Glowing report for Burravoe Primary School

Burravoe Primary School today received a positive report from schools inspectors, following an visit in November.

The inspector praised the headteacher for her “outward looking” approach to leading the school and planning rich learning experiences for the children.

The report highlighted that pupils were happy and supportive of each other, and showed good levels of understanding of their personal strengths and next steps in their learning. Standards of attainment were very good, and children were making strong progress across almost all curriculum areas.

The inspector also commented on the children’s exceptionally strong digital literacy skills, by using films and animations; and creating public blog content on Glow Scotland, the digital learning environment provided by Scottish government.

The inspection found various key strengths, including the ethos of trust and mutual support which was developing “responsible, independent and ambitious” learners.

Exciting learning experiences were found to link well with the local community and build children’s global understanding.

The curriculum was deemed to develop children’s skills for learning, life and work, with the partnership between the headteacher and learning support worker supporting children’s learning.

The fact that children made important decisions about the school and their own learning, managed daily routines themselves and provided feedback on their learning also impressed the inspector.

One area in which it was felt the school needs to improve was on building on children’s learning blogs, formalising the recording of children’s progress through Curriculum for Excellence and sharing this with parents.

The inspector was satisfied with the overall quality of provision and was confident that the school’s self-evaluation processes were leading to improvements.

Education Scotland evaluates schools using six descriptions of quality, ranging from excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, weak to unsatisfactory.

The inspector gave Burravoe “very good” evaluations in improvements in performance, learners’ experiences, meeting learning needs and the curriculum. Improvement through self-evaluation was rated good.

Chairwoman of the children and families committee Vaila Wishart said: “This positive report shows that the pupils a Burravoe Primary School are making good progress. Their standards of attainment are very good which is a reflection of the hard work put in by the headteacher, school staff, parents and pupils.”

After the inspection, it was announced: “We are satisfied with the overall quality of provision. We are confident that the school’s self-evaluation processes are leading to improvements. As a result, we will make no further evaluative visits in connection with this inspection.”