Author: Ann Marie Stafford

This Year’s School Improvement Plan (2022/2023

What do Parents think about our school?

1. Collaborative Enquiry Process (whole School)
Our class teachers will be taking part in a Collaborative Enquiry Process to look at developing how they use assessment and teacher feedback to improve outcomes for learners.
2a: Raising Attainment in Literacy and Numeracy
Our Class teachers will be working closely with Miss Healy and Miss Boyle to look at how they teach Literacy and Maths to ensure that the strategies used meet the needs of our learners and support them in the best ways possible.
2b Digital Learning,
We will continue to work with partner agencies to support the use of digital technologies to enhance teaching and learning. This will improve the learning experiences, improve wellbeing and raise attainment in Literacy and Numeracy.
2c: Interdisciplinary Planning
We will look at how we plan to teach all subject areas. Ensuring that clear links are made across the curriculum so that the children can see the purpose in what they are learning and that it is relevant to their experiences.
3 Improve Health and Wellbeing Across the school
We will work with all staff to improve their understanding of mental health
We will implement ‘Emotion Works’ mental health resource across the school.
We will continue our Rights Respecting School work and apply for our Silver Award.
We will continue to provide therapeutic interventions for our children using our newly appointed and PEF funded Lifelink Counsellor.
We will continue to support our children and families using our PEF funded Action For Children Family Support worker.
We will develop a relationships Policy that embeds all of the above.
St. Mungo’s Learning Community Priority
To continue to work with Learning Community colleagues to moderate areas of the curriculum, ensuring a shared understanding at key transitions nursery/ primary and Primary Secondary.
We will work with colleagues to look at the teaching and learning of Religious Education.
Wider Achievement
To continue to promote wider achievement particularly in Music, Art & Design, Drama / Performance, STEM, Digital Learning and Physical Activity.
PEF
Additional staffing and resources being used to support the innovative ideas being developed in our school improvement plan are being funded by the Pupil Equity Fund.

97 Parents responded to our Audit in March 2023 and, on the whole the results were very positive. We used the results of this to form our School Improvement Plan for this session and to make changes to current practice.
If you would like to see more detail of this, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

What do Children think about our school?

Nice staff and teachers that most of the time help us get a better understanding of our learning
The teachers are nice and I like seeing my friends.
That I can show my confidence and take part in Clubs and show off my acting in the school play.
I like when we do have activities that make learning more fun instead of just sitting down and doing work on a piece of paper. I also like when we get to pick the level we work on.
I like that I get to see all my friends and have a nice time and enjoy learning new things.
It’s fun you can do lots of clubs and gives you the amount of knowledge you need for different things.
I like how you put positivity into the children that have a negative mindset
I could go on and on about what I like but to make it short I will say 4 1. We get iPads that help us with out and in work such as doing presentations 2. Also we get to express our passions at assembly and school shows 3. We get to go on trips and see our community and animals 4. We also learn stuff that about our religion and all religions are respected.
(sample taken from School Audit (Pupils P4-7) March 2023)

St. Michael’s Primary School
865 Springfield Road
Glasgow G31 4HZ
Tel: 0141 554 3105
Email: headteacher@st-michaels-pri.glasgow.sch.uk
Twitter: @StMichaelsGCC

This report will provide Parents / Carers with information about our successes and achievements, our strengths and our areas for development.
Mrs. A. M. Stafford
Head Teacher

Our School
Successes from Last Year (2022/2023)

Last year, in St Michael’s, we had many successes that ensured our school was moving on, developing the curriculum and providing us with a wide range of different opportunities to support us in becoming Successful Learners, Responsible Citizens, Effective Contributors and Confident Individuals.
QI 2.3 Learning, Teaching and Assessment
QI 3.2 Raising Attainment and Achievement
The School are working hard to raise attainment in Literacy and Numeracy. Results are collected nationally at P1, P4 and P7 Most learners in St Michael’s are attaining appropriate levels and almost all are making very good progress from their prior levels of attainment in Literacy and Numeracy. These levels have shown our story as one of continuous improvement, year on year, and evidence shows that we are now performing at or better than the Glasgow schools average.
Our attainment levels are now evidencing that targeted interventions in Literacy and Numeracy are having a positive impact. This targeted intervention will continue this year. Miss Boyle and Miss Healy have a greater understanding of assessment and data and are using this, alongside teacher judgement, to look closely at the strengths and develop needs of our children. They are then able to use this knowledge to plan interventions for the children and have access to an additional teacher funded by PEF (Pupil Equity Fund) to provide these supports and narrow the Poverty Related Attainment Gap.
Learning and engagement within St. Michael’s Primary school is very good. All staff and partners work hard to develop a motivating and nurturing climate where children’s views are sought and acted upon (UNCRC Article 12 ‘Respect for Children’s views’). Nurturing Principles are fully embedded in St. Michael’s Primary School ensuring that almost all children are better supported to ensure they are ‘ready to learn’. Our positive relationships were recognised as a strength by almost all stakeholders.
Outdoor Learning, Play in Primary 1-3 and loose parts play are being widely used by the majority of classes to enhance Learner’s experiences and engagement and or developing the young workforce skills. Most classes are making better use of outside space to enhance teaching and learning. Loose parts play is available during breaktimes and this has had a positive impact on health and wellbeing in relation to learner relationships, creativity, collaboration and general relationships.
Digital Learning
Almost all teachers are growing in confidence with incorporating digital technology to enhance the teaching and learning in the class. The allocation of school iPads from Primary 5-7, continues to have a positive impact on teaching and learning throughout the school. Using iPads in the classroom has led to better engagement for almost all learners. In addition to this, iPads have helped almost all learners with additional support needs to engage with, and evidence, their learning through the accessibility tools and support apps and this is leading to a rise in their attainment.

Attainment over time
Almost all staff make confident judgements about how well our children are learning and progressing.
Attainment data over the last 5 years has remained at a consistently good level. with most children achieving appropriate levels as they progress through the school and achieving second level by the end of Primary 7.
Achievement
The school has a clear focus on achievement as well as attainment. Children’s achievements as learners contribute well to the life of the school and the wider community through their work to support charities and the local community. This session, we are continuing to reflect on how ‘Catholic Schools are Good for Scotland’.
All learners are given a wide range of opportunities that ensure success, build confidence and self-esteem. Pupil Voice (UNCRC Article 12) is very strong in St Michael’s and children feel valued and included and aware of their responsibilities to the school and wider community.
The school has used excellent links within the community to provide opportunities for our children to achieve. This is enhanced through holiday programmes with Action for children, Parkhead Youth Project (PYP) and Celtic FC. Our community links ensured that an extensive range of out of school opportunities and extra-curricular activities are available to all learners. Attendance is monitored and all clubs and activities are normally very well attended.
All staff create their curriculum from our Curriculum Rationale that is responsive to learners’ needs and our local context. Skills progression is explicit in all teachers’ planning and ‘application and challenge’ are planned for with ‘relevance’ being a key design principle in lessons so that learners are aware of the transference of skills to other areas of their learning and how these relate to ‘The World of Work’.
QI 3.1 Improving Wellbeing, Equality and Inclusion
Care and welfare within St. Michael’s Primary school remains a key priority. The processes and procedures that are in place reflect a culture where all staff recognise the importance of a quality learning environment that supports the wellbeing of our children. Targeted interventions to support wellbeing, and therefore attainment, are based on robust data and assessment and analysis of this to identify individual need or patterns and trends.
QI 3.1 Improving Wellbeing, Equality and Inclusion (cont.)
The context of our school means that pupil health and wellbeing and meeting learners’ needs are a priority. In order to further support this, school staff have worked with a number of community partners to continue to develop their skills. Our school has achieved the Language Communication Friendly Award and this is evident in our continued practice.
Last session, we used our PEF funding to engage an Action For Children Family Support Worker who provided bespoke and wrap around support for our children and their families. We also used our Scottish Government Counselling Budget to engage Quarriers who worked with groups of Primary 6 and 7 children.
Pre and post Intervention data collected by all has shown improvement in almost all cases on the areas being supported and school observations indicate that these interventions have shown the targeted children to be more settled and more ‘ready to learn’ in class which has led to them all making very good progress from their prior levels of attainment.
QI 1.3 Leadership of Change
St Michael’s Primary School has a very positive, welcoming and very inclusive ethos that is commented upon by almost all visitors and was positively reflected on by almost all stakeholders, pupils, parents and staff during our recent school audit.
The work of the school is underpinned by a strong Catholic ethos, The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and Glasgow City Council’s 5 Grand Challenges (GC). Through our commitment to our faith and though our RERC program, ‘This Is Our Faith’, we share the Gospel Values to ensure our school has a climate of love, compassion and respect.
We have strong links with the parish community of St Michael’s and the whole school attend and lead Mass with the parishioners. Father McMahon provides pastoral care for pupils and staff. The strong emphasis on inclusion permeates much of the work in St. Michael’s and benefits our learners through the celebration of our diverse community of various cultures and faith beliefs which enhances our school community.
Our Vision Values and Aims have recently been revised (Aug 2023) and we have updated our Curriculum Rationale. All staff, and children and the majority of parents contributed to this process. To strengthen our children’s understanding and commitment we have linked them to our ‘Star of the Week’ awards, Our Pope Francis Faith Award program and our work in gaining our UNCRC Bronze award. All stakeholders have also been consulted as to our performance as a school and what matters most to them (March 2023).
Senior Leaders carefully guide the strategic direction and pace of change to ensure changes result in positive outcomes for learners with carful consideration being given to how best to take forward priorities.
This clear vision, strong leadership and commitment of all staff to Professional Learning has ensured the highest quality of learning and teaching, and a trend of improving attainment for almost all children. Staff have worked closely with each other and staff across the learning community to look at how we can improve learning and teaching and share good practice
Almost all staff, teaching and non-teaching, have taken on roles and responsibilities for aspects of the curriculum, working groups, school and learning community activities.