Main points for action
1. Clear remits should be established for all promoted staff.
The school has fully achieved this recommendation.
The new headteacher, in consultation with her promoted colleagues, had devised clear and appropriate remits for all promoted staff.
2. Senior staff should monitor and evaluate classroom practices in a more systematic and focused manner, promote self-evaluation and engage staff in discussions about raising pupils’ attainment.
Good progress has been made by the school in meeting this recommendation.
Senior staff now regularly monitor teachers’ work plans and examine pupils’ written work to promote progression in pupils’ learning. Staff are developing approaches to self-evaluation to help to identify and build on good classroom practice. Useful pupil profiles are being developed and there is now a greater emphasis on pupils’ peer and self-assessment. Class teachers had visited other schools to observe good practice.
3. In consultation with the Health Trust, the current procedures for testing the hearing of pre-school children should be reviewed in order to ensure that the time of promoted staff is used more effectively to address the challenges facing the school.
The school had fully met this recommendation.
Following the publication of the inspection report in May 1999, pre-school children were no longer tested at the school for hearing loss. Since this change had taken place, the school had received only limited information about children likely to require future support from its hearing impairment staff.
4. Clear guidelines on the integration of all pupils into Bantaskin Primary School and Falkirk High School should be established and the resources required to support pupils agreed. Staff in these other schools should be provided with training which gives them the expertise they need to support pupils with hearing impairments.
Good progress has been made by the school in meeting this recommendation.
An integration policy had been agreed in consultation with relevant staff in Falkirk High School and Bantaskin Primary School. This was being implemented and would be reviewed in the light of experience. Visiting service staff have participated in in-service training aimed at developing their confidence in sharing