Simpson Primary School
and Nursery Class
Bathgate
West Lothian Council
21 September 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?
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
Simpson Primary School is a non-denominational school with a
nursery class. It serves the Wester Inch area of Bathgate. The roll
was 260, including 80 in the nursery, when the inspection was carried
out in June 2010. Children’s attendance was above the national
average in 2008/2009. Simpson Primary opened as a new school in
August 2007. Over the last year the roll increased considerably with
81 new children joining the school. A large extension, to
accommodate an expected increase in the school roll over the coming
years, is almost complete.
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2. Particular strengths of the school
•
Achievement of children in a wide range of sporting, science and
citizenship activities.
•
The very good range of after-school clubs which enrich children’s
learning.
•
Well-behaved and enthusiastic children who are increasingly
involved in planning their learning activities.
•
Teamwork of staff and their commitment to improving the school
and nursery class.
3. How well do children learn and achieve?
Learning and achievement
Children in the nursery are happy and settled. Most concentrate well
on a wide range of learning experiences. They take responsibility for
choosing activities and most play well together. At the primary stages,
children are motivated and keen to learn. They are becoming more
actively involved in planning aspects of their learning. Children are
caring, confident and respond maturely when given responsibilities.
Children benefit from many opportunities to develop confidence,
personal skills and knowledge of wider areas of learning outwith
classes. These opportunities include sports, work to protect the
environment, enterprising activities and residential trips. In the primary
classes, children at the middle stages use information and
communications technology (ICT) to make film clips and add music to
them. Children from the school’s science and engineering club have
won awards. They built a working car and exhibited it at a national
conference.
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Children in the nursery are making very good progress in early
language and mathematics. Most are developing skills in listening and
talking well. They explore early reading and writing through play and
are developing an awareness of letter sounds. Most children identify
and use numbers, shapes and colours during play. They are
developing valuable skills in investigation, for example, when growing
seeds and plants. In the primary classes almost all children are
achieving well. Almost all children achieve appropriate national levels
of attainment in reading, writing and mathematics. Children listen
carefully and share their ideas confidently during discussions. At the
early stages, children read with increasing confidence and fluency.
Across the school, children write skilfully for a wide range of purposes
and are making very good progress. At the upper stages, they
produce high quality writing, often of a good length. Children are less
confident discussing authors and poets and how they write to create
effects. In mathematics, children are secure in number, measurement
and shape. Most children are good at mental calculations and those at
the upper stages are skilled at explaining how they reach an answer.
They are developing their understanding of handling data but would
benefit from using ICT more to display their results.
Curriculum and meeting learning needs
Children in the nursery and primary classes experience a broad and
balanced curriculum. Staff have taken good steps to improve
children’s experiences using Curriculum for Excellence guidance. In
the nursery class, children learn through a range of play activities
which help develop their knowledge and understanding of early literacy
and numeracy. The nursery has recently developed outdoor learning
well. In the primary classes, staff give very good attention to health
and wellbeing. The well-structured programme on international
education is raising children’s awareness of wider global issues. All
children are learning French. The school needs to develop
experiences in music, science and the technologies which ensure
progression as children move through the school. Children do not yet
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experience two hours of high-quality physical education. The school is
working to address this. The curriculum is enhanced, for many
children, by a very wide range of after-school clubs and activities.
Throughout the nursery and primary classes, staff meet children’s
personal, social and emotional needs very well. In the nursery, staff
provide experiences which take good account of children’s stages of
development. Staff are responsive to children’s individual needs but
need to take more account of their interests when planning activities.
In the primary classes, teachers know children well and plan activities
which meet their needs. Almost all tasks and activities are at the right
level of difficulty for children. Recently, staff developed good
arrangements to provide greater challenge for higher-attaining
children. Staff share with children what they are going to learn, check
their understanding and give them helpful feedback on their work.
Home learning tasks are varied and motivating for children. Staff now
need to involve children more fully in identifying their next steps in
learning and what they need to do to improve. Staff, with the help of
the principal teacher, identify and assess what help is needed for
children with additional support needs. The principal teacher works
effectively with staff to develop individualised educational programmes
which have appropriate long and short-term learning targets. The
school needs to improve the quality of support and the day-to-day
planning for groups and individuals receiving additional help with their
learning.
4. How well do staff work with others to support children’s
learning?
Since the school opened three years ago, staff have worked hard to
establish strong and productive links with a wide range of partners and
agencies to support children’s learning. Nursery staff work well with
parents to share information on their children’s development and
progress. All parents receive regular newsletters which include
information on the curriculum. Almost all parents are happy with the
school and satisfied with the information they receive. A minority of
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parents feel that the school could take more account of their views.
The school deals effectively with any complaints. The Parent Council
makes a positive contribution to the school. The school has very good
arrangements to support children as they move from nursery to P1 and
from P7 to Bathgate Academy. The school has integrated very
successfully the large numbers of children joining throughout the year.
5. Are staff and children actively involved in improving their
school?
Children contribute well to improving the school, for example, by being
members of the pupil council and eco committee or serving as junior
road safety officers. Older children provide effective ‘buddy’ support to
younger children. The school has won health promotion awards and
an award from Eco-Schools Scotland. Staff work very well together to
improve the school and all contribute to the school improvement plan.
The school has a range of approaches for improving its work through
self-evaluation. Teachers visit each other’s classes to evaluate
practice and learn from each other. The headteacher monitors
teachers’ plans and observes learning and teaching. Priorities set out
in the improvement plan have a positive impact on improving children’s
attainments and achievements. For example, the focus on active
literacy is helping to improve children’s writing. Parents’ views of the
school are gathered and acted upon. Staff ask children for their views
about what they learn and how they learn, helping them to improve
their teaching.
6. Does the school have high expectations of all children?
The high quality accommodation provides the basis for very good
learning and teaching. All staff and children work well together in it,
with mutual respect. The school has a friendly, welcoming ethos
which promotes equality and fairness. Staff expectations of behaviour
and attainment are high. Staff use appropriate policies for ensuring
children’s care and welfare, including child protection. In the nursery,
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children are helped to be responsible, take turns and share resources.
The school has appropriate arrangements for keeping children safe.
Children are confident they can speak to staff if they are upset or
worried. The school recently surveyed children’s views on bullying
and acted upon the findings. The school needs to explore why a few
children continue to have concerns about the behaviour of others.
Children have good opportunities to learn about other beliefs and
cultures. Staff encourage and celebrate children’s achievements.
Regular assemblies provide appropriate opportunities for religious
observance.
7. Does the school have a clear sense of direction?
The headteacher has been successful in establishing the new school
within the local community. Working with staff, she has developed a
clear sense of direction for the school. She has promoted very good
teamwork across the school and encouraged staff to take on
leadership roles to develop aspects of the school’s work. The principal
teacher is very well organised and provides good support. The
headteacher and staff now need to focus self-evaluation activities
more on the school’s improvement priorities. They should use the
findings to ensure that the best practice seen in most classes becomes
more consistent across the school. Staff are enthusiastic about
ongoing improvement. Under the headteacher’s leadership, and with
the continued commitment of staff, the school is well placed to improve
further.
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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.
We have agreed the following areas for improvement with the school
and education authority.
•
Continue to develop the curriculum, taking account of Curriculum
for Excellence.
•
Improve the planning and the quality of support for children who
need additional help with their learning.
•
Use the findings from self-evaluation to ensure that the best
practice seen in most classes becomes more consistent across the
school.
At the last Care Commission inspection of the nursery class there
were no requirements or recommendations.
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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 Simpson Primary School and Nursery
Class.
Primary school
Improvements in performance
Learners’ experiences
Meeting learning needs
very good
very good
good
Nursery class
Improvements in performance
Children’s experiences
Meeting learning needs
very good
very good
good
We also evaluated the following aspects of the work of the school.
The curriculum
Improvement through self-evaluation
HM Inspector: May Geddes
21 September 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