The report identified that the school and nursery class had many strengths and areas where they have been making significant progress.
It also identified three key areas for improvement:
- Improve arrangements for meeting children’s needs at the primary stages;
- Improve primary-aged children’s attainment in reading and writing and
- Use self-evaluation in a focused way to secure further improvements in learning, teaching and curriculum development.
'.... the school needs additional support and more time to make necessary improvements. Our Area Lead Officer along with the local authority will discuss the most appropriate support in order to build capacity for improvement, and will maintain contact to monitor progress. We will return to evaluate aspects of provision and the progress in improving provision within twelve months of publication of this letter. We will then issue another letter to parents on the extent to which the school has improved.'
Parents and Carers with children at Ardler Primary School will want to be reassured that the Council will now provide the 'additional support' required and explain how the areas for improvement. will be progressed.
In October 2012, the Inspection Report on St Andrew's RC Primary School was published and that report also indicated that the school required 'additional support' from the Council.
I think it is significant that both Ardler Primary School and St Andrew's RC Primary School lost a Depute Head Teacher in the SNP's budget cuts introduced in April 2011. Now we are seeing the effect of this and other cutbacks in our schools. When these budget savings were announced, I warned that these short term cuts would cause long term damage.
Link to Ardler Primary School and Nursery Class HMI Report
