Burrelton Primary School
Perth and Kinross Council
30 June 2009
This report tells you about the quality of education at the school1.
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 parents2 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
2
The term ‘school’ is used to include the work of the nursery
class, where relevant.
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. 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
Burrelton Primary School is a non-denominational school. It serves
the village of Burrelton and the surrounding rural area. The roll was 77
when the inspection was carried out in May 2009. Children’s
attendance was above the national average in 2007/2008.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Children’s growing independence as learners and their skills in
working with others.
•
High quality relationships between staff and children.
•
Well behaved and courteous children who are keen to learn.
•
The school’s success in promoting health and wellbeing across the
school community.
•
The headteacher’s effective leadership of improvement, ably
supported by the principal teachers.
3. Examples of good practice
•
Outdoor learning.
•
Children’s involvement in developing Curriculum for Excellence in
their school.
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4. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Across the stages children respond very positively to extensive
opportunities to accept responsibility. Older children can identify the
skills they need in class to be confident, successful, responsible and
effective learners. Others take responsibility for organising wall
displays and ‘Thinking Together’ activities in their citizenship groups.
Children are successful in their learning, for example during
challenging tasks such as the World War II museum project and in
their roles as ‘Golden House’ leaders and ‘Fairplay’ buddies. Children
at P1/P2 and P4/P5 are developing good skills in art and design. At
P3 they use a range of musical instruments well to interpret sounds
within a song. In their Scottish week, they successfully recited poetry
and almost all children at P6/P7 have had a poem published in a
national competition. Children enjoy learning and are becoming
increasingly confident and independent. They work well together in
pairs and groups and settle quickly to tasks even when sometimes the
tasks are too easy. Children are aware of how to improve their work.
They feel safe, happy and cared for. They recognise that they are
gaining leadership skills from taking part in sports, music, art
classwork and out-of-school learning. Children are very aware of how
to care for the environment and are very knowledgeable about
recycling and saving energy. Their efforts have helped the school to
win two Eco-Schools Scotland Green Flags. Children are successful
in developing their knowledge and skills in aspects of science. As a
result of children’s achievements in promoting healthy lifestyles, the
school has gained an authority award as a Health Promoting School.
In recent years, children, including those with additional support
needs, have been making very good progress from their prior
achievement. Almost all attain national standards of attainment in
reading. Most attain these in writing and mathematics. An increasing
number of children achieve these levels earlier than expected. In
English language, children have well developed skills in listening and
talking. They use these to good effect to express their points of view
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and when delivering presentations at assemblies or to external
audiences. Children read confidently and with understanding. Those
at P1/P2 ably compare and discuss the content of their books. Most
children write extended pieces for a range of purposes. In
mathematics, almost all children are competent in written and oral
calculations. They handle information well and apply their learning
across other areas. For example, at P6/P7 they have used their
knowledge of angles, ratio and measurement in their Forest School
learning activities. Most children confidently identify appropriate ways
to solve problems.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Staff provide a varied, stimulating curriculum which is relevant to
children’s interests. Teachers are making very good use of guidance
from Curriculum for Excellence to help them make learning both
relevant and enjoyable. Across the school children are involved in
choosing and planning their topic work. Staff recognise the need to
make more use of technology to support children’s learning. Children
are benefitting from two hours of good quality physical education each
week. Staff are beginning to involve children in developing their skills
in literacy, numeracy, enterprise and science across areas of their
learning. Visiting teachers help children develop their skills in art,
physical education and music. Staff make environmental studies more
meaningful by involving children in activities like visits to local parks or
building a bird hide in the local forest.
Staff know children very well and set tasks and activities at the right
level of difficulty for most of them. All teachers share the purpose of
lessons with children and most use effective ways to involve them in
reviewing their learning at the end of lessons. Teachers are aware of
the need to extend children’s learning. Staff track children’s progress
effectively and identify those children who need additional support or
more demanding work. Senior staff, pupil support staff and the early
childhood practitioner provide well-judged support for individuals and
groups of children. The homework policy has recently improved,
resulting in a greater variety of tasks and more choice for children.
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5. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
The school works closely with a range of partners such as the
community police liaison officers, educational psychologist and school
nurse to support children’s personal and social development.
Well-planned visits and visitors to the school, including the local
chaplain and Forest Schools Leader enhance learning further. The
school has an active and supportive Parent Council. They meet
regularly and play a significant role in raising school funds for
information and communications technology resources, reading books
and buses for school trips. Staff consult parents on sensitive health
issues and provide them with informative reports on their children’s
progress. Parents contribute to learning in a number of ways including
leading out-of-school activities such as basketball. Parents enjoy
curriculum information evenings like health and wellbeing events to
help their child be more involved in their wider learning. Staff have
good arrangements to help children move from local pre-school
centres to P1 and from P7 to secondary school. The school is good at
resolving complaints from children, parents and other members of the
community.
6. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
Children are very proud of their school. They have an appropriate say
in decisions and very good opportunities to take responsibility for
aspects of school life. Children at P6/P7 effectively support younger
children through their roles as Junior Road Safety Officers, ‘Fairplay’
buddies and ‘Golden Group’ leaders. All children raise funds for local,
national and international charities. They are involved regularly in
decision making through a variety of committees. These include the
pupil council, eco committee and health committee. The pupil council
re-wrote the school’s aims to ensure they were child friendly and
reflect the needs of all children. The eco committee successfully
reduced the school’s energy use and encourages others to recycle
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their litter. Teachers are developing approaches to involving children
more actively in discussions about improving their learning. Staff have
improved their approaches to help children learn to read and write.
Senior staff work hard to develop the right climate to support
self-evaluation. Overall, staff are committed to improving the school.
Teachers make effective use of self-evaluation to help them improve
the quality of learning experiences for children. They benefit from
sharing new approaches to learning and teaching. Teachers and
support staff take on additional responsibilities. They readily volunteer
to provide a range of out-of-school activities which help children to
develop socially and learn new skills like country dancing and cross
country running.
7. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
All staff place a high priority on the care, health and wellbeing of all
children. Child protection procedures are clear and implemented by all
staff. After-school art therapy activities contribute to children’s
emotional wellbeing. Staff have high expectations of children’s
attendance and behaviour. A few staff need to raise their expectations
of children’s attainments. Children are very polite and courteous.
Staff celebrate their achievements very well through regular
assemblies, monthly newsletters, merit awards and bright wall
displays. They ensure that children have appropriate opportunities to
participate in religious observance. Staff promote equality of
opportunity and an understanding of different beliefs and cultures.
Children feel they are treated equally, fairly and that their views are
valued and acted on. They feel supported to make healthy choices.
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The school has a very clear sense of direction. The headteacher
provides effective leadership of school improvement and staff
teamwork. The principal teachers provide very good leadership in
their areas of responsibility, and skilfully share best practice and their
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expertise. Together with the headteacher they have taken positive
steps to ensure improvement in children’s experiences and
achievements. Staff are developing confidence in leading important
improvements like health and active learning. Children enthusiastically
take on lead roles across the school.
9. What happens next?
The school’s self-evaluation is leading to improvements in children’s
learning. As a result, the inspection team was able to change its focus
during the inspection to help the school plan to improve even more.
HMIE will make no further visits following this inspection. The
education authority will inform parents about the school’s progress as
part of the authority’s arrangements for reporting to parents on the
quality of its schools.
We have agreed the following area for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
In planning tasks and activities, ensure that the learning needs of
all children are met more effectively.
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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 Burrelton Primary School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
very good
very good
good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Fiona Robertson
30 June 2009
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very good
very good
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