Dairsie Primary School
Cupar
Fife Council
23 August 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
Dairsie Primary School is a non-denominational school. It serves the
villages of Dairsie and Kemback and surrounding areas. The roll was
47 when the inspection was carried out in May 2011. Attendance was
well above the national average in 2009/2010.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Positive and welcoming school ethos.
•
Confident, well-motivated children who play an active role in school
developments.
•
Teamwork of all staff, led by the headteacher, in providing
high-quality learning experiences.
•
Use of enterprise, problem solving and sustainability skills to
develop children’s learning.
•
Very positive and effective partnership working with parents and
the wider community.
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Children are motivated, confident and engage very well in their
learning. They are enthusiastic and work hard on tasks and activities.
Children are very active in their learning and work very well
independently and in small groups. They support each other very well
both in and out of the classroom. Children plan and evaluate aspects
of their own learning successfully. They can talk about their progress
and know their strengths as learners. There are aspects of excellence
within children’s learning experiences. Commendably, children’s work
and learning on road safety, through their ‘Dairsie We Need You’
project, has been recognised as outstanding practice by a national
newspaper.
Children are very proud of their achievements. Their citizenship skills
2
are developing well through their successful involvement in a very
wide range of committees. The Rights Respecting School committee
has worked in partnership with Save the Children and has formed a
link with a school in Tanzania. Children are developing very good
skills in enterprise and use them very well to organise events such as
open evenings, fundraising events and drama productions. The
school has achieved a third green flag as part of the Eco-Schools
Scotland awards. Children have turned the school grounds
successfully into a wildlife friendly environment. They have
undertaken an in-depth biodiversity project funded by The Royal
Science Society. They are developing creative, healthy living skills
through attending out-of-school clubs, including running, tennis and a
library club. Children participate well in school shows and dance
festivals. They make very good use of information communications
technology including, for example, by making animations to showcase
their learning.
At all stages, almost all children are making appropriate progress in
reading, writing, listening, talking and mathematics. In English
language, children listen well and contribute readily to discussions.
They engage well when making presentations to the class and wider
community. Almost all children read confidently and many are keen
readers both at home and in school. Almost all write confidently for a
range of purposes and there are many examples of good pieces of
writing displayed around the school. In mathematics, almost all
children use mathematical language well across their learning. They
have a very good understanding of shape and can handle information
well. Almost all are confident with mental and written calculations.
Children display a strong confidence in solving problems which are set
in different areas of the curriculum.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Children experience a broad and balanced curriculum. Staff are
progressing well with their implementation of Curriculum for
Excellence. They are using the experiences and outcomes across
3
curriculum areas to plan children’s learning. As a result, children are
making effective links across their learning, such as in ‘Dairsie
Detectives’ and ‘School of Rock’. Staff are developing children’s
numeracy and literacy skills across the curriculum through
inter-disciplinary topics. Children benefit from working with visiting
specialist teachers including, for example, a music specialist who
supported children in creating a charity CD. Staff provide children with
two hours of high-quality physical education each week. Staff should
continue with plans to improve the curriculum further using Curriculum
for Excellence.
Overall, staff meet children’s needs very well. Teachers give clear
explanations and share the purposes of lessons very well with
children. Children’s understanding is checked regularly during lessons
and at the end. Staff set clear targets about what they want children to
learn. Tasks and activities are stimulating and matched well to
children’s interests and needs. A few parents expressed concerns
about the level of challenge in some class work. The school should
investigate the basis of their concerns and address these. Staff
monitor children’s progress very well. Arrangements for meeting the
needs of those children who may require additional help with their
learning are supportive. The support for learning teacher and support
staff provide well-targeted support to children. Staff work very well
with other agencies including the Educational Psychologist to support
children’s learning. Staff provide a high level of pastoral care to all
children. Across the school, homework is appropriate and supports
class work well.
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
Partnership work between the school and parents is of a high quality.
The Parent Council is very supportive. Commendably, parents lead a
wide range of out-of-school activities for children. The school has
well-developed formal and informal approaches to communicating with
parents including through newsletters, text messages and informative
4
progress reports. Staff seek the views of parents and almost all
parents feel that the school listens to their views. The school has
appropriate procedures for responding to complaints and concerns.
Staff consult with parents about health education. The school has
developed very positive links with the local community including, for
example, through the children organising events for the local Women’s
Guild and regular library sessions with the village toddler group. The
school works very well with neighbouring schools and has linked with
them for sporting and enterprising events. In partnership with the
school, the Active Schools’ coordinator arranges a wide range of
sporting activities. Children are well supported as they move from
nursery to P1. Effective links with Bell Baxter High School support
P7 children well as they transfer to secondary school.
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
Children and staff play a very important role in improving their school.
Children have a very good range of opportunities to take responsibility
and develop their leadership roles. All are involved in decision making
through their school committees. Children are active in improving the
school environment through the Eco committee whilst the Learning
and Teaching committee influences curriculum and classroom
developments. All staff participate in school developments through
supporting children with their committee work. Teachers are reflective
in their work and develop their skills through visiting other schools.
Staff have introduced a good range of strategies to monitor children’s
progress and the quality of education. They should continue with
plans to embed these strategies to inform school improvement.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
The school has a very calm and purposeful atmosphere. The ethos of
the school is very warm, friendly and inclusive. Children behave very
well and are proud of their school. They respond well to the staff’s
5
high expectations of their learning and enjoy the responsibility of being
involved in improving the school. Children’s achievements in and out
of school are celebrated at assemblies, in achievement folders and
through newsletters. Staff are aware of the school’s procedures for
child protection. They are very attentive to children’s care and welfare.
Staff promote diversity through the curriculum, the school ethos and
learning about world religions. The school is reviewing its
arrangements for religious observance.
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The school has a very clear vision and sense of direction, driven by
the headteacher’s highly effective leadership. Staff have created a
very positive climate for learning and are committed to providing a high
quality of education for the children. Staff work well as a team,
contribute to continuous improvement and to making children’s
learning experiences high quality. Dairsie Primary School, with the
support of the education authority, has a very good capacity to
continue to improve.
8. What happens next?
As a result of the very good quality of education provided by the
school, 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.
6
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Continue to develop the curriculum using Curriculum for
Excellence.
•
Continue to embed self-evaluation strategies.
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 Dairsie Primary School.
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
very 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: Alan Urquhart
23 August 2011
7
good
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.
Crown Copyright 2011
HM Inspectorate of Education