Standards and Quality Report

“Working together to inspire learning and achievement in Highland Communities”

The Highland Council Education, Culture and Sport Service

June 2016

Our school vision, values and aims (reviewed in 2015) VISION and VALUES

At Rosebank we want a curriculum that will:

 Help everyone to feel happy, safe and secure.

 Help everyone to be successful in what they do – to be the best they can be.

 Enable everyone to be more confident and grow.

 Allow everyone to know their strengths and what to improve.

 Encourage everyone to: recognise personal achievements; believe in themselves; and, recognise the possibilities are endless.

 Provide help and support whenever it is needed.

AIMS At Rosebank we aim to:  Create a warm and welcoming atmosphere where everyone contributes to the ethos and life of the school and feels valued and respected and develops an interest, enthusiasm and motivation for learning.  Celebrate effort and achievement in all aspects of learning while fostering independence and responsibility.  Take into account educational research and stakeholder views to impact on learning and teaching.  Have an interdisciplinary approach at its centre which promotes pupils’ interests, personalisation and choice and is progressive, consistent and relevant. We also recognise the need for discrete (stand-alone) subject teaching to ensure breadth and progression.  Have a continuous focus on numeracy, literacy and health & wellbeing.  Develop pupils’ ability to evaluate their learning to inform suitable next steps and ensure success.  Develop learning in different ways: independently, cooperatively, in groups, actively, out of doors and through play, promoting the application of knowledge and understanding in real life contexts.  Include a global dimension in our interdisciplinary learning, to encourage pupils to learn about sustainability, diversity, current world issues and Scotland’s place in the world.  Equip all learners with the skills necessary for life in the future. The Core Areas of our Practice This report summarises the strengths of our school, our recent improvements and what needs to improve further. We gather this information throughout the year in a variety of ways so we can make sure our report is as accurate as possible. We take time to compare what we do with national examples of best practice. We visit each other’s classes to share standards in learning and teaching. We look at children and young people’s work to see how they are progressing. We cross mark work. We make use of factual data and information including attainment results responding and adapting our teaching in line with children’s needs. We assess using our own expertise, standardised testing, cross marking and results tracking. Children peer assess and self-assess. We gather the views of children, parents, staff and members of the local community. We use all of this information to arrive at our view of the quality of education we provide.

Our Key Strengths

 Happy, polite, well behaved and well-mannered children.  Team and partner working – staff, pupils, parents and community.  Care and wellbeing of children – good support.  Celebrate success - across the school.  Reflective – review how things can be improved.

Our Improvements Last Session

 Improved practice to ensure pupils routinely reflect upon their progress and identify specific next steps in their own learning. Revised approaches to meet the particular needs in P1 and P7.  Further developed teaching and learning to ensure Assessment is for Learning principles are at the core.  Enhanced practice to improve all pupils’ core numeracy skills through whole school use of progress drives and on-going assessment.  Completed the whole school review of meeting learning needs by gathering views from pupils, parents and other agencies.  Implemented year two of the action plan to improve support within the school, based on the review of meeting learning needs.  The Early Level teachers’ working party recommended implementing Highland Council’s Emerging Literacy strategy in August 2016 to begin the process of improving literacy at Rosebank.  The Parent Council, Pupil Council and nursery developed a strategic plan for developing opportunities for outdoor learning within the school grounds in partnership with Grounds for Learning.  Enhancing practice to ensure continuing professional development of staff is on-going and based on the relevant standards.  All children began to learn French in P1 and P2 in year one of Highland’s three year 1+2 Languages Plan for P1-P7.  Staff aware of the Highland Curriculum Overview and Primary Curriculum Maps to aid planning of learning, teaching and assessment. Our Priorities For Improvement for Next Session

 Through Highland’s Tapestry Partnership we will establish two Teaching Learning Communities to improve Summative Assessment and Teacher Judgement in numeracy.  Year one of a whole school development of literacy based on the recommendations from Highland Council’s Emerging Literacy Strategy, initially mainly impacting on P1 pupils.  Set up a nurture group which follows Highland nurture group principles, as an effective preventative way of meeting the needs of children. Staff wellbeing is a key feature of this development.  All children will begin to learn French in P3 and P4 in year two of Highland’s three year 1+2 Languages Plan for P1-P7.  Following the Grounds for Learning advisory visit, in partnership with the Parent Council, a PT will coordinate the implementation of year one the playground improvement plan involving pupils and staff.

The Highland Council Education Service Quality Improvement Team Page 3 1. How well do young people learn and achieve? 1.1.Improvements in performance  Standards of attainment over time  Overall quality of learners’ achievement  Impact of the school improvement plan 2.1 Learners’ experiences  The extent to which learners are motivated and actively involved in their own learning and development

Strengths and recent areas of improvement  Cross referencing pupil AfE data with class teachers’ formative assessment (SPP) overviews.  Most children have improved on prior levels of attainment in reading and mathematics.  Very polite, well-mannered and very happy pupils in classes.  The school is a very caring, safe, and nurturing environment for pupils.  The ethos of promoting positive behaviour to support children in their learning is clear and consistent.  Most pupils are engaged in their learning and have a clear understanding of what they have to do to learn.  Pupils are engaged in setting their own targets and taking responsibility for their own learning. There is clear use of personalisation and choice within My Learning Journey.  Learning intentions and success criteria were used well in most classes, pupils were clear what they were learning and knew what success looked like.  Examples of some peer and self-assessment activities.  Parents are more involved in supporting learners’ targets.

Areas for further development  Ensure that the quality and pace of learning and teaching plus tracking/analysis of attainment data impacts on outcomes for learners. Termly individual meetings (HT and class teachers) will be held to discuss learning and teaching and to track/analyse pupil Assessment for Excellence (AfE) attainment data.  Continue to develop skilful questioning and high quality feedback to support learning.  Through two Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs), further develop teaching and learning to ensure assessment is for learning principles are at the core.  Embed best practice to ensure pupils routinely reflect upon their progress and identify specific next steps in their own learning.  Through Emerging Literacy strategies improve literacy skills in P1.  Continue to improve learning, teaching and attainment in core numeracy. 2. How well does the school support young people to develop and learn? 5.1 The Curriculum  The rationale and design of the curriculum  The development of the curriculum  Programmes and courses  Transitions 5.3 Meeting learning needs  Tasks, activities and resources  Identification of learning needs  The roles of teachers and specialist staff  Meeting and implementing the requirements of legislation

Strengths and recent areas of improvement  The numeracy curriculum is delivered through a structured approach. Progression is within the programme. Practice is being embedded to improve all pupils’ core numeracy skills through whole school use of progress drives and on-going assessment.  Health and wellbeing strategies /approaches are clear across most of the classes.  All P4-7 pupils have opportunities to take part in drama lessons and pupils were engaged and motivated.  Pupils have the opportunity to take part in a wide variety of extracurricular activities (sport, art, drama, links with local community, museum etc.) and wider achievement is recorded for every pupil.  Inter-Disciplinary Learning (IDL) lessons which have a very clear structure to them and engage pupils in their learning across a number of curricular areas.  Staff support pupils in a very skilful, caring and supportive way.  The Additional Support Needs (ASN) documentation (Child’s Plans, ASN files and records) is of a good quality and pupils’ needs are very clearly described.  Social skills groups are targeting support on a wider group of pupils.  Partner agencies are positive about working within the school to support children and families.  Parents can approach teachers and have good relationships with the school and partners.  The use of early intervention strategies within the school and with agencies has become well embedded and the impact of this is that pupils begin to settle and engage with learning at an earlier stage.  All children will begin to learn French in P1 and P2 in year one of Highland’s three year 1+2 Languages Plan for P1-P7.  Reviewed the staged approach to support in particular at levels 1 and 2.

Areas for further development  The school needs to update and redraft its rationale and plan for the curriculum.  The Parent Council, Pupil Council and nursery will implement the strategic plan for developing opportunities for outdoor learning within the school grounds in partnership with Grounds for Learning.  Ensure more able pupils are challenged to extend their learning with guidance and support from the newly appointed ASN Teacher. Ensure pupils with identified learning needs are continued to be supported well by differentiated approaches and methodologies.  Ensure that pupils with IEPs have every opportunity, within the class and the wider community, to meet short and long term targets. Measure the impact of these targets for progress.  Set up of a nurture group and further develop as a nurturing school, whilst recognising the importance of staff wellbeing in order to support children.  All children will begin to learn French in P3 and P4 in year one of Highland’s three year 1+2 Languages Plan

The Highland Council Education Service Quality Improvement Team Page 5 for P1-P7.  Through IDL embed outdoor learning as the playground develops with pupils’, staff and parents’ views impacting.

3. How well does the school improve the quality of its work? 5.9 Improvements through self-evaluation  Commitment to self-evaluation  Management of self-evaluation  School improvement

Strengths and recent areas of improvement  The clear vision and direction set by the head teacher is shared by staff.  The school has taken steps to ensure that staff develop an understanding of the three year improvement plan and are aware of the plan through regular updates on progress.  The senior leadership team meet regularly to review progress and share impact of the School Improvement Plan with staff, they are a reflective team.  Once a year the senior leadership team do a broad brush audit of “where we are” against the HGIOS 3 Quality Indicators.  Parents are asked for their views and their views are listened to and acted upon.  Pupils’ views, via a strong and articulate Pupil Council, are considered and acted upon.  Pupil Voice has a high profile.  Continued efforts to ensure that key developments have true consistency across the whole school.

Areas for further development  Ensure self-evaluation is on-going and based on the relevant standards to ensure effective and continuing professional development (CPD).  Continue to create opportunities for the school team to measure the impact of the School Improvement Plan and Standards and Quality Report on learners’ experiences.  Development of more distributed leadership will allow the pace of improvement to develop more quickly.  Ensure that key developments in emerging literacy in P1 have true consistency. Ensure raised awareness of the importance of emerging literacy across the school.