13 May 2014 Dear Parent/Carer Aitkenbar Primary School West Dunbartonshire Council Recently, as you may know, my colleagues and I inspected your child’s school. During our visit, we talked to parents and children and worked closely with the headteacher and staff. We wanted to find out how well children are learning and achieving and how well the school supports children to do their best. The headteacher shared with us the school’s successes and priorities for improvement. We looked at some particular aspects of the school’s recent work, including the rich learning experiences, approaches to numeracy and the ethos and life of the school. As a result, we were able to find out how good the school is at improving children’s education. How well do children learn and achieve? We found that children are thriving at school and are immensely proud of everything they are achieving. We saw in every class children who are motivated and determined to do well. Children told us they feel valued, respected and encouraged to achieve things they thought they could not do. As a result, children treat each other with high levels of respect and behave very well. In class, children work together in groups purposefully and respond enthusiastically to the brisk pace in learning set by their teachers. Children enjoy their lessons and say that active approaches by teachers help them use their initiative and learn better. They use pieces of their work and their learning journals to talk with teachers about what they do well and how they can continue to improve. Through action groups such as the ‘Events’, ‘Newsletter’, and ‘Display’ groups, children show the story of their learning experiences very attractively around the school, in local newspapers and write their own newsletters to share these experiences with each other. Children, through their considerable achievements, make an outstandingly positive contribution within their school and local community. They have achieved significant sporting success, for example, in rugby, football and netball. Children have a good understanding of how to protect their environment. The ‘Eco’ and ‘Gardening’ groups have harvested their own vegetables and have attained two Eco-Schools Scotland green flags. Children are making very good progress in literacy and numeracy and staff can demonstrate the added value the school makes to children’s progress as they move from P1 to P7. Children talk with confidence for a wide variety of very worthwhile purposes. The rich contexts for learning through, for example, play and drama help children gain and improve their vocabulary and inspire them to write engaging stories. The ‘Library’ and ‘Scotland’ action groups and the ‘Culture Vultures’ all help children Education Scotland The Optima 58 Robertson Street Glasgow G2 8DU T 0141 282 5000 F 0141 282 5040 E glasgow@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk Textphone 01506 600236 This is a service for deaf users. Please do not use this number for voice calls as this will not connect. www.educationscotland.gov.uk Transforming lives through learning engage with a wide variety of books and other reading materials to improve their reading and research skills. The school is taking forward a new approach to improving children’s numeracy skills. We saw that this is working well. Children are very positive about their successes and feel their ability to do calculations mentally and on paper has improved. They also have a better understanding of financial education. Children are gaining wide-ranging skills for life through their work in health and wellbeing. The ‘Healthy Hunters’ action group are helping to raise fitness levels in each class and the Junior Road Safety Officers have improved safety around the school. Children show a desire and commitment to be responsible citizens locally and globally. The ‘Charities’ group have coordinated food and gift collections for their own community and children abroad. How well does the school support children to develop and learn? The values and ethos of the school place a high priority on knowing children and their families. The school does this extremely well. Staff in all areas of the school understand and demonstrate what they need to do to help children reach their potential. They work with outside agencies very effectively to ensure children benefit from the specialist help and advice they need to help them learn. Commendably, the headteacher and principal teachers are instrumental in making sure solutions are found so that all children can make the best progress. Support assistants work closely with teachers and make a valuable contribution towards children’s wellbeing and progress. The ‘Roots of Empathy’ project at P3 is building on children’s self-awareness outstandingly well and is helping them develop their emotional wellbeing. All staff provide well-structured, engaging lessons and activities which are set at the right level of challenge. They make well-planned use of the indoor and outdoor environments, for example Overtoun Estate, to provide children with a variety of exciting, relevant experiences to enhance their wellbeing and help them learn in new ways. The school is successful in providing a curriculum which reflects the needs of the local community and is designed to provide children with the skills they need to be successful in life. Skills in health and wellbeing, literacy and numeracy are at the heart of the curriculum. Staff are very creative in the way they design learning experiences which take account of children’s ideas and use people and places within the community. Many children, as part of school life, experience outdoor environments and visits to local facilities such as the swimming pool and library for the first time. Children took part in a residential visit to Ardlui and others worked with the BBC to make a short film. As a result, they are more resilient and have gained skills in using technology. Staff work tirelessly, using guidance within Curriculum for Excellence, to continue to develop programmes of learning activities which are fresh, relevant and enable children to build on their knowledge and understanding. The school works cooperatively with local nurseries and Dumbarton Academy to ensure arrangements for transitions meet children’s pastoral and learning needs. Children at P7 are benefiting from the developing, shared work taking place between the school and subject departments at Dumbarton Academy, for example, in mathematics and the French Café. How well does the school improve the quality of its work? The school’s approaches to evaluating its own work are successfully driving continuous improvement. Staff are rigorous in their approach to sharing effective 2 learning and teaching strategies with each other. Almost all staff have been at the school for a number of years. This allows them to use their knowledge and understanding of children and families to help children overcome barriers they may be experiencing whilst they are in school. Staff are proactive in seeking children’s views and ideas through the numerous action groups including the pupil council. Children agree that they have a strong voice across the school and talk about the difference they make for each other. The Parent Council works closely with the school and supports all initiatives and events. It is working with the headteacher to look for different ways to encourage you and other parents to become more involved in your child’s learning and in the life of the school. The headteacher provides calm, measured leadership within the school and community. She is ambitious for the school and her aspirations for children are shared by all who work with her. She is skilled at supporting children to overcome the challenges they face. Her principal teachers go beyond their remits to improve the outcomes for children, in particular, where children need extra help to succeed. The school has strong capacity to continue to improve, and to help other schools improve by sharing its highly effective practice. This inspection found the following key strengths. Children who are ambitious for themselves and each other. The energy and commitment of all staff to ensure the best outcomes for children and improve their life chances. The work of the school in engaging a wide range of partners to provide valued support and stimulating learning experiences for children. The work of the principal teachers and the teamwork of staff to create rich learning experiences and meet the learning needs of children in every classroom. Leadership of the headteacher. We discussed with staff and West Dunbartonshire Council how they might continue to improve the school. This is what we agreed with them. Continue to build on the curriculum through the school’s own identified improvement plans. What happens at the end of the inspection? We are satisfied with the overall quality of provision. We are confident that the school’s self-evaluation processes are leading to improvements. As a result, we will make no further evaluative visits in connection with this inspection. During the inspection, we identified an aspect of innovative practice which we would like to explore further in order to share the practice with others. As a result we will work with the school and West Dunbartonshire Council in order to record and share more widely the innovative practice. Shona ES Taylor HM Inspector 3 Additional inspection evidence, such as details of the quality indicator evaluations, for your school can be found on the Education Scotland website at http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inspectionandreview/reports/school/primsec/Aitke nbarPrimarySchoolWestDunbartonshire.asp If you would like to receive this letter in a different format, for example, in a translation please contact the administration team on the above telephone number. If you want to give us feedback or make a complaint about our work, please contact us by telephone on 0141 282 5000, or e-mail: complaints@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk or write to us addressing your letter to the Complaints Manager, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Livingston EH54 6GA. 4