Lasswade Primary School
and Nursery Class
Bonnyrigg
Midlothian Council
2 March 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
Lasswade Primary School is a non-denominational school with a
nursery class. It serves the town of Bonnyrigg. The roll was 390,
including 60 in the nursery, when the inspection was carried out in
January 2010. Children’s attendance was in line with the national
average in 2007/2008.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
The leadership of the headteacher.
•
The teamwork of staff in improving the school.
•
The polite, well-behaved, enthusiastic children.
•
Progress with implementing Curriculum for Excellence.
•
Children’s wider achievements.
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Children in the nursery are happy and confident in their surroundings
and cooperate well together. In both nursery and primary classes,
children’s everyday learning experiences are of a high quality. In
primary classes, almost all children express a strong sense of
enjoyment and satisfaction with their learning, feel well cared for and
respected. They demonstrate a high level of motivation in their class
work and respond well to tasks set by teachers. Children support one
another well in all classes and work well together in a variety of
groups. In almost all classes, learning is engaging for children through
high-quality display, well-judged and varied learning tasks and
teachers’ use of stimulating approaches. Children are being
encouraged to take on more responsibility for their learning at all
stages such as in the P7 collaborative learning. The school makes
good use of local and national programmes in health and
sustainability, such as Eco-Schools Scotland, where it has attained a
green flag, to enrich children’s learning. Homework is varied and
regular.
2
In the nursery class, almost all children are developing skills as
independent learners. Children at all stages broaden their experiences
through taking part in after-school clubs and regular educational
events and visits. They care for the school gardens and grow their
own vegetables. Children are developing their confidence and fitness
through a wide range of sporting activities. The school has achieved
local authority accreditation for health promotion. Children are
developing responsibility as young citizens through roles in the pupil
forum and supporting the eco committee. For example, they are using
the Scottish schools intranet, GLOW, to participate in an online
question and answer session on biodiversity with the Environment
Minister.
Children in the nursery class are making very good progress in their
development and learning. They listen very well and talk confidently.
Most children can read their own names. They listen well to stories
and often retell these stories using the nursery puppets. Children’s
writing in the nursery could be developed further by focusing on
real-life purposes. Children can count confidently. At the primary
stages, standards of attainment in reading, writing and mathematics
have been maintained at a consistently high level. Almost all children
are achieving appropriate national levels in reading and mathematics
and most children do so in writing. Most children achieve these levels
earlier than might be expected. At all stages, children are making very
good progress in reading and writing. They are confident and
articulate, listen well to each other and contribute well to class
discussions. The school should use information gathered in assessing
and recording children’s progress in talking and listening to plan next
steps in learning in a more structured way. Children are able to read
fluently and with expression at an appropriate level for their stage.
Children write well for different purposes. The school should continue
its development of writing skills through initiatives such as the boys’
sports reporting group. In mathematics, almost all children can do
written and mental calculations accurately. They are developing skills
in problem solving in a range of contexts. At P5/6, for example,
children are becoming confident about working within a budget. The
school should continue to develop this approach in mathematics to
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give children further examples of real life experiences. Children are
making innovative use of handheld consoles to practise their basic
number work in a motivating way.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Across the nursery and primary stages, children experience a broad
and stimulating curriculum. In the nursery class, the curriculum
promotes enjoyment and choice in learning. Staff take very good
account of children’s personal interests and plan for progress in their
learning. They develop children’s literacy and numeracy skills in a
range of contexts. As part of the eco school work they are learning to
look after their environment as eco monitors. In the primary classes,
teachers plan an appropriate range of tasks and activities. Teachers
are taking increasing account of the principles of Curriculum for
Excellence in planning their teaching and learning experiences for
children. Staff make children’s learning relevant through using the
local area to increase children’s understanding of the environment.
Visiting specialists help children develop effective skills in physical
education, art and design and music. All children at P7 are benefitting
from instrumental tuition provided by visiting instructors. The school is
providing two hours of good-quality physical education each week for
all children. Arrangements are well developed for children to enter the
nursery suitably prepared, to move confidently into the primary and to
transfer from P7 to Lasswade High School.
In the nursery, children’s needs are very well met. Children would
benefit from discussing their individual learning and next steps
regularly with staff and parents. Across the primary classes, staff meet
the learning needs of children very well. Teachers work well together
with learning assistants and learning support staff to support children
who require significant additional help with their learning. The school
has clear and well understood procedures for identifying and
supporting children who are not making expected progress. Teachers
are very effective at including children who require significant
additional support in the work of the class and in ensuring they make
appropriate progress. Staff are effective in challenging higher attaining
4
children by adapting class tasks appropriately. The planning of
support for children with additional needs should be reviewed. This
should aim to ensure that short- and long-term learning targets provide
a clear framework for monitoring individual progress.
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
Staff have formed strong partnerships with parents to support the work
of the school. The Parent Council is involved in many aspects of
school life and influences school improvements such as the school’s
system of rewards. They work with the children to enhance the school
grounds. The school arranges shared starts in P1 and P2 and open
mornings when parents can join in with their children’s learning.
Parents also learn about the school through, assemblies, newsletters
and an informative school website. Parents receive helpful and
informative reports on their children’s progress and are consulted on
sensitive health matters. Staff are continuing to develop effective
partnerships with support agencies, including psychological services
and speech and language therapists. Children benefit from productive
links with a range of partners in the local community. Parents and
children are happy that any complaints are dealt with effectively by the
school. Children in P6 and P7 benefit from a residential experience.
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school community?
Staff and children are very much involved in improving their school
community, often working alongside parents. Children throughout the
school take important leadership roles which help improve
sustainability and provide pastoral support for others. Peer mediators
and house captains provide leadership and promote a strong sense of
pride, identity and achievement throughout the school. Children
involved in school groups would benefit from taking on greater
responsibility for leading and managing their groups. Staff are very
5
eager to improve their practice for the benefit of children. They
undertake a range of activities both in school and beyond to support
their professional development. They are committed to reflecting on
their practice and evaluating new initiatives and changes they have
introduced. The headteacher, depute headteacher and principal
teachers visit classrooms and sample children’s work to monitor
progress. They should continue to do so to ensure consistency
throughout the school. The school has very effective systems for
gathering the views of parents, staff and children and is committed to
acting on the findings.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
Staff demonstrate high expectations of children’s learning and
behaviour. They work very closely to support each other through
sharing ideas and resources as well as working alongside each other.
The school has a positive, welcoming and nurturing ethos. Children
are well behaved, polite and enthusiastic. They speak confidently
about their learning and achievements. Success and achievement are
celebrated very well throughout the school through awards such as
Star Achiever and Star Student, certificates and inclusion in displays
around the school and in the Golden Book of Honour. The school
provides appropriate experiences for religious observance. It develops
children’s understanding of other cultures through experiences such as
the Stedfast Project which provides a meaningful link with a school in
Kenya.
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The school’s mission statement is based on extensive consultation
with parents, children and staff. It promotes personal identity and a
sense of belonging within the school community very effectively. The
headteacher provides very high-quality leadership for learning. She
continually challenges staff to improve practice and opens up
opportunities for children and staff to contribute to the leadership of the
6
school. She has been ably assisted by her depute and both principal
teachers. The school should continue to develop leadership,
particularly within its younger children.
8. What happens next?
The inspection team was able to rely on the school's self-evaluation to
make its evaluations and the school agreed with these evaluations at
an early stage of the inspection. As a result, the inspection team was
able to change its focus during the inspection to help the school plan
to improve even more.
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 school.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Continue to develop children’s ability to take responsibility for their
learning.
•
Improve the setting of learning targets for those children who need
extra help with class work.
At the last Care Commission inspection of the nursery class there
were no requirements. In addition, no recommendations were
made.
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 Lasswade Primary School and Nursery
Class.
Primary school
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
very good
very good
very 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: Alasdair Eadie
2 March 2010
8
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