Staff at Pirie Park Primary School, Glasgow are being praised for their sector leading approach to supporting children with additional needs and their approach to responsive learning and teaching.
Practitioners at Pirie Park have developed a broad range of skills and capabilities similar to those of learning support specialists. This development of staff has been recognised as innovative practice by Education Scotland in supporting learners within the school.
Staff use their knowledge of the children and additional support needs (ASN) profiles to help identify learning issues and provide tailored support to children with ASN. This combined with responsive planning and active learning, where tasks, activities and resources interest and motivate children, has led to an exemplary, high quality learning and support environment for learners.
To celebrate their achievements, Pirie Park received a visit from Alan Armstrong, Strategic Director for School Years at Education Scotland. He said:
“It’s fundamental that children and young people have the right support in place to be able to reach their full potential. I am delighted to have met such dedicated and hardworking staff, who are able to provide such tailored and responsive teaching to support children with additional support needs.
“By adopting this approach, staff are able to help all children achieve in many ways. Responsive learning also plays a big part in developing learners’ skills. It enables the children to recognise the relevance and importance of the skills they’re learning now, and how these will help them in their lives beyond school. I am very pleased to see this in practice.”
Jane Arthur, Pirie Park Primary Headteacher said: “Last year our school community was delighted to receive such an excellent and positive inspection report that endorsed our work on learning and teaching practices.
“We are committed to making sure that every child in Pirie Park is included, feels valued and receives the targeted support for their individual needs. Our aim is for our children to be happy, confident individuals who will be the best they can be.”
A key feature of the schools highly effective learning and teaching is their investment in practitioners as the core resource. Through classroom practice and professional learning, they have developed skills which mean they can meet the needs of a wide range of children in the classroom.
Following their inspection in June last year, Pirie Park achieved an excellent evaluation for meeting learning needs, and very good evaluations for improvements in performance, learner’s experiences, the curriculum and improvement through self-evaluation. A copy of the Pirie Park Primary School inspection report is available here.
