Southwood Primary School and Nursery

Standards and Quality Report

Achieving Excellence and Equity

School Improvement Priority Work Session 2019 – 2020

• Raise attainment in writing N-P7 (80% P1-P7)

• Raise attainment in reading N-P7 (80% P1-P7)

NIF Priorites

Improvement of attainment particularly in numeracy and literacy.

NIF Drivers

School leadership

School Improvement

HGIOS 4 Quality Indicators

1.2  Leadership of learning

2.2  Curriculum

2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment

Progress and Impact:

Between August 2019 and January 2020 all teaching staff engaged in full Workshop for Literacy training (for some staff this was refresher input).  Whole staff agreements were reached on the structure of the Literacy learning environment, including supportive displays and independent opportunities for writing.  The impact of this was that staff felt confident to deliver quality learning activities and children were observed to be engaged and motivated in almost all class lessons. Writing was regularly celebrated at assemblies and through displays ensuring children enjoyed a sense of pride and achievement.  Teachers worked together to moderate learning intentions, success criteria and feedback, this has ensured appropriate pace and challenge as children progress through stages. Teachers observed children to be displaying increasing skill in self and peer assessment through the co-construction of success criteria. All new staff were trained in the delivery of Robust Vocabulary instruction and data clearly demonstrates an increase in the number of instances and quality of descriptive vocabulary across all stages.

Plans to introduce Bookbug sessions to Early Years classes supported by EYOS had very poor attendance despite personal invitations and telephone calls through our Family Support Worker (FSW) and therefore it was not possible to measure any impact.

Plans to develop Reading Detectives in P4-7 through PT of Literacy were delayed and then cancelled due to COVID-19 and therefore there was no impact.

The numbers of children regularly completing reading homework did improve with the introduction of a homework club, with almost all children regularly completing homework in terms 1 and 2.  This was supported through follow up conversations with parents through the DHT and FSW.

Attainment has been very considerably impacted through lockdown and our SIP for 2019-20 will continue to run alongside recovery plans in 2020/2021, namely:

·         Re- establish Vision and Values and aims

·         Establish consistent effective and consistent practice in the development of digital literacy and communication.

·         Developing consistent universal and additional supports for Literacy recovery.

Next Steps:

·         Refresh the children’s leadership skills through 7 Habits

·         Develop digital literacy to support our most vulnerable learners and as a universal support.

·         Ensure more robust alternative assessment arrangements.

·         Instruct new teaching staff (50%) in Robust Vocabulary approach.

·         Develop our digital communication strategy to future proof against potential further lockdown

Evidence of significant wider achievements

All children P1-P7 have developed their digital communication skills in the use of Microsoft 365, the impact of this has been that during lockdown they were able to continue to communicate and collaborate with their peers and staff.

Outcomes from Education Scotland Inspection (if inspected between August 2019 and March 2020)

·         Commitment to emotional health of whole school community by all staff

·         Strong leadership and clear vision/direction

·         Thriving children in a positive environment

·         Strong partnership working

·         Further develop ways to use information about children’s progress

·         Develop ways to engage children and parents in understanding children’s learning targets

·         Continue to review curriculum

The plans to develop the use of Microsoft 365 will support the parents’ and children’s understanding of both the development of the curriculum and communicating learning targets and  measures of success.

What has been the success and challenges of Learning at Home since March 2020 as a result of COVID 19?

A huge strength of the Southwood Team was the level of individual pastoral support that we were able to offer our families.  Our vulnerable families received a phone call every day by someone from the team, this was a very significant proportion of our school community. All staff also went above and beyond expectations in terms of volunteering their time in the activity centres.

The collegiality and team spirit of the whole school team has continued to impact on return and staff report on the excellent ethos in the school during these difficult times.

The challenges were related in part to technical issues but also to the confidence and skill of children and families, this impacted on the effectiveness of feedback and staff ability to support learners to their full potential.

A very considerable issue for the team was ensuring robust declarations of attainment and reporting.  Tracking meetings and discussions were held through Teams but HT is concerned about the robustness of declarations due to limited engagement with tasks and completion of assignments.

NIF Quality Indicators (HGIOS 4) School Self- Evaluation

(within last 3 years)

NIF Quality Indicators (HGIOS ELC) Early Years Self- Evaluation (Nursery)

(within last 3 years)

Care Inspectorate (within last 3 years)

Grade (if applicable)