Dalserf Primary School
Ashgill
South Lanarkshire Council
5 May 2009
This report tells you about the quality of education at the school.
We describe how children benefit from learning there. We
explain how well they are doing and how good the school is at
helping them to learn. Then we look at the ways in which the
school does this. We describe how well the school works with
other groups in the community, including parents1 and services
which support children. We also comment on how well staff and
children work together and how they go about improving the
school.
Our report describes the ‘ethos’ of the school. By ‘ethos’ we
mean the relationships in the school, how well children are cared
for and treated and how much is expected of them in all aspects
of school life. Finally, we comment on the school’s aims. In
particular, we focus on how well the aims help staff to deliver high
quality learning, and the impact of leadership on the school’s
success in achieving these aims.
If you would like to learn more about our inspection of the school,
please visit www.hmie.gov.uk. Here you can find analyses of
questionnaire returns. Where applicable, you will also be able to
find descriptions of good practice in the school.
1
Throughout this report, the term ‘parents’ should be taken to
include foster carers, residential care staff and carers who are
relatives or friends.
Contents
1. The school
2. Particular strengths of the school
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s learning?
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their school
community?
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
8. What happens next?
1. The school
Dalserf Primary school is a non-denominational school. It serves the
village of Ashgill and surrounding areas of South Lanarkshire. The roll
was 82 when the inspection was carried out in March 2009. Children’s
attendance was in line with the national average in 2007/08.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
The effective leadership of the new headteacher.
•
A caring and nurturing environment for children.
•
High attainment in mathematics.
•
The commitment of all staff to improving learning and teaching.
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Children are motivated and keen to learn. They engage well in almost
all their lessons, working individually and in pairs. Children respond
positively to their teacher’s questioning and advice about how to
improve their learning. They show good citizenship skills through their
involvement in buddying, working as paired readers, charity work and
taking on responsibilities in classroom tasks. They are confident and
effective contributors and show this in their work with the local church,
in enterprise activities, and in a wide range of after-school and
lunch-time clubs. Children at the early stages benefit from being
actively involved in their learning. Staff should build on this good
practice. Children’s listening and talking skills are progressing well at
the early stages. Children in the upper stages need more opportunity
to develop their listening and talking. Almost all children make good
progress in their reading and a few achieve national assessment levels
early. The majority of children can write well in a range of styles and
for different purposes. Their progress is slower and more variable in
writing. In mathematics, almost all children make good progress from
their prior levels of attainment and achieve well in national
assessments. The majority of children do well in solving mathematical
problems and would benefit from more opportunities to practise these
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skills. A significant number of children would benefit from greater
challenge and a faster pace of teaching and learning.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Children across the school enjoy a broad curriculum. Children in the
early stages have opportunities to choose activities which match how
they learn best. Older children would benefit from more choice. Staff
plan programmes that help to develop children’s skills in citizenship,
enterprise, health and wellbeing, and the arts. They are reviewing
personal and social education programmes to reflect more current
thinking. Teachers are beginning to review the curriculum to provide
more challenge and to better reflect the aims of the Curriculum for
Excellence. Children are learning French well in P6/P7. They benefit
from at least one and a half hours of high quality physical education
each week. The curriculum is improved by the input of the active
schools coordinator for physical education, by visiting specialist
teachers in music, and by outings and visiting drama groups. Children
are developing skills using information and communications
technology (ICT) in the classroom and in timetabled ICT lessons.
Interactive whiteboards are used to reinforce some aspects of
children’s learning. Children would benefit from more opportunity to
develop their ICT skills in a wider range of classroom activities. Staff
are beginning to consider more opportunities to extend literacy and
numeracy across the curriculum.
Tasks and activities are generally well matched to children’s needs.
The majority of children know when they are doing well and when they
need help to improve their learning. Children are given some choice in
their learning and enjoy taking responsibility for their learning. A small
number of children require more challenge particularly when they are
involved in independent learning. Children’s individual learning needs
are not always well identified. Planning to meet the needs of children
with additional support needs is not sufficiently individualised.
Learning targets are not set and children’s progress should be
monitored in a more regular and systematic way.
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Children with additional support needs would benefit from further
development of resources and teaching approaches to better meet
their needs.
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
The school has developed good links with the local community and the
new headteacher has strengthed these further. Children’s
understanding of different faiths is enhanced by the involvment of the
church youth worker who plays an active part in some school
assemblies. The school provides very good support to parents
through the home-school partnership officer who runs a number of
classes to develop parents’ skills. These include, for example, cooking
and managing children’s behaviour. She also supports children’s
mathematical learning by her involvment in workshops for parents who
have children in P1 to P4. Parents are actively involved in the
parent-teacher association, which is soon to merge with the Parent
Council. They help to fund raise and hold regular coffee mornings in
the school. Specialist services such as occupational therapy, nursing
and eduational psychology provide good support for children with
additional support needs. A small number of children with significant
learning difficulties have regular reviews and helpful multi-agency
advice . The school is in the process of preparing individual education
plans or additional support plans for them. The support for learning
teacher helps to assess and work with individual children. Futher work
is needed to ensure that the support provided by additional support
staff and specialists is planned effectively and integrated into everyday
classroom teaching. The school deals well with parental complaints
and keeps an ongoing log to monitor recurring issues.
4
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
The pupil council has been given a higher profile and is now actively
involved in running council meetings and consulting with children to
make improvements to the school. Children’s views are sought about
a range of issues. These include the tuck shop and healthy eating
alternatives, playground activities and how two hours of physical
education could be delivered. Staff have recently been involved in
working groups to take forward priorities in the school improvement
plan. They have also been involved in evaluating their performance in
key areas of teaching and learning and in the vision, values and aims
for the school. They now need to think more about how they gather
and use the information to decide on priorities for making the school
better. The school has been successful in taking forward the majority
of its school improvement priorites, particualrly in the area of health.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
The school provides a very caring and nurturing environment where
children thrive. There is a strong sense of community. Children like to
share their own successes and generously praise those of others. All
staff have high expectations of children’s behaviour and attendance.
Children report that they are treated fairly and with respect. Buddies
in P7 help younger children to feel safe and provide a good example
for all children to follow. Children’s achievements both in and out of
school are celebrated in assemblies and displayed around the school.
Staff use rewards well both in and out of class to praise children and to
encourage them to work harder and achieve more. Children are
learning about the environment and how to treat it with respect through
their eco activities. All staff are aware of how to keep children safe.
5
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The newly appointed headteacher has provided the school with a
shared vision and clear sense of direction. She has identified a
number of priorities to further improve learning and teaching. Staff
have a clearer understanding of how to improve as a result of helpful
advice from the headteacher about their forward plans. Further
improvements in learning and teaching would be enhanced by sharing
good practice. Children have been given stronger roles and
responsibilities and are now taking a more active part in school
improvement. A wide range of stakeholders are consulted and their
views have been used to inform future developments. All staff and the
headteacher are strongly committed to making the school better.
8. What happens next?
We are confident that the school will be able to make the
necessary improvements in light of the inspection findings. As a
result, we will make no more visits following this inspection. The
school and the education authority will inform parents about the
school’s progress in improving the quality of education.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Improve the curriculum in line with the principles of Curriculum for
Excellence to provide more varied and challenging learning
experiences.
•
Develop better systems for the identification, planning and
monitoring of children’s progress, particularly for children with
additional support needs.
•
Develop a more systematic and robust approach to identifying and
taking forward areas for school improvement.
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Quality indicators help schools and nursery classes, education
authorities and inspectors to judge what is good and what needs to be
improved in the work of a school and a nursery class. You can find
these quality indicators in the HMIE publications How good is our
school? and The Child at the Centre. Following the inspection of each
school, the Scottish Government gathers evaluations of three
important quality indicators to keep track of how well all Scottish
schools and nursery classes are doing.
Here are the evaluations for Dalserf Primary School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
good
good
satisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Laura-Ann Currie
5 May 2009
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satisfactory
satisfactory
To find out more about inspections or get an electronic copy of this
report go to www.hmie.gov.uk. Please contact the Business
Management and Communications Team (BMCT) if you wish to
enquire about our arrangements for translated or other appropriate
versions.
If you wish to comment about any of our inspections, contact us
at HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or alternatively you should write in
the first instance to BMCT, HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm
House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
Our complaints procedure is available from our website
www.hmie.gov.uk or alternatively you can write to our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
If you are not satisfied with the action we have taken at the end of our
complaints procedure, you can raise your complaint with the Scottish
Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). The SPSO is fully independent
and has powers to investigate complaints about Government
departments and agencies. You should write to SPSO, Freepost
EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also telephone 0800 377 7330,
fax 0800 377 7331 or e-mail: ask@spso.org.uk. More information
about the Ombudsman’s office can be obtained from the website
at www.spso.org.uk.
This report uses the following word scale to make clear
judgements made by inspectors.
excellent
very good
good
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
outstanding, sector leading
major strengths
important strengths with some areas for
improvement
strengths just outweigh weaknesses
important weaknesses
major weaknesses
Crown Copyright 2009
HM Inspectorate of Education