Standards and Quality Report 2019-2020 School Improvement Plan 2020-2021
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Rothienorman School Standards and Quality Report 2019-2020 School Improvement Plan 2020-2021 Head Teacher: Mrs Rachel Wood 1 School Vision, Values and Aims Our starting point for learning is a positive school ethos and a climate of mutual respect, trust and pupil voice. This area will form part of our new school improvement plan for 2020/21. Rothienorman School is committed to creating an environment where exemplary behaviour is at the heart of productive learning. Everyone is expected to maintain the highest standards of personal conduct, to accept responsibility for their behaviour and encourage others to do the same. We will hold ourselves to the highest standards and promote positive recognition for those who go ‘above and beyond’. Fundamentally, this is a joint effort between pupils, staff and parents/carers. As a collective community we revised our school’s values during 2019/20 session. As a result, we have new core values that underpin the ethos and day-to-day life in the school. These new values are: Achieve your SPARK! Achievement Strength Perseverance Ambition Respectful Kindness Our next priority is to involve all stakeholders in developing our vision, aims and curriculum rationale for the school and this will form part of our new School Improvement Plan as detailed later in this document. This is the foundation to building a successful school and one where everyone is respected, valued and takes responsibility for their actions. The values are embedded in all we do around school and we are looking at additional ways to ensure children live and breathe the values, so they are not just a gimmick or wallpaper in school. 2 Context of the school Core Quality Indicator Evaluations This report shares the impact our School Improvement Plan has had on pupils’ learning over the past year. Using How Good is Our School 4? (HGIOS 4) our self-evaluation in key quality indicators is shown below: Quality Indicator Evaluation Satisfactory Satisfactory Satisfactory Satisfactory These evaluations are based on a range of self-evaluation processes which we carry out over the year to evaluate our work. SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) The SIMD quintile profile for Rothienorman School ranges from decile 6 to decile 9 - no child at Rothienorman School lives in an area of deprivation (decile 1); almost all children are in decile 8. Free School Meals & Pupil Equity Fund Allocation Just under 8% of pupils at Rothienorman School are registered for free school meals. PEF Allocation received April 2020 = £11748. Details of intervention contained in School Improvement Plan section. Other School Data We currently have a school roll of 143 pupils in seven classes. 32% of our school roll is identified as having additional support needs and 68% without. Our overall school attendance statistics for 2019/20 was 96.14%. 3 Attainment Data - Attainment Data for Literacy & Numeracy (Whole School) Curriculum for Excellence Levels (Teacher Professional Judgement). Attainment Over Time It is important to note that the number of children in each year group is variable and the % value per child can also vary from year to year. School data indicates there have been variations in Curriculum for Excellence levels across all stages over a 4-year period. In reading and listening & talking, the results indicate an upward trend over the last three years. It is clear from our data over time that writing and numeracy data isn’t consistent and needs to be focussed on over the coming years. From this data, the school has decided to focus on raising numeracy attainment by addressing the curriculum progression from nursery to P7. The school improvement target areas identified will start the long term process of raising attainment over time. In 2021/22, we will prioritise literacy progression within school focussing in the main on writing development. We now hold regular meetings between practitioners and the Head Teacher that focusses on tracking attainment in each class. The school has developed a tracking tool to monitor a range of data that impacts on children’s progress over time. This data is helping the school to analyse the effectiveness of interventions more strategically to inform future improvement work. In raising attainment further, children will be given more opportunities to learn in unfamiliar contexts that offer greater depth, challenge and application to their learning experiences. The Head Teacher will continue to support teachers in accurately identifying achievement of a level to ensure overall attainment data is more robust. Quality of Learner’s Achievements The school will be continuing to recognise and celebrate children’s achievements in a range of ways, including at assemblies, displays, newsletters. We will raise our awareness of pupils’ wider achievements and ensure all pupils have opportunities to participate in activities outside of the school curriculum and environment. As a school, we are also starting our long-term school improvement focus of our curriculum. Through the work this year, we will ensure our curriculum develops the children’s skills and conceptual awareness whilst building on the four capacities of the Curriculum for Excellence. Our curriculum rationale will be updated to reflect the school and local community influences whilst providing opportunities to develop a coherent awareness of the skills for learning, life and work. 4 High Level Review of School Improvement Plan Progress 2019-2020 2019-2020 Improvement Priority 1: Leadership and Approach to Improvement NIF Priority Aberdeenshire Priorities 1. Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy 1. Improving learning, teaching and assessment. 2. Closing the attainment gap between the most and least 2. Partnership working to raise attainment. disadvantaged children 3. Developing leadership at all levels. 3. Improvement in children and young people’s health and 4 Improvement through self-evaluation. wellbeing 4. Improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school-leaver destinations for all young people How Good is Our School 4? Quality Indicators 1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement 2.4 Personalised support 1.2 Leadership of learning 2.5 Family learning 1.3 Leadership of change 2.6 Transitions 1.4 Leadership of management and staff 2.7 Partnerships 1.5 Management of resources to promote equity 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion 2.1 Safeguarding and child protection 3.2 Raising attainment and achievement 2.2 Curriculum 3.2 Securing children’s progress (ELC) 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment 3.3 Increasing creativity and employability Progress: What has taken place? (High level evaluation) Impact: Evidence of impact • During 2019/20 Rothienorman School has had two changes of leadership and had the impact of lockdown due to COVID 19. As such, many of the priorities and actions as identified on the School Improvement Plan last year were not achieved. • Parents are more aware of learning experiences due to the implementation of Seesaw from Nursery to P7. This was established in early T3 when the new Head teacher started. This platform was then adopted through the lockdown as the main communication, teaching and learning tool and was extremely successful. • MOST parents are now connected and use Seesaw to communicate and share in the learning taking place. • MOST staff have worked with the Meldrum Cluster colleagues to ensure a deeper knowledge and understanding of the Writing Benchmarks and moderation of a Level (October ’19 in service day and cluster collegiate meeting February ’20). • ALL staff are supported with professional development and developing leadership skills through attendance at a variety of courses and further reading opportunities. • MAJORITY of staff are starting their development of leadership opportunities with key responsibility areas identified. This will continue into 2020/21 and beyond. • MAJORITY of staff now have an improved understanding and awareness of Benchmarks for Numeracy and progression from Nursery-P7 through a staff leadership work on new school Numeracy Progression planners. • ALL practitioners have completed their PRD meetings with the HT (in and out of lockdown) and have discussed and taken on key responsibilities within the school moving forward. Next Steps: To inform Improvement Plan • Continuation of the work with ALL practitioners to finalise the Numeracy progression planner for Nursery-P7. • Document to also include vocabulary, mental maths and written calculation methods progressions to ensure consistency and awareness from year group to year group. • Staff leadership to be further developed in 2020/21 with staff leading areas of school improvement. • ALL stakeholders to have the opportunity to contribute to whole school developments even with COVID restrictions including a new school ethos and approach to positive relationships in and out of school. • Key positive relationships documentation will be simplified and consistently applied by ALL school staff. • ALL practitioners to be offered further training and development to support the delivery of high-quality teaching and learning experiences (Isabella Wallace – February ’21). • School vision, aims and curriculum rationale to be completed during this academic year to continue to drive the school in a new direction and inform our whole school curriculum development. 5 2019-2020 Improvement Priority 2: Teaching, Learning and Assessment NIF Priority Aberdeenshire Priorities 1. Improvement in attainment, particularly