Palnackie Primary School
Dumfries and Galloway
Council
28 June 2011
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.
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. How well do children learn and achieve?
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s learning?
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their school
community?
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
8. What happens next?
1. The school
Palnackie Primary School is a non-denominational school. It serves
the village of Palnackie and surrounding areas. The roll was 20 when
the inspection was carried out in May 2011. Children’s attendance
was in line with the national average in 2009/2010. The headteacher
had been in post for three months at the time of the inspection.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
The improvements to the school buildings and surrounding areas,
and the impact of these on children’s confidence and the
environment for learning.
•
Involvement of parents and community members in the work of the
school.
•
The impact of the headteacher’s leadership on children’s attitude to
learning and staff teamwork and morale.
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Children’s confidence is improving. The majority can work well
together and concentrate on their work. They need more regular
opportunities to learn independently and in groups. Children enjoy
learning in the nearby woods and in their outdoor classroom. In the
P1-P4 class, children are benefiting from more active learning tasks.
They respond very well to sequencing tasks on how to plant sunflower
seeds. In the P5-P7 class, children have started to use, ‘learning logs’
to record what they have been learning. They now need to talk with
teachers about their learning and set targets for what they will learn
next. Younger children make some good use of information and
communications technology to support their learning in art.
Children are developing well their awareness of environmental issues.
They are proud of their bronze Eco-Schools Scotland award that the
reformed eco committee achieved, with the support of a student
volunteer. Children work with Forest Schools personnel to learn some
survival techniques. They plant vegetables and learn how to safely
light a fire to cook food. In recent months, children have benefited
2
from newly-formed after-school clubs where they are improving their
social and teamwork skills. The school’s nutrition action group and the
catering manager have been successful in improving the dining
experience for all.
The majority of children attain appropriate levels of attainment in
reading and mathematics. Just over half attain these levels in writing.
Across the school, most children are capable of achieving higher
standards. Children at the early stages who attained these levels
earlier than would normally be expected, have not sustained their
progress into the middle and upper stages. By upper stages, not all
children are fluent enthusiastic readers. Children do not listen well to
each other or to instructions from teachers. Their writing needs to
improve and presentation is weak. Children at the early stages enjoy
mathematical activities which involve them actively in their learning.
They used arbitrary units of measurement to weigh bags of birdseed.
Older children are gaining confidence in using tally marks. They are
learning to use a range of problem solving skills in other areas of the
curriculum.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Staff have taken some action to develop the curriculum, taking account
of the principles of Curriculum for Excellence. They have worked
successfully with other schools to refresh the programmes for literacy
and numeracy. As yet, the curriculum does not provide children with
at least two hours of high-quality physical education. Their fitness is
improving as a result of activities organised by the Active Schools
coordinator and visiting teacher of physical education. Very effective
contributions from other visiting staff enhance children’s learning in
music, art and French. Staff are making increasingly effective use of
the school grounds and the local area to support children’s learning.
Children are beginning to benefit from a wider range of enterprise
activities.
The school provides effective pastoral care for children and their
families. Support staff provide valued assistance to individuals in
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class. Staff work well with visiting professionals and agencies to
support more vulnerable children. Across the school, the quality of
children’s learning is not consistently high. In the best lessons,
children are motivated and well-behaved learners. Teachers need to
plan better to meet the needs of all learners. Tasks and activities need
to be more stimulating, challenging and ensure children learn at a
faster pace. In recent months, the arrangements to support children
who have difficulty with their learning have been improved. The
support for learning teacher has worked closely with the headteacher
to identify those children who need extra help with their learning. As a
result, children persevere for longer with tasks and achieve greater
success in their learning.
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
Parents like the improvements to the school building, outdoor areas
and to the classrooms. They appreciate the improvements made by
the headteacher to the way the school shares information with them.
A new school website, newsletters and information events have helped
parents learn more about what their children are learning in school.
The parent council values highly the headteacher’s active involvement
in the community council. She has been successful in securing a
grant to develop a trim trail in the nearby woodland. The school deals
well with the very few complaints it receives. Staff and children work
closely with a residential home for the elderly and local business links
are improving. Children have entertained residents and make scones
and serve afternoon tea for their guests. Transfer arrangements from
nursery to P1 need to be improved while those from P7 to Dalbeattie
High School are supportive of children and are well organised.
Enhanced transitions are in place to support children who require extra
support when moving to secondary school.
4
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
The headteacher and staff recently carried out a review of the
curriculum and the quality of children’s learning. The headteacher has
identified significant weaknesses in key aspects of the work of the
school. Since taking up her post three months ago, she has
successfully improved the environment for learning and aspects of the
curriculum. The school did not have in place, arrangements to monitor
children’s attainment or progress in learning. The quality of learning
and teaching has not been rigorously evaluated. The headteacher has
valued the support from the education authority and from other
headteachers in the cluster. The pupil council has been re-established
and extended to include younger children. Members of the pupil
council enjoy having more say in how to make their school better.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
The school ethos has improved. Children enjoy coming to school and
their relationships with staff are increasingly positive. Staff have made
improvements to the systems which reward good behaviour and
children’s achievements in and out of school. Most children respond
well to these incentives. As a result, behaviour is improving. There is
evidence that staff are raising their expectations of what children can
achieve. More needs to be done to raise attainment and ensure that
there is an ethos of mutual respect. Arrangements for religious
observance are appropriate. Staff know how to keep children safe and
their responsibility in implementing effectively the school’s child
protection policy.
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The headteacher has gained the full support of parents and staff. She
has involved the school and its community fully in a review of the
vision, values and aims for the school. Once finalised the vision,
5
values and aims statement will support the future direction of the
school. The headteacher is highly motivated and has taken effective
action to provide the school with a clear direction. She will require the
continued support of the education authority if she is to be successful
in leading the significant areas for improvement that have been
identified.
8. 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.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Continue to take forward curriculum development, taking account
of Curriculum for Excellence.
•
Improve attainment in English language and mathematics.
•
Improve further self-evaluation processes which lead to
improvements in achievements, learning, teaching and meeting
children’s needs.
•
Continue to develop a shared vision for the school.
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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 Palnackie Primary School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
weak
satisfactory
satisfactory
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Marion A Burns
28 June 2011
7
satisfactory
weak
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.
Crown Copyright 2011
HM Inspectorate of Education