St Laurence’s Primary School
Greenock
Inverclyde Council

23 October 2007

Contents

1. Background
2. Key strengths
3. What are the views of parents, pupils and staff?
4. How good are learning, teaching and achievement?
5. How well are pupils’ learning needs met?
6. How good is the environment for learning?
7. Leading and improving the school
Appendix 1 Indicators of quality
Appendix 2 Summary of questionnaire responses
How can you contact us?

1. Background

St Laurence’s Primary School was inspected in June 2007 as part of a national sample of primary education. The inspection covered key aspects of the work of the school at all stages. It evaluated pupils’ achievements, the effectiveness of the school, the environment for learning, the school’s processes for self-evaluation and innovation, and its capacity for improvement. There was a particular focus on attainment in English language and mathematics.

HM Inspectors examined pupils’ work and interviewed groups of pupils, including the pupil council, and staff. Members of the inspection team also met the School Board, representatives of the parent-teacher association (PTA) and a group of parents¹.

The inspection team also evaluated aspects of the school’s progress in implementing national recommendations related to improving aspects of school meals provision.

St Laurence’s Primary School is a denominational school serving the east end of Greenock. At the time of the inspection the roll was 201, including 16 pupils in the Communication and Language Unit. In 2004 the school successfully took part in a merger with a nearby primary school. The proportion of pupils who were entitled to free school meals was well above the national average. Pupils’ attendance was in line with the national average.

2. Key strengths

3. What are the views of parents, pupils and staff?

HM Inspectors analysed responses to questionnaires issued to a sample of parents, P4 to P7 pupils, and to all staff. Information about the responses to the questionnaires appears in Appendix 2.

Parents expressed a very high level of satisfaction with all aspects of the school. They felt the school was well led. They believed that it had a good reputation in the local community, parents’ evenings were helpful and informative and staff made them feel welcome. Pupils enjoyed being at school and felt safe and secure. They thought that teachers expected them to work hard and helped them to succeed in their learning. Staff were very positive about all aspects of the work of the school. They felt that they communicated effectively as a team and maintained excellent relationships with pupils and parents. They enjoyed working in the school and praised the pupils for their exemplary behaviour, enthusiasm and achievement. Support staff were very positive about the school but would like more opportunities to be involved in decision making.

4. How good are learning, teaching and achievement?

Pupils’ learning experiences and achievements

The overall quality of the curriculum was good. The school had developed a broad curriculum which was enhanced by the contribution of visits and visitors and a wide range of additional activities in sports and arts. Additional time had been allocated to English language and mathematics, to improve attainment. The school had not yet monitored the impact of this initiative. Healthy eating and healthy lifestyles were promoted well across the school. Pupils had opportunities for two hours of physical education (PE) each week and this had raised fitness levels within the school. Teachers made effective links between different curricular areas to enhance pupils’ learning. The curriculum had been enriched by a range of innovative projects. The ‘Clyde in the Classroom’ initiative improved their skills in working with others and developed their understanding of the local environment. The school had identified the need to review the programmes for environmental studies, listening, talking and writing to ensure that pupils built consistently on prior learning. The quality of teaching across the school was good. Teachers were well organised and made effective use of praise to build pupils’ confidence. They gave clear instructions and shared with pupils what they expected them to learn. Most teachers used questioning well to check pupils’ understanding. They made good use of direct interactive teaching. However, they did not consistently involve pupils in sharing what they had learned. At times the pace of lessons in some classes was too slow and tasks lacked sufficient challenge for some pupils.

The quality of pupils’ learning was good. Pupils worked hard and were very well behaved in class. Most listened attentively to instructions and explanations. The school was beginning to provide opportunities for pupils to work collaboratively and take responsibility for their learning. During a few lessons, pupils worked well together in pairs and small groups. At P3, pupils successfully cooperated in trios in assessing a piece of writing. At P7, pupils worked effectively in a group making up a rap to accompanying music. Overall, too many tasks required pupils to work individually on written tasks that were not always sufficiently challenging for all pupils.

The school had taken very good steps to help pupils develop their wider achievements. At all stages, pupils were making very good progress in developing their confidence and self-esteem. Pupils had success in competitions such as the Inverclyde verse speaking festival, the national Burns competition and the recent authority gold award for enterprise. The school valued and celebrated the pupils’ wider achievement in a variety of ways. These included attractive displays of pupils’ art and design work, an effective rewards system and regular school assemblies. Pupils were developing skills as responsible citizens by supporting younger children in the playground and as buddies for children from the Communication and Language Unit. All pupils were developing an awareness of global citizenship through their work for a range of charities. The school was working towards recognition as a health promoting school and pupils had a good understanding of nutrition and an awareness of a healthy lifestyle.

English language

The overall quality of pupils’ attainment in English language was good. Pupils’ attainment in reading and writing had improved steadily. Most pupils were achieving appropriate national levels in reading and a majority were achieving these levels in writing. A significant minority, however, were making slower progress than might be expected in both reading and writing. Pupils experiencing difficulty with their learning were making steady progress. The school was taking steps to assess listening and talking more consistently across the school. Pupils listened well to their teachers, but were not skilled at talking in groups. By P7, pupils could discuss a wide variety of books and were able to read unfamiliar texts with confidence. Pupils at P4, however, were hesitant when reading aloud, and had a limited knowledge of a range of authors. Across the school, pupils’ knowledge of the author’s use of language was limited. Pupils wrote well for a variety of purposes but they did not have enough opportunities to write at length. The quality of pupils’ handwriting and presentation of written work was very good.

Mathematics

Attainment in mathematics was good. Over the last few years, levels of attainment had remained steady. Most pupils had attained appropriate national levels but many were capable of achieving more. At the early years, almost all pupils were attaining or exceeding expected national levels but early gains were not sustained at P3 and P4. At P7, around half had attained appropriate national levels. Only a few pupils not attaining national levels were making sufficient progress towards learning targets which were appropriate for them. Pupils in P1 had made a good start to developing their skills in numeracy. At all stages, pupils could create and interpret a range of graphs but required more opportunities to use computers in this area. Pupils’ skills in mental calculations were well established. They had a good knowledge and understanding of number and were confident in written calculations. A few pupils at the upper stages were not sufficiently secure in their understanding of percentages and decimals and had some difficulty with aspects of measurement. Pupils at all stages showed a good understanding of the properties of two- and three-dimensional shapes. At all stages, pupils were involved in problem solving activities and were able to describe and report on strategies they might use. The standard of presentation of classwork was high.

5. How well are pupils’ learning needs met?

The school’s arrangements for meeting pupils’ learning needs were good. Staff used an appropriate range of strategies to identify individuals’ learning needs and to improve their literacy and numeracy skills. Teachers did not always provide appropriately challenging activities which were well matched to the needs of all pupils. The network support teacher provided good support to identified pupils. She worked closely with the depute headteacher to plan support for pupils. There was further scope within the school to deploy support staff more effectively in classes to support pupils’ learning consistently. The senior management team all contributed to the support for learning provision across the school. A number of pupils were being supported by individual educational programmes (IEPs). The school had correctly identified the need to improve existing IEPs by setting clearer and more specific short-term targets and involve pupils and parents more in this process. The depute headteacher had begun to put in place a more strategic overview of support for learning across the school to ensure provision was monitored and reviewed regularly.

The Communication and Language Unit provided pupils with a broad and balanced curriculum. Learning and teaching approaches were effective and teachers helped pupils develop greater independence in their learning. The pace of learning for almost all pupils was appropriate and most activities were challenging. Although pupils were making good progress in their learning, the IEPs did not yet contain sufficiently clear targets to ensure that pupils’ progress could be carefully monitored. All pupils were fully involved in the life of the school and engaged very successfully in, for example, enterprise activities with pupils in mainstream classes. They moved around the school, joined groups and took part in activities confidently. The school planned to develop this further. Pupils were making good progress towards the targets set for them in personal and social development. Speech and language therapists worked effectively with teachers and support staff to ensure that pupils’ language and communication needs were being met.

6. How good is the environment for learning?

7. Leading and improving the school

Appendix 1 provides HM Inspectors’ overall evaluation of the work of the school.

St Laurence’s Primary School provided a good standard of education for its pupils. Staff provided a high quality of pastoral care. Pupils were happy at school and many benefited from their participation in a wide range of activities in sports, music and dance. The school had, as a high priority, the inclusion of pupils from the Communication and Language Unit in the full life of the school. A few pupils were included in classes for mathematics and language. There were plans to improve this further. Attainment in English language was good. Pupils’ performance in reading had improved steadily in recent years, but there remained room for improvement in listening, talking and writing. Attainment in mathematics was good overall. The school now needed to ensure that learning activities consistently built on pupils’ prior learning and provided appropriate challenge.

The overall quality of leadership was good. The headteacher knew staff well and sought to improve the school by building on their strengths and providing support where necessary. He had the strong support of staff, pupils and parents. Recently, he had successfully led the merger of two schools and the Communication and Language Unit into one school. He was well supported by two depute headteachers and two principal teachers, all of whom had a significant impact in their areas of responsibility. The headteacher now needed to establish approaches to ensure a clearer, more strategic direction to the work of the management team. The school’s approach to self-evaluation was adequate overall. The headteacher used a range of procedures, including consulting with pupils and parents, to evaluate the work of the school. He monitored teachers’ plans and pupils’ work, made visits to classrooms and provided feedback to teachers. However, these procedures did not yet include a sufficiently systematic approach to monitoring and evaluating the quality of learning and teaching. The school had recently developed its approaches to tracking and monitoring pupils’ progress and attainment. These were not yet sufficiently rigorous to ensure an impact on pupils’ progress. Teachers had used quality indicators developed nationally to carry out an audit of the school’s work. They now need to focus more closely on learning, teaching and pupils’ attainment. The headteacher and staff should continue to work together to improve approaches to monitoring and evaluating these key aspects of the work of the school. The positive relationships within the school, and staff’s commitment to pupils, meant that with the support of the education authority, the school was well placed to improve further.

What happens next?

The school and the education authority have been asked to prepare an action plan indicating how they will address the main findings of the report, and to share that plan with parents. Within two years of the publication of this report parents will be informed about the progress made by the school.

Sadie Cushley
HM Inspector

23 October 2007

Appendix 1 Indicators of quality

The sections in the table below follow the order in this report. You can find the main comments made about each of the quality indicators in those sections. However, aspects of some quality indicators are relevant to other sections of the report and may also be mentioned in those other sections.

This report uses the following word scale to make clear judgements made by inspectors:

Appendix 2 Summary of questionnaire responses

Important features of responses from the various groups which received questionnaires are listed below.

How can you contact us?

If you would like an additional copy of this report

Copies of this report have been sent to the headteacher and school staff, the Corporate Director: Education and Social Care, local councillors and appropriate Members of the Scottish Parliament. Subject to availability, further copies may be obtained free of charge from HM Inspectorate of Education, Europa Building, 450 Argyle Street, Glasgow G2 8LG or by telephoning 0141 242 0100. Copies are also available on our website www.hmie.gov.uk.

HMIE Feedback and Complaints Procedure

Should you wish to comment on any aspect of primary inspections, you should write in the first instance to Chris McIlroy, HMCI, at HM Inspectorate of Education, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way, Livingston EH54 6GA.

If you have a concern about this report, you should write in the first instance to our Complaints Manager, HMIE Business Management Unit, Second Floor, Denholm House, Almondvale Business Park, Almondvale Way, Livingston EH54 6GA. You can also e-mail HMIEComplaints@hmie.gsi.gov.uk. A copy of our complaints procedure is available from this office, by telephoning 01506 600200 or from our website at www.hmie.gov.uk.

If you are not satisfied with the action we have taken at the end of our complaints procedure, you can raise your complaint with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO). The SPSO is fully independent and has powers to investigate complaints about Government departments and agencies. You should write to the SPSO, Freepost EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR. You can also telephone 0800 377 7330 fax 0800 377 7331 or e-mail: ask@spso.org.uk. More information about the Ombudsman’s office can be obtained from the website: www.spso.org.uk.

Crown Copyright 2007

HM Inspectorate of Education

This report may be reproduced in whole or in part, except for commercial purposes or in connection with a prospectus or advertisement, provided that the source and date thereof are stated.

Footnotes

1 Throughout this report, the term ‘parents’ should be taken to include foster carers, residential care staff and carers who are relatives or friends.