Canberra Primary School
East Kilbride
South Lanarkshire Council
5 May 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.
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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. Example 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
Canberra Primary School is a non-denominational school. It serves
the areas of Hairmyres, Newlandsmuir and Westwood in East Kilbride.
The roll was 204 when the inspection was carried out in
February 2009. Pupils’ attendance was in line with the national
average in 2007/2008. The headteacher was absent at the time of the
inspection. A headteacher from another school had been providing
valuable management support to the school over the past two weeks.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Polite, confident and friendly children who are keen to learn.
•
Approaches to health promotion and to developing citizenship.
•
The wide range of experiences for children to achieve during
school and out-of-school hours.
3. Example of good practice
•
Developing children’s citizenship through the ‘Junior Football
Referees’ programme.
4. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
The school is taking effective steps to promote children’s wider
achievements. Children are making very good progress in developing
personal and social skills. At P7, they benefit from taking part in a
residential experience that successfully promotes their confidence and
independence. They are developing a very good understanding of
citizenship by acting as ‘buddies’, monitors and football referees.
Children show responsible attitudes when taking on the role of peer
mediators to help settle any disagreements in the playground. Across
the school, children understand the importance of being healthy and
active and know how to keep themselves safe. In physical education
and drama activities, most children follow instructions carefully and
perform with confidence. Children are making good progress in
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mathematics and satisfactory progress in reading, listening and
talking. Their progress in writing is weak. Most children listen well to
adults and respond appropriately in carrying out instructions. They are
less skilled at listening to each other and in taking turns when working
in groups. The majority of children read well and talk enthusiastically
about their favourite books and authors. The good rate of progress
they make in reading at the early stages is not always maintained as
they move through the school. Children have regular opportunities to
write for a variety of purposes. However, a significant number of
children are capable of achieving higher levels of attainment in writing.
In mathematics, most children are confident in number work. They
know about the features of a range of shapes. Across the school,
children are developing good skills in problem solving. They do not
make enough use of information and communications technology
(ICT) to collect and display information on databases and
spreadsheets.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
The school is at the early stages of developing the curriculum in line
with the national initiative, Curriculum for Excellence. Teachers are
beginning to plan projects and topics that link between different areas
of learning. They are working towards providing two hours of physical
education each week for all children. Staff provide children with good
opportunities to develop their skills in art and in learning German.
They now need to develop more ways for children to use their literacy,
numeracy and ICT skills in other areas of the curriculum. At the early
stages, staff have introduced learning experiences designed to
encourage children to be active in their learning. These activities are
not always successful in supporting and extending children’s learning.
Children are enthusiastic when they are given responsibility for
aspects of their own learning and most work together well in pairs and
small groups. Staff should build on and extend this practice at all
stages.
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Children’s learning needs are not being well met. Learning activities
are not always well matched to meet the needs of all children. Staff do
not provide higher-achieving children with a suitable level of challenge.
There are major weaknesses in the school’s approaches to supporting
vulnerable children and those who are having difficulties with their
learning. The requirements of a few children with significant additional
support needs are met more effectively. However, class teachers,
parents and children are not involved consistently in planning
children’s individualised educational programmes (IEPs). Learning
targets within IEPs do not always match well to the particular skills the
child needs to develop. Most teachers give clear explanations and
instructions and share the general purpose of lessons with children.
Most use questioning well to check children’s understanding. Overall,
learning activities rely too heavily on the use of textbook and
worksheet exercises. Children do not get enough opportunities to be
actively involved in lessons. They are not always aware of their own
strengths as learners and how to improve their work. Homework is
regular but it lacks variety.
5. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
The Parent Council is supportive of the school and is involved in
organising coffee mornings and fundraising events. Parents help on
school trips and assist children in the early years in the activity room.
Staff keep parents informed of their children’s progress through annual
progress reports. However, parents feel that current arrangements for
parents’ evenings do not allow sufficient time for them to talk to staff
about their children. There is scope to take more account of parents’
views and to provide them with better information on the work of the
school. Staff have established helpful links with professional agencies
and community groups. The Active Schools Co ordinator and the local
sports centre provide children with a variety of stimulating sporting
activities. The school chaplain supports the school well and leads
regular assemblies. The school has effective arrangements to help
children move confidently and successfully from P7 to Duncanrig
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Secondary School. There are appropriate arrangements to deal with
complaints or concerns from children and parents.
6. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
Children who have responsibilities as junior road safety officers,
members of the pupil council and eco group make helpful suggestions
to improve the school and bring children’s ideas to the attention of
school staff. Overall, the range of opportunities for all children to help
improve the school community could be developed further. Teaching
and support staff do not work together effectively to support the work
of the school and staff morale is low. Individually, staff are committed
to making improvements for learners but there is no shared sense of
purpose or teamwork to help bring about the necessary changes.
Arrangements for improvement planning are leading to some
improvements in the school, for example in health promotion and
developing the curriculum. These need to be reviewed to improve
further children’s attainment and learning experiences.
7. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
Children are confident, polite and almost all are well behaved. They
feel safe, happy and well cared for in school and are confident that any
incidents involving bullying will be dealt with well. Children’s
achievements are valued and celebrated. Their successes are
recognised in attractive displays all around the school. The school
gives good attention to promoting healthy living. It has won a Silver
Award for health promotion and is working towards gold level. Regular
assemblies provide very good opportunities for religious observance.
Staff meet most children’s health, emotional and social needs well and
are clear about their responsibilities for child protection. There are
appropriate procedures in place to monitor and encourage children’s
attendance at school. Teachers are developing a range of learning
experiences to promote equality and fairness to assist children in
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recognising and tackling discrimination.
8. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The depute head teacher and acting principal teacher work very hard
to provide support to the headteacher. They are respected by staff
and children alike. The acting principal teacher has developed the
school’s successful approach to health promotion. Senior managers
look at teachers’ plans, track children’s attainment and monitor the
quality of children’s work. They do not make effective use of the
information to improve learning and teaching. Staff recognise the
need to improve children’s attainment and meet learning needs more
effectively but need clear direction and encouragement to achieve this.
The school’s approaches to self-evaluation are weak and leadership
for learning at all levels requires significant improvement.
9. What happens next?
We will carry out a follow-through inspection visit within one year of
publication of this report and will report to parents on the extent to
which the school has improved. Following that visit, we may
continue to check the improvements the school has made. We
may also carry out a second follow-through inspection within
two years of the original inspection report. If a second
follow-through inspection visit is necessary then it will result in
another report to parents on the extent of improvement that the
school has made.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Raise attainment in English language and mathematics.
•
Involve children more actively in learning and give them more
responsibility for their own learning.
•
Provide children with appropriate levels of challenge and support to
meet their needs more effectively.
•
Improve communication and partnerships with parents.
•
Improve teamwork, leadership for learning at all levels and the
school’s approaches to self-evaluation.
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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 Canberra Primary School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
satisfactory
satisfactory
unsatisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Lesley A. Allan
5 May 2009
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satisfactory
weak
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