Patna Primary School Summarised Inspection Findings, East Ayrshire

Summarised inspection findings

Patna Primary School

East Ayrshire Council

26 February 2019

Key contextual information Patna Primary School, Early Childhood and Support Learning Centre is situated within the rural village of Patna in the Doon Valley. The school is a mix of open plan classrooms and closed classrooms. There are two supported learning centres and a nurture room. The school has a roll of 138 including children in the supported learning base.

2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment weak This indicator focuses on ensuring high-quality learning experiences for all children and young people. It highlights the importance of highly-skilled staff who work with children, young people and others to ensure learning is motivating and meaningful. Effective use of assessment by staff and learners ensures children and young people maximise their successes and achievements. The themes are:

n learning and engagement n quality of teaching n effective use of assessment n planning, tracking and monitoring n The school has a caring ethos in which children enjoy positive relationships with staff and each other. Staff know children and their families well. Most children, when activities are appropriate, engage well in their learning. In the majority of lessons children are slow to engage in their work and require encouragement to start tasks. As a result there are important weakness in what children are learning. In the best lessons children are motivated and interact well during lessons. In most lessons there is scope for children to be offered planned opportunities for children to exercise choice in their learning. All children in the school are part of a committee. This is beginning to support children to develop their skills as responsible learners. The majority of children think that their views are listened to and a minority of children think that their views are taken into account. n In the majority of lessons there are clear instructions and explanations. In the majority of lessons learning intentions and success criteria were on display. A positive next step would be to ensure that these are rooted in a well-planned progressive curriculum and meet the needs of all learners. Staff are increasing the range of approaches used to take forward learning. In the majority of lessons there are a significant number of children who disengage in their learning. In a few lessons staff use questioning well. Across the school there is scope to develop teachers questioning skills to support children’s engagement. In most lessons teachers are leading the learning. There are missed opportunities for children to lead the learning during most lessons. The school recognised that they are beginning to develop opportunities for children to lead the learning. Children’s curiosity and engagement is not being developed well enough. n In the best lessons observed feedback is used effectively to help children identify their next steps in learning. Most children are not able to articulate their targets for learning. The school would benefit from revisiting all aspects of Assessment is for Learning Strategies. These need to be monitored to ensure that they are being implemented in a consistent way across the school. n The headteacher recognise the need to improve the consistency and quality of learning and teaching across the school to ensure high quality experiences for all children. Learning and teaching is too variable across the school. Themes to improve include a deeper understanding of active learning, increased pace and challenge and differentiation. Staff report that they work

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well collegiately and support one another. The staff could build on this to develop a shared understanding of what good learning and teaching is in Patna Primary. The senior leadership team have been very receptive to ideas on how the senior leadership and staff can take this forward, including looking at good practice in other establishments and using national advice and guidance. n In almost all lessons teachers used interactive white boards to display children’s groupings and worksheets. A few teachers used digital technology to enhance the learning experiences of children. In a few lessons children used digital technology to support their learning. The school utilise their ICT suite. In time the school could consider how they could use digital technology more effectively to support learning and engagement. n There is a range of formative and summative assessment used. Assessment is not yet integral to the planning of learning and teaching. The senior leadership team recognise the need to use the information from assessment to guide learning and teaching within the classrooms. The school are at the early stages of developing a shared understanding of what high quality assessment is and are aware of the need to have planned opportunities for children to demonstrate their knowledge, skills and attributes and capabilities in different contexts across the curriculum. There is scope for the school to build on the emerging practice to enable staff to plan learning teaching and assessment together to enable valid and reliable assessments to be created. n The school has been part of a local moderation group and staff report that this has helped increase their confidence in moderation. The staff now need to focus on understanding national standards, the moderation cycle and increase the expectations they have for all children. This has the potential to enable staff and the senior leadership team to make reliable judgements of progress within a level and achievement of a level. n The school reviewed their planning a couple of years ago. The staff are using East Ayrshire’s progressions in numeracy and literacy to plan. The senior leadership team recognise the need to review further the schools planning to support more focused and differentiated planning approaches. There is potential to involve children more in planning. n The school regularly monitor jotters, forward planning and visit classrooms. The feedback from theses monitoring activities needs to be more robust and focused on improvements to children’s learning and attainment. The school now need to develop rigorous monitoring and evaluating processes which provide clear information about learner’s progress and the impact of targeted interventions. As discussed with the senior leadership team information from their monitoring and evaluation activities will inform areas to be included in the improvement plan. The school should be mindful of children with additional challenges and those who face disadvantage and monitor their progress.

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2.1 Safeguarding and child protection n The school submitted self-evaluation information related to child protection and safeguarding. Inspectors discussed this information with relevant staff and, where appropriate, children. In addition, inspectors examined a sample of safeguarding documentation. Areas for development have been agreed with the school and the education authority.

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3.2 Raising attainment and achievement weak This indicator focuses on the school’s success in achieving the best possible outcomes for all learners. Success is measured in attainment across all areas of the curriculum and through the school’s ability to demonstrate learners’ achievements in relation to skills and attributes. Continuous improvement or sustained high standards over time is a key feature of this indicator. The themes are:

n attainment in literacy and numeracy n attainment over time n overall quality of learners’ achievement n equity for all learners

Attainment in literacy and numeracy n Overall attainment in literacy and numeracy is weak. From the evidence provided by the school, assessments of children’s achievements of a level in literacy and numeracy may be overestimated and lack reliability. Staff are developing their skills in assessing children’s progress and achievement, working annually with their associated local school group and at local authority events. n Staff are carrying out a range of summative assessments and organising pupil tasks that contribute to their professional judgements. They do not yet have sufficient expertise to provide consistently accurate judgements of children’s achievement of appropriate levels. The consistent use of reliable assessment and data analysis to inform next steps and evaluate interventions should be developed to raise attainment and achievement. n The senior leadership team are at an early stage of implementing the East Ayrshire tracking tool. As discussed, the headteacher and management team now need to improve their approaches to tracking conversations with teachers building on the assessment evidence gathered. n There is significant scope for improvement in children’s performance in literacy and numeracy. Children’s progress in both literacy and numeracy should be improved. Recently introduced resources will be important in setting and agreeing higher expectations. Staff should ensure more frequent opportunities for children to apply literacy and numeracy skills across the curriculum.

Attainment over time n The school does not have sufficient, good quality data, of a range and type necessary to judge accurately children’s progress and attainment in literacy and numeracy over time. n Teachers now need to make more effective use of data to track the progress of groups and individual children in their learning. The senior leadership team should ensure that evidence of progress in learning provides a basis for professional dialogue with staff to identify children’s appropriate next steps in learning.

Attainment in literacy and English Listening and talking n The teacher-led approach to almost all lessons reduces the scope for children to listen and talk to each other for a range of purposes. Children at the early level give simple responses to questions. They willingly offered their views and opinions. At first and second levels, less than half of children demonstrate the ability to listen during lessons and most can offer spoken

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contributions clearly when given the opportunity. A minority are eager to contribute but would benefit from a wider range of challenging, higher order questioning. At second level, children have experience of debate in Desert Island challenges which they found motivating and enjoyable. Staff should make the value of these skills more explicit and to encourage their use in different contexts and across their learning. There is now a need for a consistent approach to developing the quality of children’s’ listening and talking through well planned learning activities.

Reading n At the early level, children are developing their phonological awareness, most can distinguish between a letter and a word. At first level, a minority of children can identify their favourite author and explain why they like them. Most children at first and second level can read aloud a familiar piece of text with expression and understanding. A minority children can extract key information from non-fiction texts. Children now need more effective support in developing skills in finding and using information in a variety of texts and for different purposes.

Writing n The teaching of writing requires a fresh focus to ensure a consistent approach with skills taught developmentally across the levels. Teachers should now work together to set and agree high standards for presentation, spelling and legibility of their work. There is some evidence of children creating texts for a variety of purposes but children need more opportunity to apply their writing in contexts which are more relevant and meaningful to them. n At early level, a few children write to convey meaning but would benefit from more regular and structured opportunities to write and apply the tools for writing. At first level, most children need to ensure that their writing is arranged logically. At second level, a minority of children have a good understanding of punctuation. Staff now need to provide experience of a wider variety of genres, and opportunities to write about personal experiences.

Attainment in numeracy and mathematics n A significant number of children cannot recall and articulate previous knowledge and skills. Whilst most children complete successfully the tasks which they are set, the quality and level of challenge in these tasks is too inconsistent, limiting children’s progress and attainment in numeracy and mathematics.

Number, money and measurement n Children’s skills in mental agility need to be further developed, with progressively higher expectations in terms of how they carry out these calculations. At early level, most children are developing confidence in recognising and writing numbers. The majority are able to write single figure numbers confidently and identify small numbers of objects. At first level, a minority of children are familiar with a range of strategies for adding, for example, doubling or near- doubling, partner numbers and highest number first. However, children are not confident in adding two-digit numbers to over 100. A minority of children are confident in times tables over five. Most children tell the time using analogue and digital 12-hour clocks, but are not confident with 24-hour notation. At second level, the majority of children are confident with basic number operations involving two- and three-digit numbers. The majority of children are confident with times tables up to ten. A few children calculate time intervals and are beginning to calculate journey times. Most children can carry out money calculations. They are developing their understanding of the principles of currency exchange.

Shape, position and movement n At early level most children can identify simple two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects. The majority of children at first level can identify simple two-dimensional shapes and a

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few are confident in identifying the characteristics of these shapes. Across early and first levels children are not sufficiently aware of the appropriate terminology in recognising and describing the characteristics of these shapes and objects. A minority of children at second level are confident in explaining the appropriate qualities of two-dimensional shapes and three- dimensional objects. Across all stages children would benefit from opportunities to extract information from a greater variety of data sets, including charts, diagrams and tables.

Learner achievement n Every child in the school is involved in a committee. Achievements are celebrated in class, online and through the special assemblies. The achievements of children are currently being tracked. This now needs to be extended to ensure that children at risk of missing out are clearly identified and barriers overcome. n The school has achieved accreditation from the RSPB, Heritage Heroes and John Muir awards. Through these opportunities the children are gaining skills and expertise relevant of the world of work.

Equity n The senior leadership team should now increase the range of evidence used in planning for using the pupil equity fund. Intended outcomes for children need to be identified and evaluated in greater detail. Strong links are being made with a range of community partners through the school’s nurture work. Teachers can identify the targeted interventions that have been established in order to secure improvements. Senior leaders should continue to support teachers to identify evidence to support the effective evaluation of these interventions. This will help to maintain a rigorous focus on closing the poverty related attainment gap. The reading intervention brought in for a small targeted group of children is reported to be having a positive impact.

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Quality of provision of Special Unit (contributes to school evaluations)

Patna PS Supported Learning Centre (SLC) The SLC supports 13 primary aged children with a range of additional support needs across two classes, P1 to P4 and P4 to P7.

QI 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment n Relationships between staff and children are positive. Children learn in an environment where they are cared for and staff show an understanding of each individual child’s needs. Children are supportive of each other. This results in a caring and calm learning environment in which children enjoy learning. Children come to school each day eager to learn and teachers plan learning activities which captures children’s motivation. As a result throughout most of their lessons children engage well in their learning. n Teachers use a range of resources and approaches to plan learning activities which best meet children’s needs. They use resources, including digital technology, creatively to support children to access their learning. Communication tools help children understand what activities they will be doing each day. Children’s particular interests are taken account of when planning learning and this helps maintain their interest, and engagement, in their learning. Teachers explanations and instructions are clear and this results in children knowing what activity they are about to do. The school should now consider how learning intentions and success criteria could be developed further so that children would have a better understanding of what they are learning and how successful they have been. n Children are able to influence their learning through teachers taking good account of when children show a particular interest in something. Children are regularly offered a choice in how they will undertake their learning. For example through using cartoon software on tablets, picture boards or writing to tell a story. Children in the SLC represent their peers on the pupil council. Children in the SLC say they know they are listened to and can influence the work of the school through the work of the pupil council. n Teachers use a range of resources to assess children’s literacy, numeracy and emotional wellbeing. These help teachers to plan learning activities which support progression in children’s learning. Children’s targets are recorded in their individual learning plans and teachers take account of these to plan learning activities. The school now needs to develop further how children’s progress is assessed, tracked and monitored to support staff to have a better understanding of children’s progress within curriculum for excellence levels. The school needs to now use this data to support teachers to plan learning activities which are differentiated to reflect better each child’s age, and their stage within the school.

QI 3.2 Raising attainment and achievement n The school is at the early stages of developing robust tracking and monitoring of children’s progress. Children’s progress is mostly measured against progression in targets identified in their ILP’s and literacy and numeracy assessments. As a result the school is as yet unable to present detailed evidence of how well children are progressing in developing their literacy and numeracy skills. From speaking to children, reviewing examples of their work and classroom observations children can be seen to be making appropriate progress in their literacy and numeracy skills. The school now needs to develop how they monitor and track children’s progress to provide more meaningful information on how well children are progressing. This

monitoring and tracking could be developed further to provide data which would support teachers to identify how well children are progressing over time. n Children’s achievements in the SLC are recognised and celebrated by staff throughout each day and at assemblies and celebration events. Staff regularly recognise, in class, when children have achieved a particular target and offer appropriate levels of praise. Where appropriate a few children enjoy learning in mainstream classes alongside their peers. This supports them to feel more included in the life of the school and as a result a few have extended their friendship group. The school now needs to develop more robust tracking and monitoring of children’s achievements. This will support staff to recognise where children have made a personal achievement and to signpost those who may be at risk of missing out on these opportunities.

Explanation of terms of quantity

The following standard Education Scotland terms of quantity are used in this report:

All 100% Almost all 91%-99% Most 75%-90% Majority 50%-74% Minority/less than half 15%-49% A few less than 15%

Other quantitative terms used in this report are to be understood as in common English usage.

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