South Ayrshire Council News

HM Inspectors of Schools inspected St Ann's Primary School in June 2007 as part of a national sample of primary education and have now published their findings.

The inspection covered key aspects of the work of the school at all stages, 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.

The key strengths of the school identified in the report were:

• Very good relationships and well-behaved pupils with a sense of pride in and identity with their school.
• Partnerships with the School Board, parents and the local community.
• The effective use of information and communications technology (ICT) and the quality of pupils' learning through the Comenius schools project.

Parents and carers were very positive about almost all aspect of the school and were pleased about the benefits of the joint campus initiatives with Annbank Primary School. The pupils said that they enjoyed being at school and felt safe and well looked after.

Very good aspects of the school were found to be accommodation and facilities, climate and relationships and partnerships with parents, the School Board and the community. However contained within the report were constructive comments about weak aspects of the school which were self-evaluation, pupils' attainment in English language and the leadership. Over the past 12 months the education authority had provided substantial support to the school.

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. HM Inspectors will continue to engage with the school and education authority in monitoring progress and will undertake a follow-up inspection.

Anyone wishing to study the full report should contact the HM Inspectorate of Education, Europa Building, 450 Argyle Street, Glasgow, G2 8LG, telephone number 0141 242 0100. Alternatively copies of the report are available on their website at www.hmie.gov.uk.