Standards & Quality Report
Whalsay School
Standards & Quality Report
Session 2016-17
Introduction
Shetland Islands Council is committed to delivering the best possible outcomes for children and young people so that they have the best start in life and are ready to succeed by following the principles of Curriculum for Excellence and Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC).
Within Curriculum for Excellence, every child and young person is entitled to experience a curriculum which is coherent from 3-18. Those planning the curriculum have a responsibility to work in partnership with others to enable children and young people to make transitions smoothly, building on prior learning and achievement in a manner appropriate to their individual learning needs. This should ensure that young people are well placed to move to positive destinations on leaving school and entering adult life.
We want to know how well we are doing this and how we can improve. We are continuously evaluating what we do and how it makes a difference to our learners. We have been asking ourselves – staff, pupils, parents/carers, and other partners – the questions contained in this Standards and Quality Report. Our self-evaluation is in the pages that follow, along with our main areas for development for session 2017-18. This report is based on the quality indicators in How Good is Our School? 4th Edition (2015) and How Good is our Early Learning and Childcare? (2016)
Progress in the areas we developed in our 2016-17 School Improvement Plan is outlined in the Appendix.
Context of the School
Whalsay School serves the Island of Whalsay. It is a non-denominational school of 166 pupils. The School comprises of 3 separate buildings, Nursery, Primary and Secondary. The School’s refurbishment was completed in 1999.Primary Pupils move into our Secondary Department where they stay until S4. At this time they transfer to Anderson High School for S5/6, go to College or leave School.
Our School Mission Statement, the core vision for our school, refers to providing a caring, purposeful, happy and safe environment for our pupils and includes a commitment to covering all aspects of each pupil’s development, including their physical, emotional and social wellbeing.
We intend to achieve a caring, purposeful, happy and safe environment by:
¨ Encouraging pupils to generate respect for themselves, for others and for education
¨ Making sure our school is well-ordered, stimulating and safe
¨ Providing pupils with a well-balanced curriculum
¨ Stimulating pupils and encouraging them to take responsibility for their own learning
¨ Covering all aspects of each pupil’s development: Physical, Emotional, Social and Academic
¨ Setting realistic and achievable targets
¨ Encouraging open communication between Parents, Pupils, Staff and the Community
The three key questions to address within the Standards and Quality Report are:
- How well do pupils learn and achieve?
- How well is the school helping pupils to develop and learn?
- How well is the school improving the quality of its work?
The current National Improvement Priorities are:
Ø Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy;
Ø Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children;
Ø Improvement in children and young people’s health and wellbeing; and
Ø Improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school leaver destinations for all young people
The National Improvement Drivers are:
(Q.I. 2.3 Learning, teaching & assessment; 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equity and inclusion; 3.2 Raising attainment & achievement)
The table below shows our S4 results in both National 5 and National 4 levels over the past three years. The figures for 2016-17 show that we performed above the level of our Virtual Comparator at both levels.
2014-15 / 2015-16 / 2016-17
Whalsay School / Virtual Comparator / Whalsay School / Virtual Comparator / Whalsay School / Virtual Comparator
% S4 attaining 5 or more at Level 5* / 85.71 / 46.43 / 45.45 / 51.82 / 57.14 / 55.00
% S4 attaining 5 or more at Level 4 / 92.86 / 85.71 / 63.64 / 84.55 / 100 / 88.57
* National 5 at Grade C or above
+National 4 or above
The charts below come from Insight, a tool developed by the Scottish Government to help schools examine their performance. The tool includes a “Virtual Comparator” which is a way of comparing our school to other schools with pupils that share similar characteristics to the pupils at Whalsay School. The charts come from the September 2017 update and do not include any changes that may happen as a result of post-results marking reviews we have requested.
This chart shows the percentage of pupils achieving National 4 and National 5 Literacy and Numeracy in S4. At N4 level we are consistently ahead of our Virtual Comparator. In 2017 we have fallen behind our Virtual Comparator at Level 5. Because the chart combines the figures for Literacy and Numeracy, it doesn’t show that we are still ahead on Numeracy. In Literacy our more able pupils still achieved high grades but we need to think about how we can help more pupils to make the step up from N4 to N5. We are also putting more emphasis on Reading in S1-3 through the Accelerated Reader programme.
This chart shows how pupils in different income groups (deciles) perform compared with national figures. As you can see, we only have pupils in 2 of these deciles. Those in the lower income decile are well above the national trend and those in the upper income decile are very slightly below.
This chart shows how the attainment of the lowest, middle and highest achievers compare with our Virtual Comparator, Shetland Schools and National figures. It shows that we are doing very well for pupils in the lowest 20%, slightly better for the middle 60% and about the same for the highest 20%.
Every year, schools in Scotland collate information on how well pupils are achieving in Reading, Writing, Listening & Talking and Numeracy at P1, P4, P7 and S3 levels.
In Whalsay School, the overall attainment in Literacy and Numeracy in the school is good.
In literacy and numeracy, the majority of our pupils achieved early level by the end of P1. By the end of P4, most of our pupils achieved first level in Reading and Writing, all achieved first level in Listening & Talking and the majority did so in Numeracy. In Writing and Numeracy most pupils had achieved second level by the end of P7, all achieved second level in Listening & Talking and the majority did so in Reading. By the end of S3 almost all had achieved third level in Reading, Writing and Listening Talking and most had achieved third level in Numeracy.
Strengths
The percentage of “A” passes at National 5 level has increased year on year from 14.29% in 2015 to 42.86% in 2017. This year’s figure is well ahead of our “Virtual Comparator” school’s (25.71%).
Accelerated Reader has been re-introduced and this has motivated many pupils, particularly in Primary to increase their reading.
Assemblies, newsletters, a school closed Facebook page, the School Open Morning and the School website are used to highlight pupils’ achievements. Regularly updated displays of pupils’ work are displayed in classrooms and public areas.
The school House system is popular with pupils. There are annual sporting competitions including a Sports Day, in both Primary and Secondary, as well as a merit system with all pupils taking part. Leadership opportunities are also provided by this system for senior Primary and Secondary pupils.
Almost all pupils participate in one or more of a wide range of sporting, musical or other opportunites for wider achievement. Some of these are organised by the school, or through Active Schools and some in the local community. Examples include: the John Muir Award in which almost all S2 pupils achieved the Explorer award and all P7 pupils achieved the Discovery award; Duke of Edinburgh; Saltire; Bikeability; and Young Sports Ambassadors in which all of S3 took part.
Pupils also assume responsibility for fund raising and charity events like the Blythswood appeal for Shoeboxes, Red Nose Day and the Christmas Card Delivery Scheme.
Pupils have several opportunities to participate in school trips. For example, P7 and S1-3 all had overnight stays at the Voxter Centre on the mainland of Shetland. The behaviour of our pupils is regularly praised by the public when on these trips or by visitors to the school.
Areas for Development
· Extension of the Northern Alliance Early Literacy project to Nursery/P2
· Promotion of reading through Accelerated Reader, particularly with S1-3 pupils and targeted Primary pupils
· Improve Literacy attainment in S4 through better tracking and monitoring
How well is the school helping pupils to develop and learn?
(Q.I. 1.2 Leadership of learning; 2.2 Curriculum; 2.4 Personalised support; 2.5 Family Learning; 2.7 Partnerships; 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equity and inclusion
Whalsay School is a nurturing and supportive environment and is good at helping pupils to develop and learn.
Strengths
The Nursery Department is well resourced and uses play to enable pupils to learn and develop through activities that are regularly chosen by pupils themselves. Parents have daily contact with Early Years staff which enables them to raise any concerns and have them addressed quickly.
Throughout the school, pupils are regularly involved in setting their targets and reflecting on their own learning and development of skills. Their views are sought through Pupil Councils the Eco Committee and initiatives like Junior Road Safety Officers.
Regular Support for Learning Meetings, meetings with Primary class teachers and the School’s tracking and monitoring system ensure that interventions are targeted at pupils in most need of support.
Parents and Carers are encouraged to be involved in the life and work of the school and frequently support school trips and help lead initiatives in the school like the Eco group. The Parent Council is very well supported and active in raising funds to augment school resources.
Whalsay School has many long-standing and successful partnerships with local colleges, the local Care Centre, SIC Youth Work, Skills Development Scotland. The school has run a successful Rural Skills programme which is open to all pupils in Shetland and recently relocated this programme to a new croft on the island. This year we have begun a Community Cafe project and this has involved partnership working with the Care Centre, Dimentia Scotland, the Heritage Centre and the local Charity Shop. It is giving pupils an opportunity to develop a range of skills for learning, life and work.
The school has promoted health and wellbeing through a healthy tuck shop in Secondary and Fruity Friday in Primary.
Staff have been introducing the use of Health and Wellbeing indicators (Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible, Included) with pupils and these are used to identify individual and group needs.
Pupils who have additional support needs are well supported in the school and their needs are regularly reviewed. The school works in partnership with fellow professionals like the Speech and Language Therapist to ensure that needs are met.
Almost all pupils have good attendance (over 90%) and are punctual.
Areas for Development
· Review of practice around pupil folios and streamlining of practice to comply with new Local Authority requirements
· Use of Pupil Equity Funding to close identified attainment gaps with targeted pupils
· Increase use of SHANARRI self-assessments throughout the school to plan interventions
· Promote parental engagement in learning across the school
· Develop and augment existing partnerships with employers to promote skills for learning, life and work
How well is the school improving the quality of its work?
(Q.I. 1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement; 1.3 Leadership of change)
Whalsay School is committed to improving the quality of its work through self-evaluation, moderation activities and staff development.
Strengths
Teachers at Whalsay School are involved in many school, local and national activities which are helping the school improve the quality of its work. For example, all of our Secondary teachers participate in local Subject Development Groups with some assuming the responsibility for chairing. Teachers have been involved as SQA nominees and several have participated in marking duties. There is participation in regular moderation activities at school and local level.
The school working time agreement, planned staff meeting time and professional review and development programme are examples of collegiate working in the school.
Secondary staff use Insight (the government’s tool for reflecting upon attainment across all schools) as part of the school’s self evaluation
The majority of teachers in the school have participated in the Co-operative Learning Teacher Learning Community, some as leaders, and evidence of the impact of this has been seen in observed lessons, particularly in Primary.
Members of teaching staff have participated in leadership courses like Middle Leadership and In Headship.
A large number of teaching and support staff attended twilight MAPA training in order to be able to support pupils with additional support needs in the school.
Areas for Development
· Review performance in Numeracy throughout the school with a view to introducing new strategies in 2018/19
· Implementation of changes to SQA courses
· Increase involvement of parents and pupils in self-evaluation activities
Improvement Priority 1: Raising Attainment and Achievement
Our key areas for development to take this priority forward are:
Target: Improvement in levels for Reading, Writing, Talking & Listening across the school.
Strategy identified for improvement of Numeracy across the school.
Improvement Priority 2: Closing the Attainment Gap
Our key areas for development to take this priority forward are:
Target: Support parents of targeted pre-school children in helping their children with pre-reading skills
Support offered to all parents of pre-school children to promote learning at home
Provide additional support to close attainment gaps in literacy/numeracy between our most and least disadvantaged children
Improvement Priority 3: Tracking, Monitoring and Assesment
Our key areas for development to take this priority forward are:
Target: Begin implementation of Shetland Strategy for Tracking, Monitoring and Moderation in the BGE
Implement changes to assessment arrangements for National SQA courses
Improvement Priority 4: Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce
Our key areas for development to take this priority forward are:
Target: improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school leaver destinations for all young people
Improvement Priority 5: Develop Strategy for Parental Involvement and Engagement
Our key areas for development to take this priority forward are:
Target: Audit and Review Parental Involvement and Engagement in the School.
Identify and consolidate good practice in this area and develop new strategies to increase Parental Engagement in pupil learning.
Standards and Quality Report: Appendix