National Improvement Framework Response

How effective are the process undertaken to evaluate the quality of our schools in the areas of QI 1.3 Leadership of change, QI 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessment, and QI 3.2 Raising attainment and achievement?

As part of West Dunbartonshire’s Improvement Framework, each establishment evaluates their performance against the core quality indicators of 1.3, 2.3, 3.1 and 3.2 each session. This is evidenced each year in the publication of the Standards and Quality reports for each establishment. Data for each establishment is provided in our overview. In addition, a three year cycle is in operation to ensure coverage of the remaining eleven quality indicators.

In 2017, the Improvement Framework was reviewed and adapted to meet expectations of the Attainment Challenge. This has strengthened the focus on both building capacity and quality assurance of leadership, learning and teaching, data management and parental engagement. The new framework was launched in August 2017. This framework contained proportionate models of support, tailored to the needs of establishments. This ranged from visits focusing on identified quality indicators, to supported school leadership models, where the challenge of improvement was greater.

As part of our preparation for our INPLA inspection, an evaluation of the impact of interventions to raise attainment, improve learning and narrow the poverty related attainment gap was conducted with a variety of stakeholders in October 2017. This evaluation contributed to the context for our self-evaluation summary, which was fully endorsed by HMIe. The key findings were:

Highly-effective leadership of the education service has resulted in a clear shared understanding of the local authority context and vision for improving the life chances for all children and young people.
Staff and partners working effectively together provide a wide range of support for children, young people and families which is leading to improvements in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing.
Many children, young people and families demonstrate a strong desire to positively engage in new projects and different ways of learning. As a result, they are increasing their achievements and developing skills for learning, life and work.
A well thought-out strategic approach to career long professional learning is supporting practitioners to improve their practice through collaboration, engagement in research, critical reflection and skills development.
Self-evaluation, underpinned by a robust governance framework, is an integral approach to continuous improvement.

Senior Education Officers support Head Teachers to improve performance outcomes. Targets for improvement are set for schools underperforming against national measures. Our revised framework is aligned to the Scottish Government expectation that improvement should focus on learning in the classrooms. Officers support Head Teachers to:

Focus on the quality of teaching and learning
Focus on excellence in results and outcomes

This is a robust model, allowing us to evaluate the performance of establishments on core quality indicators, and to shape the local authority delivery plan to ensure a focus on key national measures

What is the effectiveness of moderation of teacher judgement of CfE levels in literacy and numeracy?

The local authority approaches to assessment and moderation are providing an effective collaborative framework for establishments and learning communities to plan and moderate standards. Standards in literacy and numeracy are improving with robust measures used in the majority of schools to inform teacher judgement.

Through our Assessment and Moderation strategy, an effective process is in operation for the moderation of teacher judgment of CfE levels in literacy and numeracy at school, learning community, local authority, West Partnership and national levels. This strategy has been identified as a model of good practice and shared with other local authorities nationally. This strategy works in conjunction with the national approach to moderation.

How effective is the range, reach and impact of family learning in the local authority?

A strong local authority commitment to the delivery of improved outcomes for young people and families has resulted in a high quality provision for equity and inclusion. Through very good partnership working, the local authority is very effective in challenging and supporting schools to deliver appropriate universal and targeted support.

Learning communities are making good progress with evaluating how their work impacts on children, young people and their families. The Parental Involvement Strategy that was launched in 2015 has supported leaders to forge highly effective partnerships with parents. The engagement of partners in planning outcomes for young people and families is well established, and evidenced through the range of innovative projects involving families in their learning, for example from soft starts in the morning all the way through a range of initiatives to residential family experiences.

Parenting programmes provide opportunities for parents and carers to build capacity in supporting their children. All parents of 3-6 year olds with elevated behaviour difficulties have the opportunity to participate in the early years parenting programmes. Additionally, for those parents not ‘group ready’ we have increased our Outreach Support staff capacity to support engagement with these ‘harder to reach’ families. This work has been strengthened though our multi-agency approach in establishing ‘family hubs’ in two geographically selected secondary schools, to coordinate and unite the work of multiple agencies working with ‘harder to reach’ families.

What is the progress made against the annual report on the authority’s strategy for parental involvement?

The Parent and Family Engagement strategy is supporting Head Teachers to work in collaboration with their parent forum to make decisions. This is evidenced in the involvement of parents in the development of Pupil Equity Fund projects. Head Teachers have benefited from input from the Scottish Parent Teacher Council on the implementation of policy and the sharing of practice to successfully work with parents.

The involvement of partners and parents in policy development is a local priority for improvement. Parent and Family Engagement has been enhanced by SAC funding enabling additional opportunities for families to receive evidenced-based parenting support. Identified as a priority for our 2018/19 Delivery Plan is to extend the involvement of parents in decision making through sharing existing examples of good practice both from within our own local authority and beyond. Good practice is being shared to promote improvement and consistency across the service.

How effective is staff, pupil and parent collaboration with school improvement planning across the authority?

School improvement planning is a very well established collaborative process with stakeholders in West Dunbartonshire establishments. Although the model for improvement planning is created centrally in the local authority, each improvement plan is the direct result of a variety of collaborative activities with stakeholders of that establishment – involving children and young people, parents, partners, teaching and non-teaching staff and the wider community. Throughout the year, establishments are encouraged in their self-evaluative activities to ensure the thoughts and aspirations of stakeholders are understood, and collectively reflected in the co-construction and refinement of the improvement plan.

How consistently do School Improvement plans reflect the national priorities as set out in the NIF?

West Dunbartonshire has a very consistent, coherent approach to improvement planning. This model uses the advice issued by Education Scotland on the format of School Improvement Plans and Standards and Quality reports, ensuring that establishments show their progress mapped against core Quality Indicators and National Improvement Framework drivers. It also shows how priorities are aligned to local, regional and nationally agreed priorities.

Advice and guidance is offered to establishments both online, and in face to face meetings with local authority officers. Time is devoted at Head Teacher meetings to develop and challenge Improvement Planning at establishment, Local Learning Community and Local Authority level.

Each Improvement Plan and Standards and Quality Report is published online, and clearly shows aspects of work related to both the Scottish Attainment Challenge and Pupil Equity Funding. These can be found in the establishment section of this site.

What progress is being made with the priorities set out in the NIF?

Improvement in attainment, particularly in literacy and numeracy...

West Dunbartonshire has an improving record of raised attainment in Literacy and Numeracy the BGE and Senior Phase:

In Literacy, the Local Authority average in the BGE across all levels has improved from 73.3% in 2016 to 77.6% in 2017.
In Numeracy, the Local Authority average in the BGE across all levels has improved from 70.9% in 2016 to 74.8% in 2017.
In the Senior Phase, performance in Literacy and Numeracy at SCQF Level 4 shows an increasing 5 year trend
Performance in Literacy and Numeracy at SCQF Level 5 shows an increasing 3 year trend, and has been greater than our virtual comparator for 5 years.

West Dunbartonshire is beginning to reduce the poverty related attainment gap in the BGE and Senior Phase:

In the BGE, Maths Attainment for all deciles increased. The percentage increase for deciles 1 and 2 was slightly higher than all other groups.
In the Senior Phase, performance in our lowest 20%, middle 60% and highest 20% is broadly in line with our virtual comparator in 2017.
In deciles 1-6 and decile 10, West Dunbartonshire outperforms the national average in Senior Phase attainment.
In deciles 2 and 3 West Dunbartonshire’s performance is much greater than the national average in Senior Phase attainment.

Improvement in employability skills and sustained, positive school-leaver destinations for all young people?

Each establishment in West Dunbartonshire has Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce as an Improvement priority. For almost all establishments in 2017/18, this work is centred around the development of the Career Education Standard in learning and teaching, and forming curricular partnerships with public and private sector organisations.

Closing the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged children...

Since 2012/13, West Dunbartonshire has seen growth in positive school leaver destinations from a low of 89.61% in 2013/14 to the present level of 93.14% in 2016/17. When viewed through the lens of deprivation, we have seen a relative closing of the gap between the most deprived and least deprived:

In 2012/13, 93.81% of the 30% least deprived young people entered a positive destination (compared with 95.32% nationally)
In 2016/17, 98.81% of the 30% least deprived young people entered a positive destination (compared with 96.6% nationally)
In 2012/13, 87.82% of the 30% most deprived young people entered a positive destination (compared with 87.31% nationally)
In 2016/17, 91.35% of the 30% most deprived young people entered a positive destination (compared with 90.27% nationally)

We continue to outperform the national average for the percentage of the most deprived young people entering a positive destination.

Do practitioners have a common understanding of expectations in literacy and numeracy across all curriculum areas?

West Dunbartonshire has developed a coherent strategy for building teacher capacity and capability.

Improved quality of experience for children and young people through highly motivated and committed staff working as part of:

Curriculum Support networks
Teacher learning communities
Collaborative Action Research projects
School improvement trios
Staff training on early literacy by Psychological Service staff
Staff training on maths and numeracy by the Maths Attainment Team

Staff from the majority of establishments have been involved in the School Improvement Partnership Programme. As a result learners have benefited from improved experiences through the critical reflection, practice and moderation of standards by staff.

The work led by the Psychological Services on embedding reciprocal teaching methodology has evidenced improvement in reading comprehension with the lowest performing pupils improving most.

A sustainable programme of professional learning has been delivered to support system wide improvements in:

Play based learning
Building foundations in literacy
Maths interventions
Problem based, enquiring approaches to learning
Assessment and moderation
Digital learning
Nurture education
Restorative practice
Higher order thinking skills e.g. STEM and Reciprocal Teaching

How do our schools evaluate their performance?

Data for each establishment is provided in our overview.