School and nursery hailed
Balfron Primary School and Nursery Class have been praised by education inspectors.
Strong relationships between staff, children and parents across both the primary and nursery departments were highlighted. Other key strengths included the“caring”staff team who, led by the headteacher and depute headteacher, were said to know children, families and the school community very well.
The school caters for 225 children while the nursery accommodates 24 children in the morning and 24 in the afternoon.
The inspectors added:“They work together in a flexible and responsive way to meet the needs of children and families in the nursery and across the primary stages. Careful attention is given to ensuring all children receive appropriate support and intervention as required.”
Also praised was children’s attainment in literacy and numeracy.
“Almost all children across the school achieve appropriate levels in reading, writing, numeracy and mathematics,”said the inspectors’report.“Children in the nursery class make good progress across the curriculum.
“A good start has also been made to ensuring all children access high quality outdoor learning and learning about food and health which is supporting children to understand the importance of positive health and wellbeing.”
Some areas for improvement were discussed with the headteacher and a representative of Stirling Council.
The report added:“As identified by the school, there should be work with the whole school community to build on the good start made in nurturing approaches, to further enhance positive behaviour and relationships between children.”
Other suggestions included improving the quality of learning and teaching to ensure all children experienced consistently high quality learning and teaching at all stages. This was to include a focus on extending the children’s role in their learning and on increasing pace and challenge across the curriculum.
The inspectors concluded:“We are confident that the school has the capacity to continue to improve and so we will make no more visits in connection with this inspection.”