme which explores each of our school values. These values are regularly explored with the children who are now able to say what the school values are and what they mean. We intend to build on this foundation by achieving Rights Respecting Schools status.
As well as classroom focussed work, we have also been involved in a number of other activities which have benefited the children greatly and given them a richer learning experience and contributed to them becoming responsible citizens and effective contributors. We held a very successful health week where there was a focus on a particular health issue each day. A highlight which made a big impact was the motivational visit from Andy of Jammin’ Fitness.
Our successful work as ECO warriors has seen us gain our third ECO flag on our journey to achieving permanent status as an ECO School.
In addition to the above, we have also achieved a Diamond Award for Team Partnership and Glasgow’s Effective Partnership Award. We work hard to maintain our Health Promoting School status. The Sexual Health and Relationships Education programme is now embedded in Garnetbank’s health curriculum. Next session, as part of our School Improvement Plan, we intend to explore “Rights Respecting Schools”, a scheme run by UNICEF
5 / How well do we improve our work? (5.9, 9.4)
The school has a very good understanding of what it does well and what needs to be improved. We continually reflect on our practice and are committed to improving this.
Staff provide succinct reflective comments onlearning and teachingeach term.Tthere is a robust system for monitoringthis and the teaching and learning practices within classes, teachers’ forward plans,and children’s work, with children and senior leaders engaging in learning conversations using Higher Order Thinking Skills.
We seek the views of parents and conduct audits of practice to identify areas for improvement. Following our visit from HMIe in November 2012, staff engaged in a self evaluation exercise using the Cloud 9 tool. Senior leaders continue to reflect on the results of this self evaluation exercise and to address the areas for development identified eg, this session we are embarking on achieving Rights Respecting Schools to build on previous work on examining the schools values.
The views of parents are sought following Open Afternoons, parents’ meetings and special events eg induction meetings. Wherever possible their views are taken into consideration and addressed. The school works in close partnership with the Parent Counciland are currently seeking to make improvements to our playground in partnership with them.
6 / Here is what we plan to improve next year.
Next year we plan to enhance our pupils’ experience by
- Beginning the journey to achieving Rights Respecting Schools status.
- Developing our science curriculum
- Auditing our current practice in Health Promotion
For more information about this report please contact Mrs Aileen Morison (Head Teacher) by
a)Telephoning the school 0141 332 5158
b)E.Mailing
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