St Andrews Primary School

St Andrews Primary School – Curriculum for Excellence Improvement Plan 2012/2013

St Andrews Primary School

School Improvement Plan

2012/2013

St Andrews Primary School Improvement Planning 2012-2013

School vision statement - Excellent education for all

Our values and aims are important to us at the school and they are detailed here.

·  To enable all to be become successful, confident, life-long learners and inspire a love of learning.

Our school will endeavour to provide a stimulating and enjoyable learning environment; and our school community will aspire to enable everyone to be all they can be.

·  To encourage children to operate as independent learners and thinkers.

We will provide our children with opportunities to develop their persistence to learn and improve; to feel secure and be able to take measured risks; to take on responsibility and review the results of their efforts; and to celebrate their role in the successes of the learning community.

·  To develop respect and understanding for each other within our school, local communities, and the wider world.

We will foster a community within which everyone is actively encouraged to show respect for one another and where the contribution of everyone’s views is valued.

·  To encourage children to value themselves and the environment.

We will provide a nurturing environment where we demonstrate care for ourselves and others. Our school community will foster a holistic approach to the physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being of all; and to encourage respect for the environment and the people in it.

·  To provide a relevant curriculum for all, which will support these aims and values.

Our school community, that is pupils, parents, staff and members of the local communities who support the school, will accept responsibility for ensuring that the needs of all are considered and supported, and their strengths built upon.

Values (suggested by pupils at whole school together time-reviewed 2012/13)

Kindness Good manners Fairness Respect Patience

Loyalty Sharing Responsible Listening Inclusive

Make and obey five golden rules. Make sure everyone has someone to play with. Being nice to each other and the teachers. Don’t huff and puff at hard work. (Approach difficult work with courage and confidence, because this is an opportunity for big learning.)

Self-evaluation relating to priorities identified:

Observation

Evidence of informal observation indicated lack of coherent structure and planned progression in learning in research and comprehension skills. Reading resources for the older children need to be reassessed in the light of design principles in CfE.

Work done on diagnostic testing in maths has proved very useful. We will look at the New Zealand programme, match it to experiences and outcomes, and design our programme for the early level initially.

Significant development work has been undertaken in writing and has begun in reading and maths; this now needs to be pulled together.

National priority includes reporting on curriculum levels at the end of the coming session, and we aim to make this appropriate and meaningful.

Feedback

Individual planning meetings with staff along with whole school staff curriculum development sessions indicated concerns about research skills, comprehension skills and reading skills and resources particularly for the older children. We would like to develop programmes in research skills and comprehension across the range. Because we need to report on levels in numeracy and literacy at the end of next session we feel it is essential to develop assessments in literacy and numeracy to reflect CfE, using language which is useful and understood by all involved.

Feedback from one pupil highlighted that change of teachers is an issue. This fits with staff view that transition needs to be strong, and next session we will evaluate things put in place in 2010/11.

Parent Council members were happy with the overall suggestions as detailed by the school staff; one suggestion offered was to continue the focus on reading by having a class reader read to the class by the teacher.

Parents completed a button jar vote this session on the effectiveness of aspects of the past year’s ScIP, and as a result R+ME and Science will be part ScIP 2012/13, whilst this year we continue to monitor activities in these areas, an ongoing audit ready for more focused development in session 2012/13.

Data

Children’s attainment and achievement has not been tracked as vigorously this session, 5-14 data is no longer applicable and aspects of assessment are not in place. PIPs and InCAS data suggests that attainment in reading and maths has remained steady, with writing reported on by teachers

Children continue to experience a wide variety of stimulating learning activities and are motivated and engaged for the most part in their learning. Children are confident to discuss their learning with adults and through progress jotters/consultation with adults, are able to reflect on their learning and themselves as learners. These are key strengths we will continue to build upon during this session.

Summary of Priority Areas for Development focusing on developing skills, sharing success criteria, reporting and assessment; best possible support for all learners.

Developing reading

A text is the medium through which ideas, experiences, opinions and information can be communicated. We want to foster and encourage confidence and enjoyment in reading at all stages, but particularly for the older children. We want to develop further, reading skills of research and comprehension across the range, taking pupils and parents with us on the journey; and we aim to be able to report on progress using the language of levels in CfE in a way that will be meaningful to all involved.

Developing assessment, recording and reporting in writing, maths and reading

Assessment involves gathering, reflecting on and evaluating evidence of learning to enable staff to check on learners' progressand support further learning. We plan to put in place an effective assessment system, which supports breadth and depth of learning and a greater focus on skills development. We aim to have a better understanding of effective assessment practice and sharing of standards and expectations, as well as consistent assessment across the school.

We will review and consolidate the existing developments in writing. This will involve some work in pulling together aspects already developed but will involve work in developing approaches in assessment, recording and reporting.

Continuing development in maths begun in session 2010/11 using diagnostic testing with all P1 pupils and selected others, we will look at our programme of maths particularly in the early level. We will audit our programme against the experiences and outcomes created by OIC working group. We will prepare to report on progress in levels to parents by the end of the session, creating assessments in line with CfE.

Developing staged intervention

HMIe foci for our school - Staged Intervention, and opportunities for Learning Through Play in the Early Years.

Having developed our knowledge and understanding of differentiation at St Andrews in session 2010/11, we will continue to unpick and implement staged intervention in the coming session. The Additional Support for Learning Act lays out the principles upon which practitioners from within education and those with whom they work should support the needs of children and young people.The key principles focus on inclusion and partnership working between professionals, and with parents and children and young people.

To engage children in more complex play in the early years as a follow on from nursery, we plan to develop our activity area encouraging the nurture of many skills in our younger children. We will provide opportunities to make links across the curriculum, to promote curiosity, to encourage investigation and problem solving, and to make learning enjoyable and challenging.

Session 2012/13

Following this year’s development, we will revisit the RME and science curriculum in session 2012/13, to complete progressive and coherent programmes throughout the school. We will prepare a three year skeleton plan for improvement at St Andrews.

In-service days for 2011-2012

Consideration for In-service days:

Aug – autism spectrum disorder – 3 hours all teaching and support staff.

Oct – 1 day for legislative training – first aid etc, 1 day early years network day, 1 day school based

Feb – 1 day for moderation – to be kept clear by all schools to allow work across schools to take place, 1 day for school based.

Summary of Progress on Targets 2011/12

Priority 1 – Developing reading and early-level maths

Rationale: The importance of reading and maths was highlighted as a priority for learning by parents and staff. If children are to embrace the principles of CfE they need to develop the skills required in reading, comprehension, research, and in mathematical thinking

Match to school aims

·  to enable everyone to be all they can be

·  for children to operate as independent learners and thinkers.

·  to provide a relevant curriculum for all.

Person responsible: All staff, Orkney Library Staff, Parent Council, Children & Parents & Families

Progress: There has been very good progress in this area this year.

What we said we would do:

·  Set up fiction library

·  Develop a range of ideas to encourage enthusiasm for books and reading

·  Teach school community how to use library, in particular Junior Librarian system

·  Set up library working party in term 2

·  Create a ‘skills for reading’ sheet and ‘skills bookmark’ for pupil books

·  Reading night for Early level 1 first and second levels

Audit current practices in maths and formulate a progressive programme for Nursery – Primary 7 (for comprehension and early level maths)

What we did:

·  Fiction library set up

·  Glowvember – November Book month

·  Childen – Mr Men theme

·  P1 Library (free book)

·  Organised books at upper stages

·  Library working party set up term 2

·  Skills / Bookmark discussed and some levels made

·  Reading Night EY1

·  All pupils P1 – P7 access library van

·  Author visit – real and virtual

·  Big library opening ceremony with guest, Lari Don

·  Evening visit from Lari Don for parents and children

·  Visit to Hope School to meet author, Michelle Paver

·  Visit Papdale to see library

·  Celebrated World Book Day: staff and pupils dressed up and in the afternoon we had guests to read to the children

·  Moved library to new venue

·  EY Maths (April new scheme)

·  HAM bought and being developed 1st/2nd level.

·  All attended online training event - familiarisation with new maths

·  Timetable for library during school day; also open at two lunch times

Impact on learners:

·  Parents involved in setting up library and enthusiastic about children reading

·  Raised awareness of books e.g. Mr Men, and enthusiasm for book topics.

·  All pupils P1 – P7 access library van and able to choose from a new selection each month giving opportunity to widen their reading horizons

·  Children aware of where books are and chase own novels/readers for group work.

·  Pupils P2-7 are involved in library committee and help to run the library with ideas for engaging all with books

·  Pupils have ownership of library and setting up.

·  EY parents involved and understand process of teaching reading.

·  Reading age for each child from P4 – P7 will give a baseline to build progress over the years to follow; any needs thrown up will be assessed and supported

·  Children keen to be in the library (many choosing to go at lunchtimes), engage with books, share favourites, and are particularly inspired by those written by the authors who visited

What we plan to do next:

·  Use reading age test results to guide pupils to appropriate books in library, so that everyone gets success in reading

·  Learn to use other facilities in library system e.g. access from home to report on books read

·  Janice Mackay coming in September; seek out other author-visit opportunities from Scottish Booktrust

·  Skills / Bookmark for each level

·  Follow-up questions: Revisit confidence levels in reading skills - Are parents, pupils and teachers more confident about the process of developing reading skills as the children progress through school? Can children devise questions/headings on specific topics to guide independent research? From devised questions, can children use skills to demonstrate knowledge of text?

Priority 2 – Developing assessment, recording and reporting – reading, writing and maths

Rationale: assessment is integral to learning; practitionersneed a range of approaches to assess achievement; to recognise and ensure high quality assessment practices, andestablish effectivemoderation.

Match to school aims

·  our school community will aspire to enable everyone to be all they can be

·  our school community will ensure the needs of all are considered and acted upon

·  to develop persistence to learn and improve

·  to take on responsibility and review the results of their effort to celebrate their role in the successes of the learning community

Person responsible: all staff

Progress: Progress on this development project is very good.

What we said we would do:

·  use NAR / LTS assessment resource

·  Reading assessment in in-service training

·  Reading – create and develop a pupil tracking system; assess using Hodder reading test/PIPS

·  Familiarisation and encouragement to enable all staff to use personalised learning (learning logs / PLP’s / blogs / glow etc)

·  P7s e-portfolio

·  2 unaided pieces of writing per year to form baseline assessment and show progress

·  report to parents using SEEMiS

What we did:

·  SEEMIS – installed on all computers; reports in this format in June

·  Moderation of Reading (Oct)

·  Moderation of Maths (Feb)

·  Moderation of Writing (Feb)

·  P7/6, P6/5, P5/4 – all using PLP’s or learning logs.

·  P1 – peer/self assessment

·  P7 Pupil profiles completed, shared with parents and sent on to KGS

·  Completed unaided piece of writing terms 2 and 4

Impact on learners:

·  Piloting tracking of pupils = R.W.M; pupils current practice highlighted, and reports focused and up to date