Bellyeoman Primary School
and Nursery Class
Dunfermline
Fife Council
16 November 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
Bellyeoman Primary School is a non-denominational school with a
nursery class. It serves an area in the north of Dunfermline. The roll
was 283, including 64 in the nursery, when the inspection was carried
out in September 2010. Children’s attendance was in line with the
national average in 2008/2009.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
The interactions between children and staff, particularly in the
nursery classes.
•
Motivated and confident children who are keen to learn.
•
Partnership with health and social work professionals to support
vulnerable children.
•
The commitment and teamwork of all staff to improving the learning
experiences of children.
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
In the nursery classes, almost all children are very motivated and
involved in their learning. They sustain interest in their chosen
activities and cooperate very well to solve problems. They are
becoming increasingly independent and developing effective social
skills. In the primary classes, children are enthusiastic and focus well
on set tasks. They work well with a partner and in small groups, for
example during problem solving tasks. They are beginning to take on
more responsibility for their learning through involvement in planning
interdisciplinary studies.
In the nursery classes, children are developing an early awareness of
the importance of recycling and reusing materials. Across the nursery
and school, all children are actively involved in enterprise activities to
support a wide range of charities. At the primary stages, a few
children have additional responsibilities as members of the eco group
and pupil council. Children’s awareness of caring for the environment
has recently been recognised with an Eco-Schools Scotland green flag
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award. In P6 and P7, children support others well through their
contribution as buddies, play leaders, lunchtime monitors and Junior
Road Safety Officers. Older children are developing their confidence
further through training as walking leaders and peer mediators.
Children in the nursery and at the early and middle stages now need
the opportunity to take on more responsibilities in order to develop
their leadership skills. Children in the middle and upper stages benefit
from a range of additional activities including choir, netball, football and
basketball. However, the lack of community volunteers to run clubs
reduces participation levels.
Almost all children in the nursery are making very good progress.
They listen closely to others and are very keen to share their ideas and
explain what they are doing. They are developing their early writing
skills well during interesting play activities. Almost all children are
confident when working with numbers. They enjoy number songs and
rhymes. They are aware of the importance of good dental hygiene. At
the primary stages, most children achieve appropriate national
standards in reading and mathematics. The majority are achieving
these levels in writing. Overall, attainment has varied from year to
year. Almost all children listen well to their teachers. At the early
stages, most are making very good progress with early reading skills.
From P3 onwards, most can talk confidently about books. Across the
stages, children write for an appropriate range of purposes including
diaries, letters and reports. They need to use these skills more often
in real life contexts. Children do not always maintain the quality of
their writing when undertaking tasks in other curricular areas. In
mathematics, most children are accurate when undertaking written
calculations. A few are not sufficiently quick and accurate when
undertaking mental calculations. At all stages, children have a good
understanding of the properties of shapes. In the upper stages, most
children are confident when solving problems. Across the school,
children do not have enough opportunities to use their information and
communications technology skills in their daily learning.
3
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
In the nursery and across the primary stages, staff have made
effective progress in planning children’s learning to take account of
Curriculum for Excellence. Staff have introduced a range of
interdisciplinary topics which are helping children to make links across
curricular areas. Staff have made a positive start to introducing health
and wellbeing as a major aspect of children’s learning. They now
need to increase the emphasis on mental and emotional health. In the
nursery, staff provide regular opportunities for children to develop their
physical skills. At the primary stages, all children have yet to benefit
from two hours of high-quality physical education each week.
Staff in the nursery provide a stimulating learning environment. This
could be improved further by creative use of the existing space. Staff
know children well as individuals. They are very skilled at supporting
and extending children’s learning. In the primary classes, tasks and
activities meet the needs of most children. Staff are well organised
and use an appropriate range of teaching approaches. The level of
challenge is not always high enough in health and wellbeing lessons.
The support for learning teacher and support auxiliaries make very
effective contributions to children’s learning. They provide well-judged
support for those with identified additional needs, including more able
children. Staff work well with parents and a wide range of
professionals to set and review learning targets for children with
additional support needs. Children are not yet involved enough in
creating and discussing individual support plans. Across the school,
homework is used well to reinforce learning in literacy and numeracy.
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
Staff provide a number of helpful information booklets to help parents
support their child when starting school. Throughout the year, open
events provide good opportunities for parents to learn about their
child’s progress and the work of the school. Parents appreciate these
4
events and value their contacts with class teachers. Appropriate
information is provided on sensitive aspects of the health education
programme. The quality of annual written reports to parents is too
variable. Overall, any complaints are dealt with in a timely manner.
Local councillors have been supportive in providing a safe footpath
between a car park and the school. Some adults do not use this
facility and disregard safety advice from the headteacher, thus putting
children at risk. Attendance at the Parent Council is low and
partnership working with the school management team is strained.
Parents are not involved in running regular after-school activities,
although sports training has been offered. Questionnaire responses
shows that the school has more to do to improve communication and
encourage the involvement of parents for the benefit of children. A
high percentage of P7 children do not transfer to the allocated
secondary school. This impacts on the quality of transition programme
they experience.
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
Staff contribute well to improving the school. They reflect on their work
and this influences planning of future learning and teaching. Senior
staff provide sound advice to help improve teachers’ learning plans
and offer helpful next steps following classroom visits. Staff contribute
effectively to the identification of priorities for improvement and support
curriculum improvement through their membership of school and local
network working groups. The range of issues considered by the pupil
council is too narrow. More needs to be done to seek and use the
views of children and parents to influence school improvement.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
The atmosphere in the school is calm and purposeful. Children
respond well to staff expectations of behaviour and effort. Teachers
are raising their expectations of children’s attainment but this is not yet
5
consistent across all stages. Staff recognise and celebrate children’s
achievements through a range of awards. Children are proud of their
success in supporting a wide range of charities. They learn about
aspects of equality and respecting others through well-planned
lessons and assemblies. There are appropriate arrangements in place
for religious observance. School staff have had appropriate child
protection training. Most children feel safe and well cared for at
school.
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
Staff, children and parents have been involved in developing a shared
vision for the school. The headteacher and depute headteacher are
highly committed to improving the school. They want the best for all
children. They have earned the respect and confidence of staff.
There is a strong sense of teamwork within the school. Staff feel
supported and challenged. They are increasingly taking on leadership
roles. The school now needs to involve children and parents more
actively in decision making in order to make the school even better.
8. What happens next?
We are confident that, with support from the education authority, the
school will be able to make the necessary improvements in light of the
inspection findings. As a result, we will make no more visits in
connection with this inspection. The school and the education
authority will inform parents about the school's progress in improving
the quality of education.
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We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Continue to improve children’s attainment in writing and
mathematics.
•
Improve and extend the use of information and communications
technology as a key part of learning experiences across the
curriculum.
•
Ensure continuity of learning as children move into primary from
nursery and when they leave for secondary school.
•
Give children more responsibility for aspects of their learning, and
make more use of the views of children and parents to improve the
school further.
At the last Care Commission inspection of the nursery class there
were three recommendations. Two had been addressed by the
school. The outstanding recommendation related to Fife Council
procedures.
7
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 Bellyeoman Primary School and Nursery
Class.
Primary school
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
good
good
good
Nursery class
Improvements in performance
Children’s experiences
Meeting learning needs
very good
very good
very good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school and
nursery class.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: Anne Park
16 November 2010
8
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.
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