standards and quality report 2017-18 david … livingstone memorial primary 91.2% 90.1% 73.7% ....

Standards and Quality Report 2017-18

David Livingstone Memorial Primary School and Nursery Class

Context of the school

David Livingstone Memorial Primary School and Nursery Class is set within the urban Coatshill area of Blantyre. The current roll is 263 over 10 classes, and 40 children in the Nursery. Our catchment area comprises a mix of privately-owned and social (local authority) housing. Our new school opened in June 2012 and provides an excellent modern environment in which children can learn and achieve. Currently, 20.1% of our children are eligible for a free school meal. Our Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation profile for 2016 highlights that 42.8% of our pupils live in deciles 1 or 2, with only one child living in deciles 9 or 10. Our school vision is ‘We aim to provide an inclusive and nurturing environment where everyone can thrive and achieve.’ Our values are what we want all learners to be: respectful, responsible, caring, confident, honest and successful. The Senior Management Team has changed considerably over the past year, with a new Head Teacher being appointed in August 2016 and new staff taking on the roles of Acting Depute Head Teacher and Acting Principal Teacher. Long-standing vacancies have resulted in temporary staff covering 3 classes during 2016/17. We have an active Parent Council who support the school in many ways, especially via fundraising. We are trying to establish greater links with the local community and make good use of our Active Schools Co-ordinator and Home School Partnership Worker to provide learning opportunities for children, as well as parents. We are part of Calderside Learning Community and are developing stronger links with local schools to take forward joint Learning Community initiatives. Our own Nursery works closely with Calderside Nursery in Blantyre to ensure that smooth transitions are planned for.

The National Context for Education

The National Improvement Framework (NIF) for Scottish Education sets out the Scottish Government’s

vision to continually improve Scottish Education and to close the attainment gap, delivering both excellence

and equity. Our school, working in partnership with South Lanarkshire Council is fully committed to

delivering these ambitious aims.

The key priorities of the National Improvement Framework are:

Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy

Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children

Improvement in children and young people’s health and wellbeing

Improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school leaver destinations for all young people

Key drivers of improvement have also been identified, these are:

School leadership.

Teacher professionalism.

Parental engagement.

Assessment of children’s progress.

School improvement.

Performance information.

Our school is committed to taking these priorities forward and developing each driver through our annual

School Improvement Plan (SIP.)

Assessment of children’s progress throughout the Broad General Education (to end of S3)

As one of the drivers, our school, alongside all schools in Scotland, has been required to report on

Curriculum for Excellence levels for literacy and numeracy achieved by all children at the end of stages P1,

P4, P7 and S3. This data is submitted to South Lanarkshire Council in June each year and collected

subsequently by the Scottish Government. This data is based on teacher judgement, informed by a wide

range of assessment evidence including standardised testing where appropriate. As from session 2016/17

all schools in Scotland will be required to participate in the new Scotland National Standardised

Assessment (SNSA) project. This will further help inform teacher judgement of levels.

The following table shows benchmarks for children achieving Curriculum for Excellence Levels.

Level Stage covering 3 years approx.

Early The pre-school years and P1, or later for some.

First To the end of P4, but earlier or later for some.

Second To the end of P7, but earlier or later for some.

Third and Fourth

S1 to S3, but earlier for some.

The fourth level broadly equates to Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework level 4.

The fourth level experiences and outcomes are intended to provide possibilities for choice and young people’s programmes will not include all of the fourth level outcomes.

Senior phase

S4 to S6, and college or other means of study.

Some children and young people will start learning at these levels earlier and others later, depending upon

individual needs and abilities. Many children not attaining National Levels will have an Additional Support

Plan (ASP) and may be making good progress but against different milestones e.g. individual targets.

Learning progress is not about how fast children move through the levels but about ‘how much’ and ‘how

well’ children learn, having depth and breadth of experiences at each level.

Assessment of these levels is based on a wide variety of evidence and ways of measuring progress such

as assessment of projects, general class work, observations and peer assessment. Where possible,

children and young people are encouraged to be directly involved in the assessment process.

Schools and teachers work with others to set shared standards for assessing progress. These standards

are based on National “benchmarks” for each area of the curriculum. This process is called moderation and

it ensures that schools have similar expectations.

What follows is our school’s data about achievement of these levels for sessions 15/16 (when data was first

collected) and 16/17.

1.1 Attainment data - Attainment of Curriculum for Excellence levels 2015/16 (teacher judgement)

Reading Writing Listening & Talking

School

P1 Achieved Early or better

P4 Achieved First or better

P7 Achieved Second or better







David Livingstone Memorial Primary

94.1% 83.8% 79.4% 91.2% 81.1% 67.7% 88.2% 78.4% 79.4%

SLC 80.0% 75.2% 72.3% 78.2% 67.9% 62.7% 83.8% 82.6% 79.7%

National 80.8% 75.2% 72.3% 78.2% 69.3% 65.1% 85.0% 80.9% 77.4%

Numeracy

School





94.1% 94.6% 79.4%

SLC 83.0% 71.2% 67.9%

National 83.9% 73.1% 67.8%

1.2 Predicted Attainment National Improvement Framework - Attainment of Curriculum for Excellence levels 2016/17

Reading Writing Listening & Talking

School











79.4% 88.1% 86.5% 79.4% 90.1% 75.7% 85.3% 90.1%

81.1%

Key Above national average

Below national average

Numeracy

School





91.2% 90.1% 73.7%

Achieving Excellence: Overall Progress towards National Improvement Framework Priorities Session 2016-17 Since 2011-2012, we have been tracking attainment of our pupils against Curriculum for Excellence levels at identified stages. Our approach to assessment and moderation has developed over time and will continue to remain a focus for school improvement.

Literacy:

Progress satisfactory good very good excellent

X

Reading Writing Listening and Talking

P1 P4 P7 P1 P4 P7 P1 P4 P7

2011-2012 96% 91% 77% 98% 74% 56% 96% 91% 77%

2012-2013 91% 73% 67% 91% 65% 60% 91% 76% 57%

2013-2014 91% 94% 74% 86% 86% 54% 95% 89% 72%

2014-2015 72% 74% 49% 55% 74% 34% 83% 66% 41%

2015-2016 94.1% 83.8% 79.4% 91.2% 81.1% 67.7% 88.2% 78.4% 79.4%

2016-2017 79.4% 88.1% 86.5% 79.4% 90.1% 75.7% 85.3% 90.1% 81.1%

Strengths

Our data and other evidence shows that in 2015/16 our P1, P4 and P7 performed better than both the SLC and national average in Reading and Writing. In Listening and Talking, P1 and P7 children performed above the national average.

Our predicted data indicates an improvement in P4 and P7 reading; P1, P4 and P7 Writing; and P4 and P7 Listening and Talking. Although there has been a slight decrease in attainment in P1 Reading and P1 Listening and Talking, both of these figures are still very much in line with the national average.

Areas for Development

Data from 2015/16 suggested that Listening and Talking needed to be improved at the P4 stage. This year’s predicted attainment shows a significant improvement in this cohort.

Predicted attainment shows a decrease in performance in Reading and Listening and Talking at the P1 stage. Literacy will, therefore, be an area for continued focus for us.

In terms of children in receipt of Free School Meals and those living in SIMD deciles 1 and 2, we still have work to do to ensure that the attainment gap closes.

Numeracy:


X

Numeracy

P1 P4 P7

2011-2012 92% 97% 67%

2012-2013 94% 65% 60%

2013-2014 86% 94% 47%

2014-2015 93% 79% 44%

2015-2016 94.1% 94.6% 79.4%

2016-2017 91.2% 90.1% 73.7%

Strengths

Our data shows that in 2015/16 our P1, P4 and P7 performed significantly better than both the SLC and national average.


Data from 2016/17 shows a slight decrease in attainment at P1, P4 and P7, although all 3 stages still remain above the SLC and national average.

In terms of children in receipt of Free School Meals and those living in SIMD deciles 1 and 2, we still have work to do to ensure that the attainment gap closes.

Health and Wellbeing:


X

Strengths

Almost all children report that they feel safe and cared for in school and that they have an adult that they can talk to if they are upset or worried about something.

Almost all parents said that their child likes being at school and feel that staff support their child’s emotional wellbeing.

All children receive 2 hours of Physical Education and Physical Activity every week and we have developed a PE programme which ensures breadth of experiences across all stages.


We need to develop the use of Nurture in the school to support children’s wellbeing.

We need to review and extend our tracking and monitoring system to include Health and Wellbeing.

Employability Skills/Positive Destinations:


X

Strengths

We organised a very successful World of Work Week during which parents and members of our local community were invited in to talk to the children about their jobs.

The majority of classes engage in an enterprise project over the course of the year.

Staff make regular reference to the world of work so that children understand the relevance of their learning. Areas for Development

We need to continue to develop our skills for learning, life and work programme across all stages of the school, including Early Years.

We need to begin tracking skills.

We should continue to develop increased links with business partners and local employers.

Overall quality of our learners’ achievements Highlights of session 2016-17 We have had a very busy and productive session, with children of all stages continuing to receive a broad and balanced curriculum in line with Curriculum for Excellence. Our monthly highlights are displayed on our Achievement Wall in the main foyer. Visitors regularly comment on this display, so please feel free to come and have a look! Pupil Leadership We offer children from different stages the opportunity to exercise pupil leadership and to have a voice in what is happening in the school. During Term 1, P7 pupils were trained to take on the roles of Positive Play Leaders, French Ambassadors and Paired Readers, whilst P6 children learned how to manage our school’s Credit Union. Classes also elected their representatives on the Pupil Council, Rights Respecting School Committee and Eco Committee and 2 P6 children were selected as the school’s Junior Road Safety Officers. School Events We are extremely proud of our children’s talents and achievements and are keen that their parents are able to share in this success, too. Over the course of the session, all classes have showcased their learning through entertaining class assemblies and our Nursery class shared what they have been learning in French during a special Mother’s Day Tea. Our Nursery, P1 and P2 children were also involved in a fantastic production of ‘The Innkeeper’s Breakfast’ as part of our school Nativity and all children played an active role in our Harvest, Christmas and Easter assemblies. We are keen to promote responsible citizenship and the benefits of working as part of a team. All children took part in a very enjoyable Sponsored Bounce at the start of session and they have also helped to raise money for Children in Need, as well as St Andrew’s Hospice through their participation in the annual ‘Wear Yellow Walk’ around Strathclyde Park. A number of classes have engaged in enterprising activities as part of their topics and were successful in making money to support their own choice of class treat. Parents have also been very busy organising a hugely successful Christmas Fayre, a Nursery Race Night, along with ‘Toastie Tuesdays’ and a couple of school discos which proved to be popular with the children. School Success This session our learners’ achievements have been celebrated more regularly both in the local press and in SLC’s Education Newsletter. We won 3 medals at the Hamilton Schools Cross Country Competition (one gold and 2 silvers), our footballers reached the consolation final of the Shinwell Cup and our netballers came in 3rd place in the Hamilton Primaries Netball Festival. P4-7 children represented the school at the Hamilton Dance Festival and we have recently designed and created our own model hippo as part of Hamilton town centre’s ‘Big Stampede’ project. In addition, we had prize winners in the Scottish Mathematical Challenge organised by Strathclyde University, with 3 children being awarded a silver certificate and another 3 achieving bronze. Out of School Learning This year we have offered a wide range of lunchtime and after-school clubs for children of all stages, including dance, football, netball, reading, homework and benchball to name but a few. Children from all classes have also enjoyed educational outings to support their learning to places such as the Sky Academy in Livingston, Amazonia, Whitlelee Wind Farm and the National Museum of Rural Life, with staff at these places commenting on how polite and well-mannered the children were. Some children have had the opportunity to participate in sporting activities out of school, including weekly swimming lessons for our P4 children, a P5/6 Rugby Festival and the P5 Hamilton Games organised by Active Schools.

Comment on strategies that have been successful in engaging with children and young people, staff, parents and the wider community.

At the start of session, we asked all children, staff and parents to complete a SWOT analysis of the school. Over the course of the year we have worked hard to address many of the weaknesses and opportunities that were identified and have reported on the actions that we have taken through an informative ‘You said … We did …’ display at the front of the school. Parents, children and staff of all levels were also consulted as part of a review of our school’s vision and values, with the children taking the lead in how they thought that this could be displayed. As a school, we are made effective use of our local community by inviting local business partners and organisations to become involved in our World of Work, Financial Education and Health Weeks. We have also developed a very effective transition programme for our new P1 children, working closely with our Home School Partnership Worker and a neighbouring nursery to organise enjoyable and meaningful activities and workshops for both the children and their parents. We hope to build on this good practice as part of our priorities linked to Family Learning, as well as part of our joint Learning Community Plan. We are keen to promote pupil leadership and pupil voice and consult regularly with children as part of our Quality Management calendar. This has resulted in staff making changes to their practice within their own classrooms. Staff of all levels and parents have been involved in discussions about how best to bridge the attainment gap within our school and these ideas have been used to identify specific targets within our School Improvement Plan. We have also agreed on how we want the curriculum to be organised within DLMPS and what should form the key focus for learning and teaching across all stages. This work is displayed on our ‘Building the Curriculum’ wall outside the staffroom.

Priority 1: To raise attainment in Literacy and English

National Improvement Framework Key Priorities

Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy;

Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children;

Improvement in children and young people’s health and wellbeing; and

Improvement in employability skills and sustained positive school leaver destinations for all young people.

National Improvement Framework Key Drivers

School leadership

Teacher professionalism

Parental engagement

Assessment of children’s progress

School improvement

Performance information

HGIOS 4 QI: 2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment 3.2 Raising Attainment and Achievement

Progress and Impact: Attainment in Reading, Writing and Listening & Talking remain above or very close to both SLC and National averages at all recorded stages (P1, P4 and P7). Introducing NLC Literacy in P1 and P2 has had a very positive impact on children’s early literacy skills with 89% of P1 children able to say at least 80% of their phonemes at the end of the session, compared with 44% of P1 children at the end of last session. In addition, 67% of P1 children are able to use their knowledge of phonemes to read at least of 80% of key words compared to 33% last session. Unfortunately, we do not have evidence of the children’s ability to use their phonemes to build words last session, however 44% of our P1 children were able to do this at the end of this session. The introduction of ERIC (Everyone Reading In Class) time has led to a significant increase in the number of children who read for enjoyment, with the majority of children reporting that they read every day. Unfortunately, few children attended our Open Doors library sessions and there is still headroom for improvement with regards to the number of parents who engage in reading with their child, particularly from P4 onwards, so this is something which we will continue to develop next session. Most of the support staff have now been trained in the use of the 5 Minute Box and this has successfully led to an improvement in the phonological skills of most of the identified children who have been using the resource. The updated results of PM Benchmarks completed with FME children show that almost all children have improved on their baseline level recorded in November 2016, with 38% of children increasing their PM Benchmark reading age by 3 or more levels (one year) by June 2017.

Next Steps:

To extend the use of the 5 Minute Box with an increased number of children.

To extend the use of NLC Literacy into P3.

To introduce a home/school reading challenge for children from P4 onwards to encourage increased paired

Review of SIP progress session 2016/2017

reading at home.

To introduce Catch-Up Literacy with identified children.

Priority 2: Religious and Moral Education through Sustainable Education







School leadership


Parental engagement


School improvement


HGIOS 4 QI: 2.2 Curriculum 2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment

Progress and Impact: As a result of reviewing our existing pathways against other establishments, we have devised a new RME programme of study which contains some links to Learning for Sustainability. Although planning for all stages has still to be fully developed, our revised programme ensures that all children will receive a greater breadth and balance of learning in relation to the experiences and outcomes at Early, First and Second Level. As a consequence of the results of pupil consultation, RME lessons are now more active in nature and contain increased opportunities for collaborative learning in most classes.

Next Steps:

To continue to develop links with Learning for Sustainability in all RME lessons.

To continue to develop increased differentiation in RME lessons.

To establish greater links between RME and interdisciplinary learning.

Priority 3: Primary Languages Learning: 1 + 2 + 3







School leadership


Parental engagement


School improvement


HGIOS 4 QI: 2.2 Curriculum 2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment

Progress and Impact: French is now delivered in all classes, including the Nursery through the effective use of P7 French Ambassadors, in line with SLC’s Primary Languages Learning Strategy. This has enabled us to include greater progression between stages. We know from consultation with children that they enjoy learning French in most classes. As a result of reviewing our Social Studies planner, we have now identified where a 3rd Language can be introduced to all children in P5 – P7 and have begun to identify the training needs of staff. This session, a whole school Scots Week and a Scottish Book Week enabled us to introduce Scots to all children. Whilst these focus weeks were successful in building children’s understanding of some Scots vocabulary as well as their enthusiasm for learning another language, we now need to ensure greater progression between stages. Last term, we also made effective use of the Confucius Hub to enable us to introduce Mandarin to our P6/7 class as part of their interdisciplinary topic on China. This led to all children being able to say some numbers and basic personal information about themselves.

Next Steps:

To continue to develop embed the learning, teaching and assessment of French in all classes, with an increased focus on reading and writing activities.

To begin to introduce L3 in P5 – P7 classes.

Quality

Indicator

Key Strengths

Areas for

Development

School Self-

Evaluation

Nursery Self-

Evaluation

1.1

Self-Evaluation for Self-Improvement

We are continuing to take a more collaborative approach to self-evaluation and all staff, children and parents have been consulted on what they see as our strengths, as well as areas in which we need to improve. As a school, we have become better at embracing the use of data and other intelligence data to inform our decision-making. This can be seen as part of our PEF planning process. As a result of this, we have been able to identify cohorts of children who will be targeted for increased support. We continue to develop our assessment and monitoring processes and are becoming better at being able to demonstrate children’s successes and achievements. We consult regularly with children as part of our Quality Management calendar and respond to their views as part of continuous improvement.

We need to further develop our approaches towards moderation to ensure agreed standards and expectations both within our school and across the Learning Community. We are planning to update our tracking and monitoring system to make it easier for us to track progress of learners and to help it to become easier for us to interrogate data. In addition, we need to become more rigorous in terms of our self-evaluation relating to the Quality Indicators in both the school and the Nursery.

Satisfactory

Satisfactory

1.3 Leadership of Change

As a school, we have reviewed and revised our vision and values in consultation with all stakeholders. All staff have demonstrated commitment to implementing change and almost all teachers have taken on additional leadership roles.

We need to become better at protecting time for self-evaluation so that all members of our school community can contribute to plans for continuous improvement. In order to do this, we need to ensure that we are more realistic in terms of what we can achieve as part of our School Improvement Plan each session.

Satisfactory

Satisfactory

2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment

The ethos and culture of our school reflects a commitment to children’s rights and positive relationships. Almost all children are highly motivated and most benefit from active and engaging learning experiences. Digital technologies are used effectively in some classes to enrich and support learning. Most children are aware of how their learning relates to the world of work and staff in all classes develop higher-order thinking skills during Reading lessons.

We need to increase opportunities for children of all stages to contribute to the life of the school and the wider community. We also need to ensure that assessment is integral to planning across all curriculum areas and should develop a clear and robust school Assessment Calendar. In addition, we need to develop increased consistency in the learning and teaching of Literacy and Numeracy, as well as increase the use of differentiation within classes and across stages.

Satisfactory

Satisfactory

3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equity and inclusion

Relationships across the school are very positive and are founded on a strong sense of community and an inclusive ethos. Almost all children feel well supported to do their best. We are aware of children who may be affected by social deprivation and poverty and are taking steps to address this.

We need to improve our approach to staged intervention in line with GIRFEC and ensure that all staff, children and parents are aware of the wellbeing indicators. We also plan to introduce Nurture to support the wellbeing needs of identified children in order to help improve their attainment and achievement.

Satisfactory

Satisfactory

3.2 Raising attainment and achievement

Across almost all stages, children are performing above the national average in Literacy and Numeracy. Most staff are becoming more confident about making professional judgements about how well children are progressing. We have started to track children’s achievements out of school and have begun targeting identified individuals and groups through our wide range of lunchtime and after-school clubs.

Children affected by poverty are generally disproportionately behind their peers in terms of attainment and we will be working hard to address this through the interventions that we have planned using our Pupil Equity Funding. We also need to further develop our tracking system to ensure that it is easier for us to see children’s progress over time. In addition, staff need to make increased use of the revised Benchmarks to inform their planning and assessment of children’s progress.

Good

Satisfactory

Overall impact of establishment’s actions to improve excellence and equity

(PEF)

Amount allocated: £79, 200

How are we doing? How do we know?

(Evidence measures of

success)

What are we going to do

now?

(High level paragraph addressing the three questions)

Although we cannot comment at this stage on the impact of our first PEF spend, we are confident that the plans we have in place will lead to improvement. Please see our School Improvement Plan for details of our planned projects in this area.

Overall evaluation of establishment’s capacity for continuous improvement As a school, we are committed to continuous improvement. This past year has seen a big change in staff, both within the SMT and with class teachers. However, it is hoped that the Acting DHT and Acting PT positions will be filled on a permanent basis during 2017/18 and 4 new permanent class teachers will be in place from August 2017. Changes in staff have meant that we have had to work hard to keep abreast of staff training and internal monitoring to ensure that all classes are receiving a high quality learning experience. In light of the Pupil Equity Funding, we know that we need to place a sharper focus on those children who are living in poverty and ensured that the gaps identified within this document are both planned for and addressed. With our strong, committed and solution-focused staff team we are confident that we have the ability and drive to support continuous improvement for the school.

Signed: L Callender Date: 26.06.17

standards and quality report 2017-18 david … livingstone memorial primary 91.2% 90.1% 73.7% ....

Documents