Raploch Primary School
Stirling Council
14 December 2010
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
Raploch Primary School is a non-denominational school. It serves the
Raploch area of Stirling. The school is part of a joint campus and is
housed in high-quality accommodation. Shortly after the inspection,
the education authority was taking firm steps to address problems
stemming from water ingress through the roof. The roll was 199 when
the inspection was carried out in November 2010. Children’s
attendance was below the national average in 2008/2009.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Children are skilled learners who respect and support each other.
•
Staff are committed to improving children’s life opportunities
through learning in a nurturing and inclusive environment.
•
Barriers to learning encountered by large numbers of children are
challenged by the excellent staged-intervention process.
•
High-quality leadership and teamwork from staff at all levels, and
from many children, are having a positive impact on learning.
•
Staff are using Curriculum for Excellence and Big Noise Music very
effectively to improve children’s learning and achievement.
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Children at all stages enjoy learning. They learn and achieve very well
because staff give them exciting experiences in a stimulating and
nurturing learning environment. Children value the role staff give them
in taking responsibility for planning their own learning, setting targets,
and assessing their own learning with peers. They understand what
they are learning and why because staff explain clearly the purpose of
lessons. Many lessons are very engaging and motivating. Children
work well on their own tasks when required. They also work
particularly well in pairs and groups and are very supportive of one
another. They benefit from being active in learning and through this
they are gaining important skills which will serve them well as learners
in the future.
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Staff encourage children to achieve their best, both in the classroom
and through a range of other opportunities. As a result, children’s
confidence and self-esteem are improving. They are keen to share
their work and achievements with others. Many have responsibilities
which benefit both themselves and others, including through the pupil
council, Eco group and house system. They take these
responsibilities seriously and enjoy contributing to the life of the
school. For example, the Eco group is making sure that the school
community is fully aware of eco matters and does something about
them. Older children learn how to lead and support their younger
peers through buddying activities, both in class and as mediators
outside in the playground. Children are acutely aware of the needs of
others and many have developed a strong sense of respect and
responsibility for others.
Staff are determined to improve children’s attainment and have taken
important steps to do so. They have had some success in recent
years in gradually increasing to the majority the proportion of children
who attain national levels in reading, writing and mathematics. To
improve children’s attainment further, staff are now planning learning
and monitoring children’s progress using Curriculum for Excellence
levels. They have also been taking important steps to make learning
more skills based and relevant to children’s interests. These
approaches are having a strong impact because of the consistency of
approach across the school. Staff are now matching children’s
attainment in literacy and numeracy to the new levels. This is an
important and very encouraging step. Classwork this term indicates,
encouragingly, that standards are improving in literacy and numeracy
across learning, and continuing to improve in specific aspects of
reading, writing and mathematics.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Staff have taken decisive steps to improve the curriculum by using
Curriculum for Excellence. This has led to a much broader
understanding and use of learning experiences both within and beyond
the classroom. Staff provide a wide range of important learning
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experiences outwith class, including an annual residential experience,
a careers festival, sporting activities and a range of cultural
performance opportunities. Big Noise Music has a high profile in the
learning of a large number of children and is helping them to gain
important skills, self-esteem and confidence. The classroom-based
curriculum is stimulating and challenging and takes appropriate
account of all key areas of learning. Members of staff have been
working hard to make strong connections across learning in different
areas so that children can consolidate their skills and apply them more
readily, for example in literacy and numeracy. Children benefit from
two hours of physical education in the high-quality facilities both
indoors and outside.
One of the school’s strengths is the attention to detail it gives to
meeting the learning and pastoral needs of a large number of children.
Staff make very effective use of an excellent staged-intervention
process to ensure that these needs are addressed directly. A
particular strength is the way all staff intervene early when they see
learning difficulties occurring. High-quality teaching across the school
challenges children to do their best and ensures a good pace in
lessons for all children. Individual learning plans are very well
composed with clear targets. Children and their parents are involved
in setting and reviewing the targets appropriately, together with partner
agencies when necessary. Staff take a sensitive approach in these
joint meetings to ensure that all participants feel confident about
contributing.
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
The school has developed very effectively a wide range of
partnerships to support children’s learning. All partners were
consulted recently on arrangements for partnership working. Their
responses show a high degree of satisfaction with the way
partnerships are being supported and used to good effect by the
school. Parents too are very positive about the school. Regular,
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informative newsletters and constructive reports on children’s progress
are valued by parents. Open afternoons for parents are held during
the last week of term and are very well attended and appreciated. The
school has good links with the supportive parent council. Parents are
informed about aspects of the health education programme. Staff now
need to work even more closely with the parent council and all
parents. Together, they need to find ways in which parents can
become more involved in supporting their children’s learning, including
through improving communications concerning absence.
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
Staff, partner agencies, children and their parents all have roles which
contribute to improving the school. A range of self-evaluation
approaches has been implemented well and is having a positive
impact on the school’s work and children’s learning and achievement.
For example, the headteacher evaluates the quality of learning with
teachers during visits to classes, by using assessment information,
and through scrutiny of teaching plans. Children and their parents are
consulted on how they feel about the school. Teachers have visited
each others’ lessons to learn about new and innovative approaches to
learning and teaching. The school now needs to build further on these
approaches. In particular, the headteacher now needs to increase all
stakeholders’ capacity to contribute in an increasingly informed way to
evaluating the quality of learning and achievement.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
One of the strong features of the school is the calm, purposeful
atmosphere in most lessons. Children are responding very well to the
high expectations staff have of them. On occasion, the learning
climate needs to be more carefully managed in shared areas when
children are working outwith their classroom. Any incidents of bullying
are dealt with well. The school is working hard to raise children’s
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ambition and has developed a strong culture of achievement.
Achievements are celebrated very openly in classes, assemblies and
through displays. Staff promote equalities through the curriculum and
through prominent displays of the school’s values. Children are keenly
aware of how to keep safe and healthy because of the emphasis staff
give to health education. The school has appropriate arrangements
for religious observance and a very good partnership with the church.
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
Yes, the school has a clear sense of direction and strong ambition. All
staff are committed to improving the life opportunities of children
through learning. To achieve this ambition, staff throughout the school
have been taking important leadership roles and responsibilities and
contributing effectively to working groups. The headteacher and her
depute provide strong strategic leadership and support staff well to
bring about improvements. The sense of teamwork amongst staff is
very strong overall. The headteacher should review with staff how
their individual roles complement each other and contribute to the
success of the school. Improvement strategies are based on identified
needs, planned well and implemented effectively, and are having a
positive impact on children’s learning and achievement. The school
has a strong capacity to continue improving.
8. What happens next?
The inspection team was able to rely on the school’s robust
self-evaluation. As a result, it was able to change its focus during the
inspection to support further improvements within the school.
The school provides a very good quality of education. Therefore, we
will make no further visits in connection with 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.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Develop children’s, their parents’, the staff’s and partner agencies’
capacity to contribute even more to improving learning and
achievement.
•
Continue the drive to improve children’s attainment in literacy,
numeracy, and health and wellbeing.
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 Raploch Primary School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
good
very good
very good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Graham Norris
14 December 2010
7
very good
very good
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.
Where the school has a nursery class, you can contact the Complaints
Coordinator, Headquarters, Care Commission, Compass House,
Riverside Drive, Dundee DD1 4NY, telephone 0845 603 0890.
Crown Copyright 2010
HM Inspectorate of Education