Carmuirs Primary School and Nursery Class - Falkirk Council

FALKIRK COUNCIL
Education Services
Carmuirs Primary School
and Nursery Class
Standards & Quality Report
Session 2008 – 2009
I hope you enjoy reading about our many successes and achievements over the
past year, and our plans for the year ahead.
Caitlin Leiper
Headteacher
We want our pupils to be:

Paired reading for P1-P7 Implemented a new
Reading Reward Scheme
Introduced Literature Circles
Some Achievements and Successes
from Session 2008 - 2009
We are delighted that we have successfully maintained a high level of attainment in all areas.
Developing literacy has been a major
task for us this session.
All classes including the nursery
took part in an Authority Literacy
Review. The team were very
impressed and said we were doing a
very good job of developing our
pupil’s literacy skills.
Storyteller during World Book Day
Spent over £2000 on
improving the school
library.
P6 Visit to Camelon
Children’s Centre to read
stories
Primary 1 and 2 introduced Soft Start/ Soft Finish to encourage parents to share time in class with their
child.
The school website has been redesigned and provides a variety of information on school policies,
improvement priorities etc as well as showcasing the wonderful work done by pupils in all classes
including the Nursery.
I really enjoyed being part of
the Website group getting the
website ready for everyone to
use. P6 pupil
The website is very
informative and I enjoy
looking at what my
children have been
doing. Parent
I feel really proud
when I look back at all
my achievements. P7
Achievement jotters were introduced to allow all pupils to record their personal achievements,
collect stickers, certificates etc which are then shared with their parents throughout the year.
Groupcall text messaging has been introduced to ensure the safety of our children and to help improve
pupil attendance.

The House System
encourages
everyone to behave
better. P6 pupil
The House system has been revised and children are responding very
positively to the rewards offered and are very motivated to earn House
Points. This has helped to improve behaviour.
I like all the rewards
that the weekly top
earners get. P7 pupil
Parental consultation opportunities have increased including a session on A
Curriculum for Excellence, invitations to see how Paired Reading works and
to see the new library. Parents were also invited to complete a Health
Questionnaire and a ‘How Good is Our School’ survey, and to comment on
the Breakfast Walk and Open Evening. The feedback from parents about all
of these was very positive and supportive.
The Parent Council have been very busy this session raising funds to support a
visit from a theatre group, school trips, purchasing reading books for P6, MP3
Players and a camera. Their Spring Fayre was a huge success raising £1100.
Staff are ensuring that all children are experiencing active and
collaborative approaches to their learning, ensuring pupil
motivation and engagement.
We were very pleased to receive a grant of £500 which enabled
us to purchase technology equipment for our whole school
‘Technology Challenge’ afternoon.
The children are really enjoying the Healthy Hut which now runs Monday to Thursday each
week, staffed by Parents who have undertaken the Food Hygiene certificate.
The Nursery enjoyed an outing to Callendar Park to learn more about
trees, plants and animals. Later in the session they also enjoyed a wonderful
visit to the Jupiter Centre looking at Minibeasts. They held a variety of
fundraising events including a Yummy Mummy Pyjama Day for CLIC Sargent,
and a Pedal Push for nursery funds.
The ECO Committee has been hard at work improving
our playground and garden by organising fencing, making a pond and planting
tubs and window boxes.
Some pupils were able to work with the ArtLink
Project to create the lovely painted insects which now
decorate our garden. We were also successful in securing funding from
Sustrans to get a bike shelter. Some senior pupils have been trained to ride their bikes safely, gaining their
Cycling Passport and can now bring their bikes to school.
Pupils in the school also enjoyed the annual Health and International weeks and we were delighted to
receive our International Education Award this session.
Thank you for all your support☺
Staff have updated Policies for Citizenship, Enterprise and Writing and created
leaflets for parents on ‘How to help your child read’.

Priorities for 2009 – 2010
• To establish a shared vision and values for the School and Nursery
• To develop a core programme of teaching and celebrating Scot’s Language
• Strengthening partnerships with local businesses and to extend community links
• Update policies for Support for Learning, Maths, Expressive Arts and Listening and Talking
• Gain awards for Enterprise (Bronze) and our first Green Flag (ECO Schools)
• Adapt Personal Learning Planning (PLP’S) to reflect the Principles of A Curriculum for Excellence
• Nursery – to continue to broaden opportunities for literacy development and enterprise
• Nursery – to continue to develop partnerships with parents and the community
Attainment
2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09
Reading Carmuirs P.S. 87% 85% 86% 87%
E.A
84% 85% 85% 85%
Writing Carmuirs P.S. 87% 84% 88% 85%
E.A.
81% 81% 81% 82%
Maths Carmuirs P.S 89% 89% 94% 93%
E.A.
87% 88% 87% 88%
Listening Carmuirs P.S
87% 93% 91%
E.A.
85% 87% 86%
Talking Carmuirs P.S.
88% 93% 93%
E.A.
85% 85% 86%
(E.A. = Average for all Falkirk Council Primary schools)
Attendance = 93%