Stanley Primary School

Overview

Education Scotland inspectors visited Stanley Primary School and Early Learning and Childcare in January 2025. The report highlights a school where children are “polite, caring and motivated to learn” and staff work effectively as a team. While the nursery class received “good” evaluations across all quality indicators, the primary stages were judged “satisfactory” for leadership and learning, with “good” ratings for wellbeing and attainment.

Strengths

• Children are described as “very supportive of each other” and demonstrate a “good understanding of their school values and rights.”
• Staff, including senior leaders and support staff, are “keen to develop their individual and collective skills to help improve outcomes for children.”
• There is a “range of leadership opportunities for children at the primary stages” through clubs, committees, and groups.
• Approaches to supporting wellbeing are effective, with children speaking “confidently about the support they receive” and knowing how to support their own health independently.

Areas to improve

• All staff should “increase the rigour of approaches to evaluate the quality of the work more accurately” to ensure planned improvements enhance learning outcomes.
• Senior leaders and teachers need to improve approaches to learning, teaching, and assessment to ensure “consistently high quality” and a “brisker” pace of learning at the right difficulty level.
• Staff must further develop planning and assessment, specifically improving how “observations, assessment data and other key information is used” to ensure all children make the best possible progress.

Safeguarding

The report states that children “know and understand how to support their own health and wellbeing independently” and speak confidently about the support they receive.