Education and Lifelong Learning
Quality Improvement Framework
West Linton Primary School
School Improvement Report
Session 2015/16
The School in Context
At the end of last session the school experienced a significant number of changes to staffing. We said farewell to Edna Dickinson our Support for Learning teacher, Deb Armstrong, Nursery teacher and Louise MacGregor, Nursery Nurse. We also said farewell to Jackie Grant and Sarah Fleming, two of our ANAs.
We welcomed Mrs Cheryl Lister as Early Years Officer and Mrs Drew Doherty, Assistant Childcare Worker, to our Early Learning and Childcare centre together with Mrs Hannah Amos, Nursery Nurse. Mrs Aileen Burns left to join SBC’s Early Years Team and we welcomed Mrs Lorna Doran as our new P1 teacher. Mrs Lorna Sanderson began a year’s sabbatical.
During the school year we also said farewell to Ms Julie Wight and Miss Catherine Dick who left to take up permanent posts in other schools. Miss Claire Galloway joined us on a temporary basis from January until the end of the session.
Our pupil roll was arranged over 9 classes supported by a 0.5 Support for Learning teacher and Additional Needs Assistants. The Leadership Team consisted of Head Teacher, Depute and Principal Teacher. Our Early Learning and Childcare offered afternoon sessions only. Our children continued to benefit from visiting teachers of art, music and PE.
In evaluating impact and progress in the key areas of the services we deliver, we have drawn on a range of evidence including:
· Two visits – in August and April – from Education Scotland
· Attainment data reflecting pupil performance in ongoing assessments
· Feedback from pupils, parents and staff via surveys, questionnaires, focus groups and discussions
· A planned programme of observations of classroom experiences
· Staff participation in learning trios to observe and develop practice
· Monitoring of pupil work, teacher planning and assessment evidence
EVALUATION OF PROGRESS
Question 1: HOW WELL DO CHILDREN LEARN AND ACHIEVE?
QI 1.1 Improvements in Performance
Overall we have evaluated ourselves as …
Very Good
SIP Actions from Session 2014/15 including impact and evidence.
ELCC
Our PT, with support from the early years team teacher, helped ELCC staff to develop their confidence and skills to plan, review and track children’s progress within the nursery. Children’s learning now builds upon and extends the skills and knowledge children come to ELCC with.
Staff regularly work together to monitor individual children’s progress across the early level. to ensure shared expectations of progression.
Profiles of children’s development and learning continue to be developed and improved. Most PLPs show evidence of progression, children’s ownership and parental involvement. Our ELCC Early Years Officer has informally monitored these and is working with the team to further develop the profiles.
Primary
We continued to build upon the very positive start, recognised by Education Scotland during their visit in September ‘15, in gathering assessment information to measure children’s progress in their learning and attainment. Information is systematically collated in a format that informs dialogue with staff about the progress of children. Staff use an effective range of assessment information to track progress and plan for learning.
Next Steps
ELCC
Arrangements for tracking and assessing children’s progress have improved but are still relatively new to the ELCC team. The staff will continue to work closely together to analyse the impact of improvements and changes they have made on children’s progress. Staff will continue to work with children and parents to further develop children’s PLPs which will demonstrate and celebrate children’s individual progress over time.
Primary
The whole school will evaluate individual PLPs, visit other schools identified as models of good practice in PLPs and develop profiles which detail and celebrate our pupil’s individual attainment and achievement both within and out with school.
QI 2.1 Learner’s Experiences
Overall we have evaluated ourselves as
Very Good
SIP Actions from Session 2014/15 including impact and evidence.
ELCC
Most children are purposefully engaged with high quality play activities. Changes made to the environment, resources and structure of the day have significantly improved children’s experiences. Children are often engrossed in their chosen play activity for extended periods of time. Natural and open ended resources are supporting children to problem solve and be creative as they explore their own ideas and solutions.
Pace and challenge of learning within the ELCC now more closely meets the needs of most children. Staff use a range of strategies to build on the interests, knowledge and skills that children have.
Parents report that they feel more involved and engaged with the life of the ELCC. Improved daily communication, the sharing wall, emails that share learning with parents and opportunities for parents to share their skills directly have contributed to this.
Primary
Staff have continued to raise expectations of what our pupils can be expected to do. This is evident from the high quality work on display and the improved consistency in the quality of learning and teaching across the primary stages.
Our pupils are very articulate and engaged in their learning. They bring many skills and interests to school and are now fully involved in what they want to learn. Our approaches to immersion at the start of IDL topics are impacting well on challenge and the relevance of the curriculum.
Education Scotland summarised their observations of learning and teaching during their most recent visit (April 2016) as follows.
“In the lessons observed children are actively involved in challenging activities that they engage with well. They are skilled in collaboration and working in groups. The level of independent learning is of a high standard. The support and challenge is well judged. Overall learning and teaching is of a very good standard.”
We have continued to plan experiences to enrich our pupils learning by linking with local partners, groups and businesses such as Whitmuir Organics, Samba Drumming, Fischy Music, & Mat the Hat.
As decided by our Pupil Voice group, each of our classes has supported a separate charity during the year by either fund raising or raising awareness of the charity’s cause.
We successfully introduced the Daily Mile initiative and supported Edinburgh University with their creation of a MOOC (Massive Open Online Community) about active lifestyles.
Next Steps
ELCC
Continue to ensure that all children make the very best progress by developing clear, measurable next steps in learning.
School
Build on the growing use of assessment information to continue the very good start made from ELCC to P4 and raise attainment continuously across the Curriculum for Excellence levels.
Continue to share good practice amongst staff to build capacity yet further.
Continue to enrich the curriculum and opportunities for our pupils linked to SIP priorities such as outdoor learning and expressive arts.
Question 2: HOW WELL DOES THE SCHOOL SUPPORT CHILDREN TO DEVELOP AND LEARN?
QI 5.1 The Curriculum
Overall we have evaluated ourselves as
Very Good
SIP Actions from Session 2014/15 including impact and evidence.
ELCC
The curriculum has been reviewed using the principles of Curriculum for Excellence and Building the Ambition national guidance. As a result of this critical reflection and changes made, learning is now more responsive and child-led. Children can influence their learning in a more meaningful way. They have a broader range of activities to choose from during sessions. Staff plan learning based on observations, dialogue with children and parents and professional dialogue within the team.
Intensive staff development around the rationale, principles and design of the curriculum at the early level has been very effective in improving the quality of the setting. Improvements have been made to the book corner, block play, art and craft and mark making areas.
Primary
Staff have continued to develop confidence in their professional knowledge and skills in relation to Curriculum for Excellence. The curriculum is designed around the seven principles. The four capacities are a strong feature and embedded across the primary stages. Staff have a shared understanding of what the school wants to achieve through Curriculum for Excellence and have developed confidence and criticality in their approaches to evaluating new initiatives.
The writing curriculum continues to be a strong aspect and has an impact on the progression of skills children are developing. Children’s writing is of a high standard.
Overall, the collated assessment data shows individuals and classes are making good progress from prior levels of attainment.
Support for learning is monitored and well-targeted and interventions identified appropriately. Those children requiring additional support are making good progress as learners. Additional needs assistants are more closely involved in recording progress and relating activities they oversee to the targets for individuals.
Systematic approaches to developing spelling skills have been successfully introduced.
Our children are enthusiastic readers and are highly motivated by the wide range of reading opportunities now on offer. The development and regular use of the library has motivated many children to read and to share books. This has been especially successful in involving parents and giving children responsibilities for the library.
Children achieve in a wide range of learning opportunities both in school and beyond.
Our parents value their involvement as partners in their children’s learning. They have a greater insight to and understanding of the learning that takes place in school. The use of social media helps parents to be connected to the life of the school.
The school works closely with a wide range of partners to enhance the curriculum. Parents are fully involved and share their many skills and talents through clubs, talks and events. The Parent Council have supported the SIP, particularly in the creation of the new library. The PTA have run both social and fundraising events to support the school in providing enhanced opportunities for pupils and their families. They have also ensured that resources have been purchased to support the school’s improvement priorities.
Health and Well Being and a focus on Growth Mindset and the learning powers in particular has had significant impact upon the children’s attitude to their learning.
Next Steps
ELCC
Staff will continue with their approach to enhance and further develop other aspects of provision such as outdoor learning.
We will continue to develop use of the skills progression across the early level.
We will further develop approaches to transition across the early level.
Primary
We will develop the rationale for our curriculum alongside the school’s vision and aims.
We will continue to develop skills progressions and ensure these are implemented for all areas of the curriculum.
We will continue to raise attainment yet further.
We will continue to work with partners such as Whitmuir Organic and develop new partnerships linked to our school improvement priorities.
QI 5.3 Meeting Learning Needs
Overall we have evaluated ourselves as …
Very Good
SIP Actions from Session 2014/15 including impact and evidence.
ELCC
Staff are skilled in identifying children who require additional support with social and emotional needs. They work effectively with parents to agree strategies to support children’s holistic development.
Parents report that the nursery is more involved in the local community. A sound start has been made to working in partnership with other ELC providers in the area to share ideas, resources and information to best meet children and family’s needs in the local area.
Primary
Rigour to professional dialogue ensures our staff know learners very well and how to support their achievements which in turn ensures learners do as well as possible.
Our senior pupils are very proud of their school and take responsibilities as Ministers for Literacy, sport, publicity etc. very seriously. They enjoy that they can select areas that are of most interest to them. They like the fairness and equality of all being given responsibilities.
Our pupils are encouraged to lead and are given the opportunity to run groups and clubs linked to their own skills and interests such as Fun Club (sports), Brain Boost (creative writing) and Internet Safety club.
We look for opportunities for our pupils to experience and celebrate achievement. Our pupils are encouraged to participate in local and national events such as basketball, rugby, netball, football and running, enter local and national competitions such as BBC 500 Words, Borders Bursary – 3 commended pupils and 2nd place overall, local MEPs Christmas Card competition – winner, participation in World Book Day, representing the school at the authority’s chess tournament and, with the West Linton Wasps, a group from our Young Engineer’s club, representing UK & Ireland at the FLLUK World Championships in St Louis, Mississippi - an excellent achievement.
The impact of the Ministers for Literature and Arts and the development of the school library have helped raise the profile of reading for enjoyment across the school. Children are encouraged to select books and to share them with one another and at home. Parents feel more involved in how to support their children’s learning and valued the opportunity to visit the book fair on parent evenings. The monthly theme in the library also keeps interest levels high.
As part of our development of Health and Well Being we have established a Calm Room in school for the use of any pupil that may need emotional support.
Next Steps
We will take forward our plans to develop learning logs as part of further developing children’s leadership of learning.
We will develop an Early Years room with funding from the Scottish Government’s Early Years Change Fund to further increase the accessibility of the school for our families and community and their involvement in our school.
Question 3: HOW WELL DOES THE SCHOOL IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF ITS WORK?
QI 5.9 Self Evaluation
Overall we have evaluated ourselves as
Very Good
SIP Actions from Session 2014/15 including impact and evidence
ELCC
Self-evaluation is now integral to practice in the nursery. Staff have clear, focused improvement priorities and have taken a documentation approach to record the research, suggestions and impact on children, changes have had. This is supporting staff to look inwards, outwards and forwards as they integrate best practice guidance, research and national guidance in their work.
Our staff are clear about improvement priorities, are committed to these and have taken individual and collective responsibility to ensure progress. Examples of improvement include significant changes to the environment for learning, the pace of the session and improving the continuity of learning and teaching across the early level.
Primary
We were delighted that Education Scotland recognised the significant progress in our partnership with parents and improvements to children’s learning environments. These were summarised as follows.
“Communications have improved significantly. Parents describe this as having been transformational.”
“The high standards expected of staff and children is evident in the very positive and vibrant learning environments.”(April 2016)
We are analysing well the impact of our learning and teaching such as our development of growth mind set and the impact it has on our awareness of how children learn. We have successfully involved parents in this initiative.
Our parents are enthusiastic partners in leading a range of successful clubs and activities such as Choir, Netball, Running and Young Engineers.
The cycle of school improvement planning/self-evaluation and identifying next improvement priorities is becoming an established feature of our work and measure of its success.
Parents and partners are now involved and have a good understanding of the many growing strengths of our school. The culture of partnership and self-improvement is developing very well.
Overall, our staff are confident about what they want to do to improve further. We work effectively as a team and are committed to developing enquiry and criticality in our work.
All staff are fully involved in school improvement, parents are actively involved as partners and children are actively engaged in their learning. Our school is a vibrant environment where children are very happy and are learning through a curriculum designed around the principles. There are many examples of enriched learning.
We have worked effectively with other schools in the authority to develop our work on numeracy and mathematics and with another school cross authority to support their work on IDL and to reflect upon and evaluate our own approaches to IDL as well as identify our next steps for development.
Next Steps
ELCC
Staff will continue to develop and extend the positive work of involving parents and children to lead and support improvement.
Now that the new team are established they will include a focus on gathering examples of the impact changes have had on children’s learning.
Primary
We will use evaluations of our work on Growth Mindset and Learning Powers, together with data from PASS surveys, to give focus and drive next session to the areas of Learner Self Worth and Compassion.
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