Balmerino Primary School

Overview

Education Scotland inspectors visited Balmerino Primary School and Nursery Class in March 2023, finding a school where children are “happy, settled and feel safe.” The report highlights “high-quality learning in the outdoors” and “skilled, creative approaches” by nursery practitioners, noting that all nursery children make “very good progress.”

Strengths

• Staff ensure all children are “welcome and included,” fostering a positive environment.
• Outdoor learning is described as “motivating, relevant and meaningful.”
• Nursery practitioners respond “very well to the development needs of all children.”
• Leadership of change, learning, teaching, assessment, wellbeing, and attainment are all evaluated as “good” for primary stages.
• Nursery leadership and securing children’s progress are evaluated as “very good.”

Areas to improve

• The headteacher and staff must “continue to develop approaches to planning, tracking and monitoring children’s progress and achievement” across the nursery and school.
• The headteacher needs to “develop further strategic approaches to evaluating the work of the school” to ensure “rigorous quality assurance activities support improvement.”

Safeguarding

The report states that children “feel safe” and that staff work to ensure all children are “welcome and included,” with the quality indicator for ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion evaluated as “good.”