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Insch School Standards & Quality Report

2017-18

Written by Mrs A. Conner

Head Teacher

June 2018

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Standards and Quality Report 2017-18

Context of the School

Insch School is a large, rural mixed non-denominational primary school situated in the village of Insch,

Aberdeenshire. We serve a catchment area that is socially and economically diverse. Over the past 5 years the

community of Insch has grown significantly. The emotional and social needs of our parents and families has

also changed and the school has worked hard to meet this changing dynamic.

Within the school there are no pupils within SIMD Deciles 1 to 5. 1% are within SIMD 6, 5% within decile 7 and

93%within decile 8 and 9. 6%of our pupils are entitled to FSM and £21,400 was allocated as Pupil Equity

Funding for session 2017-18.

Our school roll is 339 P1 to P7 pupils and 120 3 to 5 year old nursery pupils. We have 1 large free flow nursery

provision with 14 classes. The school is part of the Huntly Cluster and pupils can transfer to The Gordons

School, Huntly, Inverurie Academy or further afield. The school’s Journey to Excellence commenced in August

2014. Our new SLT consists of Mrs Conner, Head Teacher, Miss Catlow and Mrs Stirling, Depute Heads. 2

Early Years Senior Practitioners and a Cluster Early Years PT play a pivotal role in leading change in our

Nursery. Our committed teaching team of 16 class teachers work collegiately to lead change in our school. This

team was initially supported by an ASN Nurture team who worked intensively over the past 2 years. This

approach has now been embedded across the school. The ASL team of 2 ASL part time teachers and 10 part

time PSAs provide targeted support to pupils across the school. We know our pupils needs and work hard to

provide a nurturing, ASD/ dyslexia friendly learning environment. Inclusive practices and an appreciation of

diversity is at the heart of our vision, values and aims. Our staffing is supplemented with an art and PE

specialist as well as core staff delivering French, Health, Yoga and RME. We are supported well by our Parent

Council and PTA as well as our valued Parent Volunteers who help provide support and challenge for our

young learners in a variety of ways. The effective running of the school is supported by an Administrator,

Clerical assistant, Janitor, Cleaners and Catering team. Our pupils engage well with the life of the school

through a wide range of Clubs for Classmates, teacher led lunchtime clubs and After School Clubs. These

enable most of our pupils to succeed in their wider achievements out with the classrooms as well within.

At Insch School we have led a 3 year period of strategic change in response to the changing dynamic of the

local community of Insch. This is based on 3 years of thorough self-evaluation across the school working with

parents, pupils, staff and all stakeholders. The vision for the school is ambitious and focuses on improved

outcomes for all our pupils. All staff demonstrate that they are committed to the change and embrace the many

initiatives that have led to the collegiate nurturing approach we established in the school. These 5 main

themes summarise our capacity for improvement within leadership and management, learning provision and

success and achievements. These are:

1. Developing our Vision, Values and Aims: Reach for Stars. (Leadership and Management)

2. Leadership of Change (Leadership and Management)

3. Meeting Learners Needs (Success and Achievements)

4. Learning and Teaching (Learning Provision)

5. Collegiality and Professional Learning (Leadership and Management)

The key improvement priorities identified for session 2017-18 have been to continue to increase attainment

across literacy and numeracy by 5%, develop reading strategies across the school to help raise reading

attainment, develop spelling and grammar progressions. Our Nursery team have launched an Early Years

Nurture Project with nursery parents to support vulnerable families. We continue to close the gap from our

identified vulnerable learners using Pupil Equity Funding.

Our vision: Insch School: Reach for the stars.

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At Insch School we celebrate diversity and inspire all our young learners to reach for the stars and achieve their very best. We strive to create an inclusive and nurturing learning community. Quality learning and teaching is at the heart of all that we do. Values: Our pupils, staff and parents know our values well. These are to: Aim High Show Respect Value our Community Be Safe Aims:

To achieve the best outcome for each child through partnership between pupils, parents, staff and the wider community.

To ensure that everyone feels a sense of achievement in all that they do.

To celebrate cultural and social diversity so that everyone feels valued and respected.

To develop enquiring minds and skills to embrace lifelong learning.

To promote children to take responsibility and to make informed choices about their future.

To ensure the school community observes the rights of children, as set out in the UNCRC, and the rights respecting behaviour.

To foster an ethos of distributive leadership at all levels.

Improvement Plan Priorities

Strategic priorities Current Targets QI & GIRFEC

Provide opportunities for staff and pupils to

lead learning across the school.

Staff are empowered to take on responsibility across the school to lead change and improvement e.g. Digital Technologies, Eco, Science, Food Technology.

Staff support pupils to take on lead roles in learning across the school e.g. Digital Leaders.

Curricular progressions developments are led by staff e.g. Working Groups: grammar, spelling, mental maths.

QI 1.2 RESPONSIBLE INCLUDED ACHIEVING

Close the gap in the health and wellbeing of children and families

through establishment of nurture and targeted

supports.

To work collegiately with Authority Early Teams to develop nurturing approaches that support our families and pupils. Impact measureable.

To increase opportunities for children and families to participate in activities that promote nurture.

To ensure staff use the GIRFEC model to plan appropriate targeted support that meets individual pupil need.

QI 2.5 SAFE HEALTHY NURTURED ACHIEVEING INCLUDED

Education for Sustainability

To continue Eco Schools Committee work on agreed action plan in particular:

- Enhancing the biodiversity with the school grounds and local community.

- Raise awareness of and increase health and wellbeing opportunities within school and within the local community.

Sustaining an ethos of high expectations and achievement and strive

to raise attainment.

To improve attainment in literacy and numeracy: 5% increase in % pupils attaining 1st and 2nd level in June 2018 in Reading, Writing and Maths.

To use TMR data to track and monitor pupils progress. To ensure teacher judgement is reliable and valid through collegiate moderation dialogue.

Skills for Learning, Life and Work (WOW) to be embedded across school.

Develop curricular programmes in reading, spelling and grammar across the school.

Qi3.2 ACHIEVING

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Method of Gathering Evidence

The following evidence has been used to evaluate the key work of our centre :

– Children’s personal learning journeys (school) and ILDs (Nursery)

– Staff peer evaluation

– Self-evaluation – views of children, parents (reading strategies) , staff & community partners

– Assessment, moderation – school based

– SNSAs results

– School attainment data

– Features in local media

– School learning Events Scrapbook

– School reception TV

– Learners’ evaluations of their learning experiences;

– Parental questionnaires, surveys, focus groups and interviews

– Minutes of meetings; nursery Early Years Team and school, Huntly Cluster

– Improvement plan progress walls viewed in Nursery and school

– Nursery and school evaluation through HGIOS 4 and HGIOELC audit;

– Monitoring of learning and teaching, attainment and achievement throughout the year: Attainment

Conversations, QA activity.

– Parents evaluations of workshops and information sessions

– Attendance and Late Absence monitoring Data

– SIMD information, FSM and PEF

– monitoring of learning and teaching, attainment and achievement throughout the year

– Transition conversations with The Gordon Schools and Inverurie Academy.

– Cluster working group plans and evaluations

– Care inspectorate report (Feb 2016)

– moderation at school levels and work started with Cluster;

– Info. from partners such as Ed psychologist, social workers, health visitor etc

– observation of practices with learners and staff, and by managers through, for example learning visits and

learning walks where the focus is on the experiences of the users;

– focus group discussions and evaluation of events with learners, teaching and support staff and parents.

How good is our leadership and approach to improvement? (1.1, 1.2, 1.3)

Evaluation: 4

NIF Priority Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children

School Priorities Achieving Excellence and Equity Leadership and Management HGIOS QI’s: QI 1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement . QI1.2. Leadership of Learning 1.3 leadership in change 2.7 Partnerships 3.3 Developing creativity and skills for learning life and work Care Inspectorate Quality Themes: QT 3 Quality of staffing QT 4 Quality of management and leadership

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NIF Driver(s)

Teacher professionalism School improvement Parental engagement

Local Improvement Plan – Expected Outcome / Impact Effective school self-evaluation drives change and

improvements.

A skilled, confident and collegiate workforce.

Progress, Impact and Outcomes 1. Intense work carried out last session to re-launch the schools vision, values and aims. All our pupils

know our school values and 98% of parents tell us they support our school values.

Consultation exercise with pupils, parents and staff to relaunch vision, values and aims

School Vision song created by 2 previous P7 pupils

Whole school competition to redesign school badge to reflect vision, values and aims

Community consultation exercise

Child friendly behaviour expectations created and pupils engaged in creating parent postcards

Posters and staff lanyards to brand and emphasise these behaviour expectations linked with values

Assemblies, weekly Golden Table awards and termly Head Teacher awards linked directly to

vision, values and aims.

2. Our rigorous self-evaluation calendar engages our stakeholders in school and is integral to how we

work within our community.

Core Quality Assurance activities are spread in a manageable way across the year to ensure

impact on our young learners. Feedback is prompt and action focused leading to WAGOLLs. E.g.

displays.

Individual and whole school feedback messages are a focus for whole school staff learning in

meetings for consistency and to prioritise improvement.

This year pupils and staff are leading Quality Assurance activities, such as jotter sampling and

learning walks, to promote leadership of self-evaluation of self-improvement

Parents are consulted at every parent event using a range of self-evaluation exercises, i.e.

questionnaires, survey monkeys, cube votes, mind maps, monthly Parent Postcards, Together

Tuesdays/ Stay and Play in Nursery

Annual staff, parent and pupil questionnaires monitor impact of changes and allow us to set steps

for further improvement.

Learning circles with pupils allow self-evaluation of changes made.

Annual staff end of year reflections on the previous improvement plan and changes made in that

school year inform the next improvement plan.

3. SLT have led a planned and purposeful programme of change. Staff, pupils, parents and the

community support these changes and are integral to the process of positive change. Staff are beginning

to lead change themselves for school improvement.

High level projects of well managed change include:

Re-launch of Vision, Values and Aims alongside the school uniform

Whole School ethos towards Inclusion of all learners

Meeting learner’s needs through personalised support is identified and is the responsibility of all.

Creative approaches to flexible curriculums and autism/ dyslexia friendly approaches have led to

improvements in attainment of those facing barriers to learning.

Increased expectations and agreed understanding of what learning and teaching looks like in Insch

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School

Upgrade of Playground to include more planned purposeful play experiences which has improved

behaviour in the playground

P1 Induction Process changes led to a smoother transition, settled children and greater parent

satisfaction.

Reporting to Parents Parent Council and Staff Group have changed and improved the way we

report to parents.

4, Our school has a strong sense of professional engagement and collegiate working which drives the

vision, values and aims and school improvements forward.

Teachers are leading learning of themselves and pupils

Staff are leading curriculum changes, i.e. curriculum working groups, Technology training, Science

week, food technology, Forest School outdoor learning

Pupils are beginning to lead learning as well, e.g. digital leaders and literacy leaders

2 members of staff are working with the Authority to refresh targeted support for probationers in the

cluster. Staff are empowered to lead learning and improve the quality of L&T.

A range of staff have engaged in extra professional qualifications and use these to enhance the school and

quality of provision for pupils, e.g.

6 members of staff successfully completed a French Summer ERASMUS course. Staff confidence

levels to teach French have improved.

Lisa Knights – Forest School, Kathryn Catlow – Forest School, Professional Recognition for

Outdoor Learning and Masters in Enhanced Professional Practice, Lynda Sutherland – Theology

degree, Jennie Sinclair – Number Sense, John Dickson – Number Sense, Kirstie Hinton –

Professional Recognition in Learning for Sustainability, PSA key teams – medical training for

individual pupils.

Four members of the Nursery team are engaging in CLPL by completing a degree course in Early

Education in order to bring improvements into the Nursery.

Next Steps Work with Parent Council and PTA to streamline fundraising activity throughout school year to make activities manageable for staff and parents.

How good is the quality of care and education we offer? (2.2, 2.3, 2.4)

Evaluation: 4

NIF Priority Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy

School Priorities Achieving Excellence and Equity Learning Provision HGIOS4 2.2 Curriculum, 2.3 Learning, Teaching & Assessment, 2.4 Personalised Support. HGIOELC QI’s: 2.3 Teaching and assessment 2.6 Transitions 3.1 Ensuring well being and equality 3.2 Securing children’s progress

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Care Inspectorate Quality Themes: QT 1 Quality of care and support QT 3 Quality of staffing

NIF Driver(s) Assessment of children’s progress School improvement Teacher professionalism Parental engagement

Local Improvement Plan – Expected Outcome / Impact

Our pupils know what they are learning, why and what they need to do to improve.

Staged intervention improve outcomes and reduce Inequalities.

A skilled and confident workforce.

Partnership arrangements which ensure that all pupils experience a smooth transition from nursery

/ primary, primary/ secondary and from stage/ stage.

Progress, Impact and Outcomes 1. Our school has a clear and aspirational vision for the curriculum which is shared across the school.

Curricular rationale refreshed October 2016.

Curricular rationale reflects our Vision, values and aims which takes into account of: what makes

Insch School unique in our local setting, our creative approach to meeting learner needs, our

commitment to GIRFEC, our approach to visible learning.

Collegiate approach to learning and teaching that has been agreed by all staff, May (what) to

August (how) 2017.

Weekly focus together sessions to reflect on what we are aiming to achieve through our curriculum.

Curriculum rationale shared at key transition points with parents.

2. Quality learning and teaching is at the heart of what we do.

Learning and teaching has been a focus for professional development. Our collegiate sessions

show a journey of what effective learning and teaching looks like so that we have a shared and

clear understanding throughout the school.

Personalised support at Insch means that all staff take positive steps to ensure that barriers to

learning are minimised.

Creative approaches and effective uses of digital technologies to enhance learning and teaching.

A moderation model has been adopted that focusses on the quality of the learning and teaching,

not just the end product (how the children achieved). This is leading to increased validity of TMR,

curriculum levels achieved across the school and predictions.

Reading strategy progression has now been created by staff and launched across P1 to P7

classes. Most of our pupils use these strategies to support them in their reading and find they help

them. Parent evaluations tell us they like the strategies and find them useful to support learning at

home.

3. Our school has dedicated a significant amount of time to ensure that all staff and almost all learners are clear about what we are learning and why.

Initial use of reflective language posters from the authority increased expectations that children had

to be able to talk about their learning and how they are progressing.

Visible learning approach adopted.

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Feedback in jotters and wall displays increased expectations.

Growth mind set approach is consistent across the school.

Development of well-respected additional support needs team offering personalised support.

Upskilled PSA staff to be able to provide quality support in line with whole school developments.

4. Learning engagement in our school has improved for almost all pupils. In our classrooms children are eager and active participants in their learning.

Effective use of digital technologies has increased motivation for learning.

Creative approaches to enable children to be independent in their learning.

Sensory diets and use of safe space to help support children’s emotional needs.

Challenge groups set up to offer extension of reading and writing skills within third level.

Nursery learning environment significantly improved due to Leuven’s scale observations of the

learners. This showed that certain areas were not being utilised effectively.

Children know what they are learning and can talk about it.

5. Our assessment evidence has grown in reliability and validity. We have developed a shared understanding of assessment to inform the learning and teaching cycle and focus on individual pupil progress.

Development of a tracking and monitoring system where teachers track 3 times a year on progress.

This has been adapted over the years to make it as robust and manageable as possible.

Expectations set across the school that an assessment folder be maintained using a minimal set of

requirements. This has ensured consistency.

Use of moderation activities to develop a shared understanding of achievement, which has

increased teacher confidence in their professional judgements.

Use of Aberdeenshire benchmarks to inform assessments in literacy and numeracy.

Expectations set for quality feedback to pupils through jotters and oral feedback. Most pupils are

able to talk about their learning and what they need ot do to improve.

Nursery Key Worker system has been set up. Assessments are focussed on their key worker

group and has increased the effectiveness of reporting progress to parents.

Teachers have begun setting predictions for pupils in June for over the next academic year.

6. Transitions – Children and young people’s mental, emotional, social and physical needs are taken very good account of when we are planning transitions. We take steps to ensure progress in learning is maintained at points of transition.

Individual transition plans for ASN pupils.

Time is allocated in WTA for face to face transition meetings with comprehensive requirements adhered to.

Attention paid to transfer of learning to ensure progress is maintained.

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S1 Academy jotters used from term 3 in P7 to show learning for Academy staff.

Next Steps

Undertake curriculum refresh. Curriculum will be relevant to learners and reflect local and national priorities. Our curriculum will have focus on developing skills for DYW. All stakeholders will be involved in this clear out exercise.

Numeracy – develop further pedagogy practice to increase teacher confidence in teaching Maths. Target set of 5% increase.

Digital Technology – Design and implement new digital technology progression to ensure development of skills progression across school. Provide staff training to ensure quality teaching.

Increase opportunities to plan collaboratively with cluster schools to develop a shared understanding of progress both within our establishment and with others.

How good are we at ensuring the best possible outcomes for all our children / learners? (3.1, 3.2)

Evaluation: 5

NIF Priority Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy

School Priorities Achieving Excellence and Equity Successes and Achievement 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion 3.2 Raising attainment and achievement 3.3 Increasing creativity and employability

HGIOELC QI’s: 3.2 Securing Children’s progress 2.5 Family Learning 1.2 Leading the learning Care Inspectorate Quality Themes: QT 1 Quality of care and support QT 3 Quality of staffing

NIF Driver(s) School improvement Excellent experiences Teacher professionalism

Local Improvement Plan – Expected Outcome / Impact

An increase in attainment % of CfE Levels achieved in Numeracy and Literacy in P1, P4 and P7.

An increase in the nurturing approaches being put into practice in nursery.

Progress, Impact and Outcomes

1. We have raised the attainment of all our learners and in particular those facing barriers to learning

Attainment across the school has increased year on year for the last consecutive years. For session 2017-18, most of our pupils now achieve the expected level in Reading, Writing, Talking Listening and Numeracy in our P1, P4 and P7 year groups. We continue to set targets for the year ahead in order to improve attainment further.

Improved quality of learning and teaching by: Identified appropriate CPD opportunities for quality

learning and teaching and upskilled teachers.

Identified support required for individual pupils for the flexible curriculum.

Invested in quality resources to best support learning, including the reorganisation of the whole

school environment e.g. reading cupboards, sensory spaces, building an extension etc.

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Insch School Attainment Summary

CfE Levels Achieved Percentage of children achieving expected levels at P1, P4, P7

Launched an early years nurture project that has identified our most vulnerable families. Almost all identified families have increased engagement with staff and positive improvements in SHANARRI principles for individual pupils.

2. A tracking system was put in place to be able to to evidence and track individual progress.

Development of the tracking system

Regular professional discussions held with individual teachers and SLT to closely identify the bottom and top 20%.

Identified specific support and challenge interventions.

3. The school’s Vision, values and aim’s celebrate diversity and inclusion and this is central to the ethos of the school.

Assemblies which celebrate and explain diversity, e.g. ASD, dyslexia etc.

A culture of inclusion is shared by staff and pupils across the classrooms e.g. dyslexia and autism friendly approaches.

Detailed and thorough transition arrangements that focus on a high level of social and emotional support for pupils.

High level of support planned for the children to ensure their success and break down any barriers to learning e.g. child friendly IEP’s and focused targets.

Targeted interventions groups e.g. early birds, forest owls, Zone clubs.

4. We use creative approaches to learning so that all our learners can develop skills for life, learning and work.

For most classes digital technology is used on a daily basis. Children use it creatively and can lead their own learning.

Set up a Developing Young work force working party and have an agreed action plan to embed career education standards across the school.

Our young learners use digital technologies to enhance their learning they have the skills to

understand, apply and create e.g setting up of digital leaders to help problem solve and support

throughout the school.

Next Steps

Maintain and/ or increase attainment in Literacy, Numeracy and Maths (increase 5% Cluster target) for CfE levels achieved P1,4,7. See school attainment for further details.

Continue Attainment Conversations following TMR periods/ identify bottom 20%, mid 60%, top 20%. Employ Home Link worker in school to support identified pupils across school and close gap.

2015-16 Valid/reliable

data? *

2016-17 2017-

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Primary 1

Reading 82% 98% 90%

Writing 78% 98% 86%

Maths 71% 100% 87%

Talking and

Listening

100% 98%

Primary 4

Reading 58% 84% 85%

Writing 38% 66% 85%

Maths 62% 70% 77%

Talking and

Listening

70% 94%

Primary 7

Reading 67% 74% 84%

Writing 37% 71% 89%

Maths 50%

79% 81%

Talking and

Listening

84% 87%

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What is our capacity for continuous improvement? This should be a statement of the establishment’s capacity for continuous improvement.

Insch School and Nursery is in a strong position to develop and grow on our Journey to Excellence. We know where our attainment gap lies and have plans to reduce this gap through measureable interventions. Our family nurture approach is extending next session from nursery to the whole school. There is a strong drive within the staff to continually develop and lead change. In session 2017/18, 1 nursery member qualified with the BA in Childhood Education, 3 more started the degree course. In school, 2 members of staff led a probationer targeted support session for the Cluster and will run this again to a further Cluster group next year. 1 teacher has been trained by SERC to deliver Science training across the Authority. This will continue next session. Some staff are leading learning with pupils through our Digital Leaders initiative. These pupils work with teachers to develop digital technology skills in pupils and teachers across the school. 3 members of staff are leading Maths development work next session to increase attainment by a further 5%. Self-evaluation is central to our approach at Insch. We know how we are performing and what needs to be done to improve this. The Nursery team is now well establish with 2 EYSP practitioners who are supported by a Depute and HT. The school team will be further strengthened next session with the recruitment of 3 experienced class teachers who will all bring experience, drive and commitment to a passionate and hardworking team. This expansion of staff will benefit the excellent team of staff presently in post at Insch School. Through the improvements outlined in the new SIP, all staff will lead in learning and developing the school further. We will continue to develop our close working relationship with our community and bring to fruition our vision, values and aims for Insch School and our local community.

National Improvement Framework Quality Indicators

Quality indicator School self-evaluation Inspection evaluation Await Inspection Visit

Care inspectorate Visited 23/2/16

1.3 Leadership of change

4 Good Quality of management and leadership 5 Very Good

2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment

4 Good Quality of environment 5 Very Good

3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equity and inclusion

5 Good Quality of care and support 5 Very Good

3.2 Raising attainment and achievement

4 Good Quality of staffing 5 Very Good

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School Improvement Priorities 2018-19

Insch School embarks on the first year of collaborative Self Evaluation programme in session 2018-19. We will work in a SE trio with Oyne School and Dunecht School. Our SE work this year is QI 1.1 Self-evaluation for self-improvement.

Curriculum Design and Refresh - To refresh our curriculum design to be relevant to today’s

learners. Our curriculum will have a strong focus on developing skills for the world of work. We

will include all stakeholders (teachers, pupils and parents in this process).

Increase Whole School Numeracy Attainment – to develop quality of maths learning and

teaching through Numeracy Mastery programme and moderation work in school and in cluster.

We will adopt proven learning and teaching methods that have impact on raising attainment e/g/

Sumdog, consistent use of Numicon, holistic assessment approaches.

Develop Family Nurture approaches that close gap for individual learners.

Embed digital technologies across the school to ensure consistency of highly skilled staff who

are confident in delivering lessons using technology that are highly motivated and purposeful.