23 January 2018

Dear Parent/Carer

In November 2017, a team of inspectors from Education Scotland visited Dunipace Primary School and nursery class. During our visit, we talked to parents/carers and children and worked closely with the headteacher and staff.
The inspection team found the following strengths in the school’s work:

• Polite, hardworking children with a ‘can do’ attitude.
• A strong, dynamic staff team, committed to school improvement.
• Skilful, enabling leadership from the headteacher and depute headteacher, building the capacity and confidence at all levels to lead change and drive improvements.

The following areas for improvement were identified and discussed with the headteacher and a representative from Falkirk Council:

• Continue to improve the consistency of learning and teaching, encouraging more active learning, and meeting children’s needs yet more effectively through improved differentiation.
• Continue to enhance staff skills in assessment, moderation and the use of performance information to support improvements in learning and teaching.

We gathered evidence to enable us to evaluate some quality indicators from How good is our school? (4th edition). Quality indicators help schools, education authorities and inspectors to judge what is working well and what needs to be improved. Following the inspection of each school, the Scottish Government gathers evaluations of quality indicators to keep track of how well Scottish schools are doing.

Here are Education Scotland’s evaluations for Dunipace Primary School and Nursery Class

Quality indicators primary stages	Evaluation
Leadership of change	very good
Learning, teaching and assessment	good
Raising attainment and achievement	good
Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion	very good
Descriptions of the evaluations are available from How good is our school? (4th edition), Appendix 3: The six-point scale.

 

Quality indicators nursery class	Evaluation
Leadership of change	good
Learning, teaching and assessment	good
Securing children’s progress	good
Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion	good
Descriptions of the evaluations are available from How good is our school? (4th edition), Appendix 3: The six-point scale.

A more detailed document called summarised inspection findings is be available on the Education Scotland website at https://education.gov.scot/inspection-reports/falkirk/5741920

 

What happens next?

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. Falkirk Council will inform parents/carers about the school’s progress as part of its arrangements for reporting on the quality of its schools.

Bill Geddes
HM Inspector