Black Mount Primary get a gold star from inspectors

The inspection team who visited found that the school has many strengths, and such was the overall quality that they will make no further visits in respect of this particular visit.

Some of the key strengths of the school were documented as:

Children are confident and articulate and show enthusiasm for learning. They are supportive and respectful of each other and work effectively as a team, demonstrating the school values.

The headteacher leads by example and empowers staff to improve and develop learning and teaching approaches. This is resulting in consistently high‑quality learning experiences that match very well to children’s abilities and interests.

The headteacher provides very effective leadership in monitoring how well children are progressing and attaining.

She works closely with staff to support children to make very good progress in their learning and provide any additional support children may require. This leads to consistently high levels of attainment.

Staff foster close partnership working with families. These positive relationships support all children very well to engage positively with the life of the school.

The following areas for improvement were identified and discussed with the headteacher and a representative from South Lanarkshire Council during the visit.

As inspectors were advised in the meeting, staff should continue, as they plan to, to raise attainment in literacy and numeracy.

Continue to provide children with opportunities to apply what they are learning in literacy and numeracy across all other areas of their learning. The planned development of outdoor learning should support this.

What happens now the inspection is over?

A spokesman said: “We are confident that the school has the capacity to continue to improve and so we will make no more visits in connection with this inspection. South Lanarkshire Council will inform parents/carers about the school’s progress as part of its arrangements for reporting on the quality of its schools.

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