Newfield Primary School
and Nursery Class
Stonehouse
South Lanarkshire Council
2 February 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) inspects schools in order to
let parents1, children and the local community know whether their
school2 provides a good education. Inspectors also discuss with
school staff how they can improve the quality of education.
At the beginning of the inspection, we ask the headteacher and
staff about the strengths of the school, what needs to improve,
and how they know. We use the information they give us to help
us plan what we are going to look at. During the inspection, we
go into classes and join other activities in which children are
involved. We also gather the views of children, parents, staff and
members of the local community. We find their views very helpful
and use them together with the other information we have
collected to arrive at our view of the quality of education.
This report tells you what we found during the inspection and the
quality of education in the school. We describe how well children
are doing, how good the school is at helping them to learn and
how well it cares for them. We comment on how well staff,
parents and children work together and how they go about
improving the school. We also comment on how well the school
works with other groups in the community, including services
which support children. Finally, we focus on how well the school
is led and how staff help the school achieve its 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 from children, parents and staff. We will
not provide questionnaire analyses where the numbers of returns
are so small that they could identify individuals. 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.
2
The term ‘school’ includes the nursery class or classes where appropriate.
Contents
1. The school
2. Particular strengths of the school
3. Examples of good practice
4. How well do children learn and achieve?
5. How well do staff work with others to support children’s learning?
6. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their school
community?
7. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
9. What happens next?
1. The school
Newfield Primary School is a non-denominational school with a
nursery class. It serves an area to the west of Stonehouse. The roll
was 232, including 28 in the nursery, when the inspection was carried
out in November 2009. Children’s attendance was in line with the
national average in 2007/2008.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Children are kind, respectful and keen to learn.
•
Children’s knowledge and skills in environmental and health
education.
•
Partnerships with parents and the community.
•
The effectiveness of the depute headteacher in improving support
for children with additional learning needs.
•
The headteacher and staff team’s skill and success in providing a
safe and nurturing environment for learning.
3. Examples of good practice
•
Creating a new vision statement.
•
Using social enterprise projects to develop citizenship skills.
4. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Children in the nursery are happy and familiar with daily routines such
as snack time. Most are developing friendships with other children.
The majority concentrate well when involved in activities such as
construction. A few need more help and encouragement to try out
different activities. Children enjoy outdoor play but they would benefit
2
from a wider range of experiences and choice when learning outdoors.
In the primary classes children are kind, respectful of each other and
keen to learn. Younger children find active learning experiences fun.
Children take responsibility for some aspects of their learning but
would benefit from more involvement in planning and leading their own
learning.
Across the school, children are developing well their skills in
teamwork. They value the opportunities they have to take
responsibility for aspects of the school’s work. Children are well
mannered and are making effective contributions as responsible
members of their school community. The school organises, for
example, many events each year in support of local and international
charities. Children know what they need to do to keep healthy. Many
take part successfully in a good range of out-of-school clubs and
activities. They perform confidently in school shows, including the very
successful show for the school’s 30th birthday.
Children in the nursery class are making progress in their learning and
development. The majority experiment well with early drawing and
writing. Almost all can recognise their names in print. They need
more opportunities to explore letters and sounds. The majority are
gaining early mathematics skills, including counting and awareness of
space and volume. As yet, children do not take part in a wide enough
range of challenging mathematical experiences. At the primary
stages, most children attain appropriate national levels in English
language and mathematics. In recent years, the school has improved
standards in writing and mathematics. Standards in reading have
been more variable. In English language, children listen very well to
instructions and to each other in small and larger groups. Almost all
children can speak confidently to an audience and most are able to
articulate well their thoughts and opinions. Children enjoy reading
both for pleasure and to find information. Children’s writing is very well
presented. Children write for a variety of purposes and many write
interesting stories. Some are capable of writing longer pieces of work.
Contexts for writing are not always stimulating or meaningful. In
mathematics, almost all children can carry out mental and written
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calculations accurately. Children can create displays of information
and understand shapes. Children have regular access to
information and communications technology (ICT), which most use
well to extend their mathematical skills and for problem solving.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
In the nursery and primary classes, staff organise a broad and
balanced curriculum. Staff are beginning to take account of aspects of
the national initiative, Curriculum for Excellence. They have made a
positive start to planning more active learning experiences for children
and making connections across subjects such as mathematics and
health education. Staff make effective use of visits, including
residential trips, to extend children’s learning. They have successfully
developed children’s knowledge and skills in environmental and health
education through the Eco-Schools Scotland and health promoting
school initiatives. All classes have two hours of good quality physical
education each week. In English language and mathematics, teachers
need to rely less on textbook activities and also be more creative in
planning stimulating learning activities for children.
In the nursery class, staff are caring and they ensure children’s
emotional needs are met well. They plan play activities which meet
the needs of the majority of children. Staff need to improve the way
they gather information about how well children are learning. Some
children are not sufficiently challenged to extend their thinking and
learn new skills. In the primary classes, staff have improved the way
they identify and support children who need additional help with their
learning. As a result, children who need extra help receive well-judged
support from teachers, classroom assistants and visiting professionals.
The depute headteacher records the progress of individuals carefully
and involves parents and other agencies as required. The positive
benefits to individual children are clear. Teachers are well organised.
They have started to improve their range of teaching approaches and
are getting better at sharing with children what they expect them to
learn. At some stages, class teachers need to adjust the tasks and the
rate at which children learn to suit better children’s differing styles of
4
learning. Some work is too easy for higher-achieving children.
Teachers set homework tasks regularly for reading, spelling and
mathematics.
5. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
Staff have close and productive links with a wide range of agencies to
support children and their families. The school has been very
successful in developing positive relationships with parents and the
local community. Parents receive regular information from the school,
including the school’s website. They are kept well informed about the
work of the school. Annual written reports outline how well their
children are progressing in learning. In the foyer, parents and others
can watch lively media presentations of school shows and other
events. Parents regularly assist teachers in classes. They value this
type of involvement in their children’s learning. The active Parent
Council communicates often with parents on matters relating to the
school and community. It has been closely involved in reviewing the
school’s vision statement and in the planning of the new school
building. The school has consulted parents on its programme and
resources for sensitive areas of health. The school deals effectively
with the very few concerns or complaints raised by parents. Children
and parents benefit from the school’s effective arrangements for
moving from nursery to P1 and from P7 to Larkhall Academy. Older
children produced a DVD, to help parents and nursery children learn
more about what happens in P1.
6. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
Children respond positively to the increasing opportunities they have to
improve their school community. Their involvement in creating the
school motto, ‘growing into excellence’, has helped improve attitudes
to learning. Children have successfully reduced the amount of energy
5
used by the school through activities such as switching off lights when
they are not needed. They are rightly proud of their permanent
Eco-Schools Scotland green flag and gold award for health promotion.
They have supported community fly-tipping issues and worked with
staff in a residential home for the elderly to produce a newsletter. Staff
have been more involved in school improvement, taking on
responsibility for improving learning. As a result, they are getting
better at reflecting on their own practice. Teachers would benefit from
more opportunities to share and view best practice. The school
improvement plan has had a positive impact on some aspects of the
work of the school. There is scope to improve further the rigour of the
school’s approaches for monitoring and evaluating the quality of its
work. The school’s arrangements for tracking children’s attainment
need to be reviewed in line with Curriculum for Excellence.
7. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
Relationships between staff and children are very strong and are
founded on mutual trust and respect. Staff have a good understanding
of child protection procedures. Children’s achievements are regularly
praised and celebrated in classes and in school assemblies. Staff
make good use of displays and the school newsletter to highlight good
work and children’s success in activities in and out of school. They
have high expectations of children’s attendance in school and take
appropriate action to improve attendance when required. Staff need to
raise even further their expectations of children’s achievement.
Children’s behaviour is exemplary. There are appropriate
opportunities for children to learn about other beliefs and cultures and
about discrimination. Children have a good understanding of equality
and gender issues.
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The headteacher and staff have successfully created a safe and
nurturing environment. The headteacher is held in very high regard.
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Her calm and sensitive leadership is valued by staff. Staff have
responded positively to opportunities to lead school improvement.
They are keen to improve further their active approaches to learning
and teaching. The school’s vision and values were recently revised in
consultation with children, parents and staff. The depute headteacher
ably supports the headteacher and staff. She has improved aspects of
the work of the school, including support for learning arrangements.
The principal teacher is developing well the school’s use of ICT. The
school improvement plan contains relevant areas for improvement.
Some of these areas have been taken forward successfully. However,
the school needs to adopt a more thorough approach to evaluating the
quality of its work. Senior staff are well placed to lead these
improvements and to improve further the quality of education.
9. What happens next?
We are confident that, with support from the education authority, 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 in
connection with this inspection. The school and the education
authority will inform parents about the school's progress in improving
the quality of education.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Improve children’s learning experiences in the nursery class
through more effective planning, assessment and tracking of
children’s learning.
•
Improve arrangements for self-evaluation and monitoring children’s
progress to ensure consistently high-quality learning and teaching
and increased impact on children’s attainment.
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At the last Care Commission inspection of the nursery class there
were seven recommendations, six of which had been addressed.
Outstanding issues are carried forward in this report.
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 Newfield Primary School and Nursery
Class.
Primary school
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
good
good
good
Nursery class
Improvements in performance
Children’s experiences
Meeting learning needs
satisfactory
satisfactory
satisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school and
nursery class.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Marion A Burns
2 February 2010
8
good
satisfactory
When we write reports, we use the following word scale so that our
readers can see clearly what our judgments mean.
excellent
very good
good
means
means
means
satisfactory
weak
unsatisfactory
means
means
means
outstanding, sector leading
major strengths
important strengths with some areas
for improvement
strengths just outweigh weaknesses
important weaknesses
major weaknesses
If you would like to find out more about our inspections or get an
electronic copy of this report, please go to www.hmie.gov.uk.
Please contact us if you want to know how to get the report in a
different format, for example, in a translation, or if you wish to
comment about any aspect of our inspections. You can contact us
at HMIEenquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk or write to us at BMCT,
HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm House, Almondvale Business
Park, Almondvale Way, Livingston EH54 6GA.
Text phone users can contact us on 01506 600 236. This is a service
for deaf users. Please do not use this number for voice calls as the
line will not connect you to a member of staff.
You can find our complaints procedure on our website
www.hmie.gov.uk or alternatively you can contact our Complaints
Manager, at the address above or by telephoning 01506 600259.
Where the school has a nursery class, you can contact the Complaints
Coordinator, Headquarters, Care Commission, Compass House,
Riverside Drive, Dundee DD1 4NY, telephone 0845 603 0890.
Crown Copyright 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education