Thornwood Primary including Nursery Class
Standards and Quality Report
for Session 2009-2010
1 About our Our school serves the Partick / Thornwood area in the west end of Glasgow. During school / this session our roll has steadily increased to 176 children in the primary school and centre 80 children in the nursery class (40 morning places and 40 afternoon places). Several families from out with the catchment area are making placing requests for their children to attend Thornwood. The nursery class has a waiting list as it is full. In session 2009/10 the teaching complement was 11.7 full time equivalent. This session we have had an English as Additional Language Support Teacher for 0.2 of the week. We have also had a music specialist for 0.2 of the week. In the primary school as well as the teaching staff we have also had two pupil support assistants, one nurture group assistant and three pupil support assistants for pupils with additional support needs. In the nursery class, as well as our teacher in charge, we also had a child development team leader, three child development officers and one pupil support assistant. We have a very active and supportive Parent Council which was formed in 2007. W Co -located in our school, we have Glasgow Dyslexia Support Service with whom we have worked very closely this session. Thornwood Primary also has a good working relationship with local schools in particular Whiteinch Primary. We often share theatre group productions and staff development opportunities. We are part of the Hyndland Learning Community. We are also the base school for the Hyndland Learning Community Cluster Support Teachers. Most of our young people transfer at the end of Primary 7 to Hyndland Secondary School. We were informed this session that our building would be undergoing a major refurbishment programme. This will cost the council in the region of £1.6million pounds. Our building will be brought up to A listed condition. We are hopeful the work will be completed within 26 weeks of commencement. It will mean some disruption around the school as the work takes place around us however it will be well worth it as it will mean we have a much improved environment. It means that improvements will be made to toilets and cloakrooms as was identified as a necessity in our standards and quality report last session. We still need to improve the classroom furniture but this will become part of a rolling programme once the refurbishment is completed.
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However we do now have an interactive Smart Board in every class. Once the building is upgraded we would like to improve the outdoor spaces used by the primary classes. This has been identified as a priority by pupils, staff and parents/carers during our self evaluation during this last term.
2 Our vision, This year we have consulted with pupils, staff and parents and reviewed our vision values and statement for the school. This will be revisited with all staff, pupils and parents at the aims start of the new session.
At Thornwood Primary School and Nursery Class we will continue to provide a safe, caring and welcoming environment where every child and staff member will ‘be the best they can be’ .
We aim to:- • Provide a friendly and secure environment where children, staff and parents/carers feel happy and are valued
• Encourage each child to become a successful learner by providing challenging and stimulating experiences
• Promote awareness of health and wellbeing throughout the school to create healthy and active children
• Develop the personalities, talents, abilities and ambitions of our young people in a supportive culture where we value each other’s individuality
• To strengthen relationships with all by continuing to create a positive ethos
• To provide a broad, relevant curriculum which meets individual needs
• To equip pupils with the foundation skills, attitudes and expectations necessary to prosper
In doing this we will ensure that each child’s time at Thornwood will be happy and a create a good foundation for life.
Our shared values are RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP, DOING YOUR BEST and TRUSTWORTHINESS.
What outcomes have we achieved? 3A Our successes IMPROVEMENTS IN PERFORMANCE and achievements We have made good progress in improving performance.
ATTAINMENT
NURSERY CLASS Children in our nursery class are making very good progress in all aspects of their learning and development. We have developed our planning process in line with a curriculum for excellence
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which allows us to monitor each child’s progress through the experiences and outcomes. Our children have become confident and successful learners through the use of ICT. They have the confidence to access the internet via the smart board and most children are extremely competent in problem solving games. Staff provide extended opportunities and challenges in problem solving in mathematics and the children are eager to learn and talk about their experiences with staff and other children. All children can count to ten and identify 2D shapes. They can copy and create a pattern. Many understand the concept of symmetry and are confident in using mathematical learning language to support their learning. PRIMARY CLASSES We have maintained consistently high standards of attainment. HMIe commented in their report published about our school in October 2009 that overall our children are making better progress. Our charted results evidence this.
National Test Results :
Percentage of pupils passing a national test appropriate to their age
2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10
Reading 84 86 85 81
Writing 77 78 79.5 80
Maths 84 84 88.6 89
Attendance 93.36 94.52 94.09
We have raised attainment in writing and maths. The % may vary very slightly from year to year because in a small school one child can impact quite a bit on the % attainment. Across the 4 year trend there has been consolidation of improved performance in writing with a clear improvement in mathematics attainment evidenced. However literacy is an area that still needs to be improved across the school and this will be one on the main focuses of our three year improvement plan. Our attainment levels compare well with similar schools Last session in reading our pupils outperformed the city and comparators across Level B to D but not at level A. In writing our school outperformed city and comparators across Levels A, C and D but not at B. In maths our school outperformed city/comparators at levels B and D but not A and C. We have worked hard this session to try to address this by having improving attainment in literacy and numeracy as a school improvement priority. Unfortunately our percentage passes in reading is down this year. We have had a lot of movement of pupils in and out of the school this year. This movement has significantly affected the ambitious targets that we had set for language this session. Some of these pupils have just started to learn to speak English and will require continued and intensive support. We have groups of pupils at two particular stages in the school who have identified additional support needs in literacy. We have identified these pupils and have put in place a range of support programmes to address this. These pupils have and will continue to have their own support programmes with targets to work towards.
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We have introduced more active approaches to developing literacy in the early stages We have had a whole school focus on developing ‘Big Writing’ with each class being taught 6 high impact lessons in term 1. We have brought setting further down the school for maths so that children from P3- 7 now set. This has enabled needs to be more effectively met. This year we have purchased new resources. e.g TJ Maths to support Level C pupils as this was a group we highlighted as needing support. We have started teaching some of our maths through real life contexts and this is something we will continue to develop next session through the introduction of financial education. Children have identified that they would like to learn more about using money so developing financial awareness will be one of our improvement plan priorities for next session. The children also told us that they enjoy learning actively so we will continue to develop a lot of our maths curriculum in this way. Our attainment levels compare well to the national average . Overall Thornwood Primary compares well with national comparators though comparative performance in writing is not as strong as in the other two areas. Writing will therefore be a major focus in our school improvement agenda next session. We will also aim to continue to raise attainment in reading over the next three years since we have taken a dip this year. Our children’s learning experiences and achievements are now at a satisfactory level or better according to HMIe (October 2009) Each teacher is aware of pupils for whom English is as an Additional Language and their results are tracked in line with all other results but HT has separate information files on these groups of pupils. EAL teacher monitors progress of EAL pupils towards short term targets termly. Most of our learners have made good progress from prior levels of attainment in, e.g.: • National assessments • Achievement of individual targets set within additional support plans. As outlined already we have made good progress in national assessments. We have more children achieving appropriate levels earlier than might be expected. This was commented on positively by HMIe. The management team track progress towards the challenging targets we have set our pupils termly and teachers are given feedback and suggested next steps. This has enabled most children to meet the targets we have set for them. For those who have not we have put in place supports to assist them to make progress. ATTENDANCE We identified last session that we wanted to try to improve the low attendance of some of our pupils. We have put in place closer attendance monitoring and letters/ meetings arranged with parents/carers. For those individuals whose attendance has been extremely low we have worked closely with the education liaison officer, social work services and the Reporter. As reported below we have not succeeded in doing this. This will therefore continue to be something that we will continue to try to improve. Percentage Attendance 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 2009/10 93.36 94.52 94.09
ACHIEVEMENT All children in the primary classes have a record of achievement in which they record
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their behaviour weekly. They also put in certificates that they receive under the headings of successful learners, effective contributors, responsible citizens and confident individuals. The children are therefore starting to build up a profile of their achievement in line with a curriculum for excellence. Staff have identified that these need to be further developed to be more effective. We will work on this next session so that the children start to build up a CV for themselves. We will also introduce career related education over this next three year period as children have identified that they would like to learn more about jobs to help them plan for the future. This session as a whole establishment we have achieved health promoting school status. For enterprise we have achieved the first diamond award for our nursery class and our third diamond award for our primary classes. We had hoped to achieve silver eco award this session. We have not quite met the criteria yet but are optimistic that we should achieve this next session. We are very effective at celebrating our pupil achievement and this is shared at assembly, in newsletters and in our foyer where we display achievement in relation to the four capacities for a curriculum for excellence. Each Classroom has a display with the 4 capacities and children’s names/photos are displayed when they have demonstrated this. One of our identified actions last session was to encourage school dress code to be worn by more of our pupils. We have achieved that outcome with the majority of our pupils wearing school dress code.
HOW WELL DO WE MEET THE NEEDS OF OUR SCHOOL COMMUNITY? We have made good progress in meeting the needs of our school community. In Thornwood primary we have been working towards encouraging our children to be able to learn in a range of different ways. In line with schools across the city our children are learning to work well in different settings including working in pairs and groups. In the nursery class children have contributed to planning their topics in line with assessment is for learning and have made books of their writing and pictures to display their knowledge such as Humpty Dumpty and Snow White. We are continuing to evaluate the new planning system to enable us to meet the demands of Curriculum for excellence. In Primary classes all teachers share learning targets with children but we have identified that we need to further develop this so that all our children are clearer about what they are learning and why they are learning it. We also need to continue to develop the detail we provide children with on what they need to do to improve their work particularly as regards writing as writing results are still lower than reading and maths across the school. All our learners have benefited from a range of opportunities for personal and social development and achievement. P7 had a week’s residential outdoor education at Blairvadach Outdoor education, in February which almost all pupils attended and benefited from. P6 took part in orienteering at Mugdock Country Park in December and further developed their team working skills. Across the school our pupils have taken part in many enterprising activities. Many of them have been planned and implemented by the children and carried out in golden time or at lunchtimes. A small group of P5 pupils chose to raise money for Yorkhill Hospital and got a lovely certificate and thank you letter.
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Across the year we have run a range of extra curricular clubs for all stages P1-7 such as football, rugby, engineering, hip hop, cheer dance and infant games clubs. Our engineering group displayed their work at an exhibition in the Crowne Plaza Hotel and were mentioned in the Evening Times. We have run lunchtime cross country and athletics clubs and taken part in competitions following on from this. Two of our pupils in P7 performed very well in the cross country championships. We have entered a few enterprise competitions this year. A group of P7 pupils from Thornwood won for our learning community and went on to represent the community in the final. We had a runner up team from P6 in the learning community K’nex challenge too. Primary 7 have had a block of swimming this session and each child made good progress in their ability. All classes have benefited from the expertise of a music specialist this session. We have taken part in rugby and football tournaments too and although did not win any prizes pupils enjoyed the experience of taking part. Our P5 rugby team were commended for their excellent behaviour and good sportsmanship so we were all very proud of them. Each month we give out responsible citizen certificates and successful learner certificates. Children who have been involved in specific enterprises are awarded effective contributor certificates. We have a range of committees across the school which many children are part of- pupil council, eco committee, playground committee, health committee, junior road safety officers. Children are also part of the house system in Thornwood and each house has a captain (P7) and a vice captain (P6). Captains are responsible for ensuring their houses line up properly in playground and totalling up house points weekly. Their involvement has contributed to more efficient lining up and a better playground ethos at lining up times. Our children are responsible citizens within our school community. Staff have now identified that we are ready to develop global citizenship across the school. We have a focus for a block of time on one of our shared values. Pupils and staff are becoming more actively involved in spotting pupils demonstrating this value and awarding a certificate in recognition. Our tracking of individual progress indicates that, as a result of planned and informal opportunities , almost all of our learners are developing as successful learners and responsible citizens. We also have many effective contributors and confident individuals . We also have Display of achievement in foyer under 4 capacities which visitors to the school comment positively on and pupils strive to be a part of. Involving parents/carers more in their children’s learning was one of our points for action this session. We have made good progress with this. Parents/carers evaluated this very positively during our consultation in term 4. Personal projects were introduced in term 3 for our P3-7 pupils. This involved close working with parents/carers and their children. Almost all children successfully completed a project. Play a long maths had good involvement from our P1 and 2 parents and carers. We have prepared a programme of shared learning that will form part of the homework during one term next session. Shared homework was introduced for P6 and 7 pupils and parents/carers in sexual health and relationships education. Almost all families completed the tasks. We made effective use of self-evaluation to identify key areas for development in our current improvement plan. This plan has had a positive impact on learners’ achievements, attainment and well-being . It has led to school achieving health promoting school achievement. Many pupils can now say at least one or two phrases in a language other than their first language. The whole school community took part in a fortnight of health events at the start of term 4. We wanted to improve our involvement with the wider community this session so had various agencies inputting to this fortnight. Staff and parents/carers have identified that we still need to improve links with the wider community so this will be a priority on our 3 year improvement plan.
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Clear priorities for school improvement for the next three years were identified by staff on June inset day. This was linked with priorities identified by pupils and parents/carers and this will form the basis of the improvement plan for the next three years.
How good is the education we provide? 3B The work and life of our It was identified as a priority for our improvement plan for this session so as an school / establishment we have rewritten our vision and aims for Thornwood after centre consultation with staff, pupils and parents/carers. All stakeholders were involved in deciding our core values two years ago and as a school we are very committed to reinforcing these values. We focus on a particular value at a time and reward and recognise when we see it being demonstrated.
The Curriculum We have made good progress in developing our curriculum.
In our nursery class the curriculum we provide is broad and well balanced. With the support of our parents/carers and the enthusiasm of our children and staff we have extended our learning outdoors. Through school visits and visits from outside agencies the children have enjoyed and taken part in real life learning experiences. Most are knowledgeable about the life cycle of plants and animals and know how to care from them as well as being able to enable some species. The children have also enjoyed using the work bench and tools in the playroom.
As we are in the process of introducing a Curriculum for Excellence our curriculum is in transition at the moment. In the primary classes we have removed the percentage allocation of time for each subject to allow more cross curricular learning to take place. All teachers have planned and all classes taken part in at least one cross curricular topic this session. Staff development this session has enabled development work on planning in line with curriculum for excellence. All teaching and nursery staff have had training on building the curriculum to facilitate a curriculum for excellence and also on assessment. More training will be given to staff on this over the next three years. For the first time this session we have had all classes focus in term 3 on a Scottish theme and local topics and Term 4 on an International theme. Teachers have been using joining the learning, challenge and storyline approaches to learning which are very popular with the children and have very actively involved children in their learning. In our conversations with pupils they have responded positively to these ways of working. Sexual Health and Relationships Education has been successfully introduced to all classes this year. Information on this was carefully shared and presented to parents/carers at a meeting prior to the lessons being delivered. All pupils took part in these lessons. We have continued to have a big focus across the school on involving pupils in class, group and individual enterprising opportunities. All classes have had at least one planned enterprise experience. We successfully raised money for the Haiti earthquake appeal. P7 enterprise linked to their World war 2 topic raised funds for Erskine Hospital and a representative came along to speak with the whole school at assembly. Our collective efforts at developing enterprise across the school have enabled the nursery to achieve a diamond award and the primary to receive its third diamond award. In the primary school, classes from P3 upwards have had the opportunity to take part in a novel studies as part of their literacy programme. These have also been delivered cross curricularly. P7 focused on ‘The Divided City’ which delivers an anti- sectarianism message. Primary 5 took part in the Celtic against drugs programme which focused on
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improving health and well being. Primary 2 and 7 took part in the Royal Mail book awards paired reading initiative and enjoyed being consulted about their nomination for the Royal Mail Book Award. All primary pupils have successfully taken part in the mile a thon event to raise money for the Prince and Princess of Wales hospice Child Bereavement Unit.
Teachers provide differentiated work programmes and we will continue to ensure that this differentiation is meeting the needs of all through our monitoring processes. Each class has had responsibility for delivering one assembly this session as well as contributing to whole school ones. Children have enjoyed taking part and parents/carers have commented that they have enjoyed watching them Termly curricular newsletters are prepared by teachers to inform parents/carers of work for that term and parent feedback has indicated they find these helpful.
One of our priorities for improvement this session was to continue to promote cultural diversity. We have successfully done this through celebrating a range of festivals from different cultures, learning about some of the main languages spoken by some of our pupils , listening to music and learning dances from around the world and encouraging our pupils to share their cultures with each other. This is something which will be maintained and built upon from year to year. We will continue to develop our use of ICT as every class now has an interactive white board which is wall mounted. We now have a promoting positive behaviour policy. Next session as part of our work on developing health and wellbeing across the school we will revise our anti bullying policy. Developing Health and well being in line with a curriculum for excellence will be a priority for next session. We will develop a progressive health and well being curriculum with clear guidance at each stage.. This was identified during our health audit as something important for us to do.
We continue to make good progress in Meeting Pupil Needs In the nursery class staff work closely as a team to provide a very good learning environment for our children. Through training and working closely with other agencies staff are becoming more familiar with procedures for identifying children with additional support needs and supporting their needs as learners.
In the primary classes the majority of our children are settled and cooperating well in classes engaging positively in their learning. HMIe said teachers are now meeting the needs of children better through a range of more active and challenging tasks. As HT, I monitor teacher’s termly plans and have professional dialogue with teachers about the plans. Teachers evaluate the learning and teaching and on the basis of their evaluations plan the next steps. We meet needs well in maths through effective setting arrangements from P3-7. This has ensured that the needs of all pupils are being more effectively met. It has enabled the pace of learning to be increased and our abler pupils to be given more challenge. This has had most impact on our more able pupils in the upper school enabling them to achieve level E much earlier than previously. We will continue to ensure differentiation within maths setting groups. A few individual pupils move classes for language work to provide a better challenge and this has resulted in earlier achievement of reading levels for some of our pupils. All PSAs have been trained in a range of literacy improvement programmes which include Paired Reading, Hi 5 and Wave 3. These programmes have been used this session to try to improve interest and ability in reading and writing. Interest of all pupils involved has been improved. It has helped some of the pupils attain their next level in reading. Staff have supported whole school strategies which have led to improved attainment. We have used any flexibility we have in staffing to support children who have been identified as having additional support needs. We have benefited from Glasgow Dyslexia Support Service working closely with a group of our primary 4 pupils and two teachers on assessment of literacy skills and planning support programmes alongside our class teachers. These children are making slow but gradual progress.
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In our nursery and primary classes all staff are aware of learners identified as having additional support needs. We have drawn up additional support plans which set challenging but achievable targets for these pupils. Most pupils with ASPs have made good progress towards reaching the majority of targets set for them. As a staff we are still developing our competency in developing SMART (specific, measurable, attainable realistic targets) targets for these pupils. We have assessed in order to determine spelling and reading ages and used the information to ensure that all our pupils were appropriately grouped and given the correct level of challenge. It also enabled us to target any additional staff we had to provide support to the correct groups/pupils. We are working hard to support our most vulnerable pupils and stretch and challenge our more able pupils. Our whole staff underwent training on dyslexia on February inservice day. Some staff have worked closely with dyslexia support service to deliver support programmes which they have devised to pupils who need a lot of support and are at the early stages of literacy development.
For pupils who have identified additional support needs we have Transition meetings as they move from stage to stage and visits when it involves change of placement. For our pupils who have a split placement with another educational facility we have very good liaison with the Unit. We have regular contact between both establishments and integration teachers working to support the split placement.
Challenging targets are set for pupils in reaching national assessment levels. We have close monitoring in place for national assessments. Target setting is revisited termly and evaluated by teachers to ensure progress is on track and if not decisions can be made on what to do to help with this. Management team discuss and feedback on this termly. This session one of our principal teachers has worked closely with the secondary maths department to plan progression of outcomes for a curriculum for excellence. When required we have multi agency review meetings. Our review meetings where possible include all the people involved with the child and on most occasions where appropriate the pupil too. We have good arrangements in place for transition. Formal and informal reports between establishments are exchanged. Nursery pupils now have more visits over the year to P1. P7 have been buddies to our current primary 1 pupils. We have a three session induction programme which varies each year to suit curricular changes. Transition planning meetings are held for pupils with identified ASN in nursery and end of P6/P7.Additional visits are arranged to new placement arranged as required.
Each teacher at the end of the session prepares a Transfer of information folder for the receiving teacher to ensure that relevant information is readily to hand at the start of the new session. Separate tracking folders have now been set up for each class. We have good close working between nurture teacher and teacher of classes from which the nurture pupils come from to ensure consistency and smooth transition.
We have personal target setting for all our primary aged pupils. These targets are sent home termly and shared with parents/carers. We have identified that these need to be developed further to be more meaningful. This will be continued forward from this session’s improvement plan and time will be built into timetables weekly to facilitate this.
IMPROVEMENT THROUGH SELF EVALUATION
The overall quality of improvement through self evaluation is good.
Self evaluation was identified as one of the strengths of school in our HMIe report. We now have better approaches to evaluating our own performance and identifying
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areas for improvement. The staff and children are now more actively involved in improving the school. The school is more effective in evaluating its own performance and identifying clear action points for improvement
This session we have carried out a review of our vision and aims. This was done in consultation with all stakeholders. This has informed the writing of our school improvement plan for the next three years.
In the nursery class playroom observation is inbuilt to the day to day practice. All ensure that their findings are used to inform the next steps learning and to ensure the needs of all are met. Positive oral feedback is given to the children and is received from the children. Staff have excellent skills in reporting to parents/carers both formally through written reports and Parent Evenings and informally though day to day ‘chats’ at drop off and collection times.
In our school the head teacher and staff share responsibility for the monitoring and evaluation of learning and teaching through a planned programme of classroom observation, forward plan feedback and work sampling. The HT meets with teachers and visits classes regularly to evaluate progress. Teachers reflect carefully on their classroom practice and this is impacting positively on the quality of learning and teaching. Staff work together more effectively to take forward developments and share good practice. This is helping to improve consistency in our work across all stages in the school. We have set up more rigorous and regular tracking of reading, writing and maths and this has enabled the setting of more challenging targets for all children. The pace of learning is monitored termly by the management team and feedback given to staff on suggestions to assist with targets that were behind schedule. This has enabled significant number of children to achieve levels earlier than expected. The school regularly seeks the views of children, staff and parents. Children have more opportunities to think and talk about their learning and how it might be improved. Staff have identified that we need to help children to become better at reflecting on and evaluating their own learning and setting next steps.
Pupils also evaluate the success of activities and events providing teachers with valuable feedback. The pupil council is now taking a more active part in the life of the school. Children also contribute to the school through involvement in various committees. We would now like to broaden out the committees to enable more of our children to have a voice in the school
Information regarding progress towards improvement plan priorities is shared with parents/carers through the school handbook, monthly newsletters and is also discussed at information session during curriculum evening. The Improvement plan is shared in detail annually with our Parent Council.
How good is our leadership? 3C Vision and Leadership Our overall quality of leadership of improvement and change is good. Our nursery class staff have good partnership working with the local primary schools that we transfer children into. This has ensured smooth transition for our children from the nursery class into their primary schools. We work closely with all agencies to ensure that our children are supported appropriately. We have good relationships within the school where staff feel they can let managers know of concerns. We have good clear processes in place for the monitoring of
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learning and teaching. Thorough self evaluation involving a range of consultation exercises was carried out by all staff in the Term 4 to prioritise school improvement agenda identifying areas that need to be developed over the next three years. HMIe complemented us on the work we were doing on this at the end of last session.
We continue to have a strong partnership with Hyndland Secondary School and this ensures that we have a smooth transition from the primary to the secondary sector. This session has seen joint working by one of the principal teachers and the secondary maths department to plan for the successful implementation of numeracy and mathematics in line with a curriculum for excellence.
We continued to work closely with colleagues in social work services to help support our most vulnerable children. Successful partnership working was achieved with Glasgow Community and Safety Services who delivered learning sessions to our senior pupils on internet safety, cyberbullying and transition.
I am well supported by my two Principal Teachers who both have clear remits. Our working groups were chaired by HT and Principal teachers. All teachers are committed and have been part of working parties this session. This has encouraged collegiate working and has broadened ownership of the school improvement plan. Working groups evaluate progress towards their School improvement plan priorities and some priorities we do collectively as a staff. This has enabled us to keep on track with most of our improvement priorities.
HT and Principal Teachers have regular feedback meetings and provide direction to teachers on meeting targets.
Higher quality learning and teaching now observed in formal visits and unplanned drop ins to classes. Management and teachers reflect together on observed learning and teaching sessions.
We have built in reflection to the teachers’ forward planning cycle. Forward planning is monitored and oral/written feedback given to teachers which is used to improve learning and teaching.
Good practice is brought to shared meetings for dissemination.
This session staff have started to team teach to learn from each other’s good practice. This is something we will work towards developing further.
HT carries out professional review and planning meetings with all staff annually to identify training priorities. All staff undergo continuous professional development on a range of school improvement issues annually. All staff take part in training that will help with school improvement agenda and also where possible personal development priorities.
We have looked closely at Building the Curriculum 3 and 5 this session with particular focus on learning and teaching and the framework for assessment and identified our next steps for our school improvement agenda.
This session HT has given staff flexibility to pilot planning, new topics and ways of working and we have evaluated their success. We will continue to build on this further next session.
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What are our areas for improvement in the coming session? 4 How good can we be? Over the next three years we aim to:-
Improve literacy across the school- with a focus this session on improving writing attainment
Provide a progressive, cohesive curriculum which meets the needs of all and reflects a curriculum for excellence with a focus this session on timetabling, planning and tracking
Develop children to be reflective learners who are fully engaged in and leading their own learning with a focus this year on embedding teaching for effective learning and assessment is for learning
Have involvement from the wider community in the life of the school with a focus on developing financial awareness and achieving silver eco status
Teaching staff in the nursery and primary classes at all levels identified a curriculum for excellence as a key priority for the next school improvement planning cycle. We collectively recognised through our self evaluation that time would be required for joint planning to implement the changes and for colleagues to share assessment. We therefore have arranged our Working Time Agreement time to facilitate this.
Our regular monitoring of progress and feedback from staff will continue to support our accurate evaluative assessment of progress against our key targets.
We have identified staff members who are numeracy and literacy champions for our school. We will ensure that we deliver a high quality service and our children reach their full potential. We will review and update assessment records for children over the three year planning period. We will create profiles of achievement for all children to demonstrate their learning.. We will continue to develop opportunities for feedback of learning to shared with parents/carers, children and staff.
For further information contact : Lynn Ballantyne, Head Teacher Thornwood Primary School (including nursery class) 11 Thornwood Avenue, Glasgow G11 7QZ 0141 334 4271 [email protected]
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