18 December 2012
Dear Parent/Carer
St Cuthbert’s Primary School and Nursery Class
South Lanarkshire 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 how well
the school supports children moving from nursery to P1 and from primary to
secondary; improvements in mathematics and numeracy; and the way staff work
together to improve learning. 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?
Children are happy, polite and enjoy coming to school to learn. There is a strong
ethos based on values of the Roman Catholic faith. Staff are very caring and
relationships with children are very positive. Children feel safe and very well looked
after. In the nursery, most children are interested and involved in their learning.
When learning experiences take account of their interests children concentrate for
long periods of time. This good practice needs to be further developed. Children are
courteous and treated equally with fairness and respect. Across the school, children
are becoming more actively involved in their learning. They work together in small
groups and are starting to talk to each other and staff about what they have learned.
The recently introduced focus groups help children understand more about what they
are good at and what they need to do to improve. Staff know they need to develop
further children’s skills in taking more responsibility for their own learning.
In the nursery and across the primary classes, children are beginning to make
appropriate progress in mathematics and numeracy. In the nursery, children are
beginning to recognise their name in print. Some choose books on their own.
Children are learning to count and are aware of the days of the week. There is a
need to continue to improve children’s early literacy and numeracy skills and
challenge their thinking through all their play activities. In the primary classes,
children are beginning to respond well to the new approaches introduced to develop
their skills in English language and literacy. Children listen well to each other and
some have well-developed talking skills. They read well and enjoy visiting the
newly-created library. Literacy circles are developing their interest in books and
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Transforming lives through learning
personal reading. Children are making better progress in their writing skills.
Approaches to spelling are beginning to introduce children to vocabulary that is new
and at times appropriately challenging. Across the school too many children are not
progressing well enough. There is a need for children to continue to improve their
vocabulary across all areas of learning. In group discussions children do not build
well enough on each other’s ideas. They are unable to answer challenging
questions about what they are reading. The school needs to continue to build on the
promising start to ensure all children make very good progress in learning.
Children’s achievements are celebrated and promoted well. They enjoy and develop
a wide range of skills through the variety of after-school clubs led by all staff. For
example the choir and sporting clubs are very well attended. The re-introduced eco
schools committee, pupil council and Fairtrade committee are beginning to make a
positive difference to the whole school.
How well does the school support children to develop and learn?
In the nursery and primary classes, staff know children and their families very well.
Recent changes to identifying, tracking and supporting the large numbers of children
needing additional help with their learning are beginning to make a difference to their
progress. Support for English language, literacy, mathematics, numeracy and health
and wellbeing is now targeted well. The support for learning teacher is new to post
and there are plans to continue to improve how she supports children in class. Staff
plan activities which children enjoy and complete with confidence. They are
beginning to match tasks more appropriately to meet children’s learning needs. Staff
have made good progress in developing the programme for mathematics and
numeracy. They are beginning to plan appropriate learning in English language,
literacy, health and wellbeing. Children benefit from visitors to the school and from a
variety of educational excursions. Of note is the contribution the business link with
St Andrew’s hospice makes to the curriculum. Across the school, there is a need to
continue to raise expectations within the planning of learning. Presently the
curriculum does not take full account of Curriculum for Excellence guidance to
ensure children make suitable progress. As a result, children are not challenged well
enough in their learning.
How well does the school improve the quality of its work?
The acting headteacher has been in post for 12 months. During this time she has
brought stability to the school and is held in the highest regard by parents and staff.
In a very short period of time she has ensured that the school helps children make
better progress in their learning. Children are pleased about the improvements to
how they learn. Parents and staff feel much more involved in the life and work of the
school. The acting headteacher knows the strengths and areas of improvement for
the school well. She has implemented a wide range of effective ways to evaluate the
work of the school. These are beginning to make a very positive difference to
learning and teaching across the nursery and the school. Staff are very
hardworking, care deeply about the children and now work very closely as a team to
improve the school. They willingly take on leadership roles which reflect their
strengths and interest. These roles are beginning to influence very positively the
experiences of all children across the nursery and primary classes. They need to
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continue to focus on ensuring all improvements make a difference to learning and
teaching for all children across the nursery and primary classes.
This inspection of your school and nursery class found the following key strengths.
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Enthusiastic, polite children who take pride in their school and are eager to learn.
The strong Catholic ethos and positive relationships.
The teamwork of all staff to bring about improvement to the school.
The leadership of learning by the acting headteacher.
We discussed with staff and the education authority how they might continue to
improve the school and nursery class. This is what we agreed with them.
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Improve the quality of curriculum taking full account of Curriculum for Excellence
guidance.
Continue to raise attainment and achievement for children across their learning.
Continue to develop self-evaluation activities to focus on improving children’s
learning.
What happens at the end of the inspection?
As a result of our inspection findings we think that the school needs additional
support and more time to make necessary improvements. Our Area Lead Officer
along with the local authority will discuss the most appropriate support in order to
build capacity for improvement, and will maintain contact to monitor progress. We
will return to evaluate aspects of provision and the progress in improving provision
within one year of publication of this letter. We will then issue another letter to
parents on the extent to which the school has improved. In that letter we will inform
you if we are going to carry out a continued inspection visit.
Elizabeth C Montgomery
HM Inspector
Additional inspection evidence, such as details of the quality indicator evaluations,
for your school can be found on the Education Scotland website
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/inspectionandreview/reports/school/primsec/St
CuthbertsPrimarySchoolSouthLanarkshire.asp.
Please contact us if you want to know how to get the report in a different format, for
example, in a translation. You can contact us
at enquiries@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk or write to us at BMCT, Education
Scotland, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way,
Livingston EH54 6GA.
If you want to give us feedback or make a complaint about our work, please contact
01506 600200, or write to us at the above address or e-mail:
feedback@educationscotland.gsi.gov.uk.
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