“Working together to inspire learning and achievement in

Highland Communities”

Standards and Quality Report

The Highland CouncilEducation, Culture and Sport Service

Tarradale PrimaryDate 2016 / 17

Our school vision, values and aims

Working together with our Community to encourage and nurture our young learners to achieve their full potential and be responsible, confident and happy.

Our intrepid travellers off to Abernethy Outdoor Centre for their week’s outward bound trip. What a super bunch of young people to spend time with. The instructors also told us they had enjoyed the week being with such a lovely group of children.

The Core Areas of our PracticeThis 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 others’ 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

Every child in the school is actively involved in the life of the school. Parent e-mails and comments on our facebook page show a real pride to be part of our school family.

Writing moderation has been fully implemented, evaluated and tweaked, to be more robust. Staff feel much more confident in the levels children are achieving. We are now seeing an increase in attainment in writing on previous years.

We look at every child holistically and record all of their achievements. Our learning logs are extremely detailed and children have absolute ownership.

Reporting to parents. This is far more robust with parents having more access termly to both information about where their child is and also access to speak to the CT.

Ethos. Our stakeholders all buy into the ‘Tarradale Family’ ethos. We work hard to make everyone feel included in everything we do.

A dedicated staff who strive to keep learning. Leadership in learning is strong with every staff member bringing new ideas to our teaching and cascading to incorporate all.

Our curriculum incorporating inter- disciplinary learning. After being moderated in January we are now confident that our levelling of children’s

needs is accurate. Our ASN staff are highly trained in every area of need we have in the school and support is targeted to cover all these bases.

Our Improvements Last Session

INCAS results, teacher led assessments, children’s voice and parental views are being used as an integral part of the self- evaluation systems within the school.

Working with our community. We have extended our links and are now becoming a much more visible presence within the community. Weekly visits to the local Residential Home are a highlight as is the polytunnel which we share with the community.

Tackling bureaucracy. The SMT have strived to make a difference in teachers’ workload. Reducing the unnecessary paper-trail, finding more effective ways to plan, record and report.

Our Curriculum. We have worked hard to ensure all children have experience in every area of the curriculum. Our curriculum now has an even spread with excellent coverage across all areas. Children’s input into what they learn and how they learn are key to our new developments. Children have a voice and are challenged to use it!

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Our Priorities For Improvement for Next Session

To continue strengthening the self -evaluation practices within the school. To involve all stakeholders in the decision making to inform practice from Nursery to p7.

Curriculum in P1. Using guidelines and expectation from NIF We have re- created a curriculum to include only literacy and numeracy experiences until December. This will ensure grounding and depth before widening into social subjects.

As a whole school from Nursery to p7 we will be working with our new curriculum. In line with new guidance within levels of bureaucracy we will improve coverage of E’s and O’s linking all work to the SAL’s whilst cutting down on unnecessary paperwork.

I.C.T in learning. Working with google chrome to upskill both staff and pupils. SEEMIS pastoral notes to update all childrens’ profiles. Continue with highlighting literacy within the school. Now that teaching and resources are

in place the children now have to take more of an active part in the next stage of the process.

1 + 2 languages. Our infant team have started using the resources, our P3 & 4 staff will now be continuing on this journey to a bilingual Scotland.

To develop the work initialised in coaching techniques for both staff and pupils. To continue the excellent practice in reporting to parents.

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 developmentStrengths and recent areas of improvement N – P7

Children and parents have had access through children’s voice and parental sessions to express their ideas for the SIP.

Learners actively record their learning, plus wider achievements, on a weekly basis in our ‘achievement logs’. Both parents and pupils question sessions indicate that the validity and purpose of this is worthwhile and important to building confidence and informing next steps.

Reporting to Parents continues to be a main focus as we are in the pilot. We have completely changed the way we report to parents making it much more regular and informative rather than one large end of session summary.

We have seen an increase in writing attainment this year as our structure of assessment embeds throughout the school. It has raised expectation and challenge and will be built on year on year. Although the results are not where we want them to be – a raise in attainment shows our expectations are building attainment.

ASG working to standardise criteria for writing in order to pass on same expectations.

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Working with our community. We have extended our links and are now becoming a much more visible presence within the community. Weekly visits to the local Residential Home are a highlight as is the polytunnel which we share with the community.

Areas for further development

Further develop experiences to raise attainment in literacy. A whole school reading challenge with a mascot to deliver certificates in assembly being one development stemming from the children’s ideas.

As a whole school we will be working with our new curriculum. In line with new guidance within levels of bureaucracy we will improve coverage of E’s and O’s linking all work to the SAL’s whilst cutting down on unnecessary paperwork.

I.C.T in learning. Working with google chrome to upskill both staff and pupils. Training in P1 and 2 for French has now been completed. We will be looking to ensure this is now

incorporated into the life of the class on a daily basis.

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 legislationStrengths and recent areas of improvement N –P7

This year we have worked mainly on developing our new curriculum. We have found a way to de- crease bureaucracy whilst ensuring excellent coverage of E’s and O’s linking to the SAL’s. This live planning methodology gives rise to the seven principles and DYWF.

IDL features highly on our yearly overview. Methodology however is being adapted and upskilled to incorporate skills development through the curriculum rather than knowledge and activity. The NIF and DWYP will factor highly in this process as we move through.

Every staff member worked on an area of the curriculum to develop and cascade to staff. This has been highly successful and staff now have access to the frameworks across learning with guidance as to how it works and resources needed.

Transitions from nursery and into p1 continue to be excellent. We connect well with all partners to our Nursery and make appropriate links to transfer relevant information to enable seamless transference of skills so that there is no ‘wasted time’.

After being moderated in January we are now confident that our levelling of children’s needs is accurate. Our ASN staff are highly trained in every area of need we have in the school and support is targeted to cover all these bases.

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Areas for further development 1 + 2 languages. Our p3 & 4 team will be continuing on this journey to a bilingual Scotland. ICT in learning. Google chrome, SEEMIS. This is the first year of us using our new curriculum. It needs time to develop. It is very new and has

many areas to engage with to make it the meaningful curriculum we envisage it to be. Our school sees a large cut in ASN time. Currently we have excellent provision. We need now to re-

evaluate processes across the school to ensure we are still meeting our learners need. Re structuring of ASN across the school is inevitable to ensure all our learners are catered for.

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 N – P7 Our vision, values and aims are at the centre of everything we do. This is pivotal to all self -

evaluation undertaken. Moderation across levels has now been used, evaluated, upskilled and is now providing correct

levelling of pupils through this work. INCAS results are being used as an integral part of the self- evaluation systems within the school.

They form the basis for discussions regarding groupings, planning and differentiation. Professional dialogue and moderation are now a well developed part of what we do in certain

aspects of the curriculum. This will now be extended into all areas through the interdisciplinary learning.

Areas for further development To continue to develop the work initialised in coaching techniques for both staff and pupils. Continue to develop children abilities to set targets / next steps in the learning process through

looking at effective questioning techniques. IDL has been revamped taking into consideration the new guidance on SAL’s and the evidence

based evaluation behind it. As a staff we need now to evaluate the learning taking place and the progression of skills which sits behind it

Abbreviations’ used

INCAS – Electronic testingIDL – Interdisciplinary LearningQI’S – Quality IndicatorsSAL – Significant Aspects of LearningPSA’S – Pupil Support AssistantsLST – Learning Support TeacherASG – Associated School GroupSIP – School Improvement Plan

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