Mortlach Primary School - inspection report

There is still room for improvement at a Speyside primary school despite the progress that has been made over the past two years, inspectors have found.

Their original inspection report on Mortlach Primary School at Dufftown in February 2014 was followed up by a return visit last year and another earlier this year.

In a letter to parents following their latest visit, the inspectors have said: “Although there have been improvements in some aspects of the work of the school overall, there still remains much to be done to ensure sufficient improvement. The pace of change has been too slow.”

The letter, published today, said that while staff were now using a greater range of approaches to learning and teaching, children needed to be challenged more in their learning.

“The school is now gathering a greater range of information about children’s progress,” said the inspectors. “However, it still does not yet have a reliable overview of children’s progress and attainment over time which teachers can use to help children make better progress.”

A plan to develop programmes and courses for all curricular areas needed to be put in place to ensure children were progressively building on their learning as they moved through the school.

“The pace of implementing improvements in the curriculum, as outlined in the previous inspection, has not been maintained,” said the letter to parents.

The inspectors said staff continued to be hard working and caring and demonstrated a willingness to continue to improve the work of the school.

“Staff have continued to work with children to gather evidence of their learning, including the use of a range of assessments.

“They have begun to develop whole-school approaches to tracking and monitoring children’s progress in literacy and numeracy.

“Staff recognise that these approaches are not yet enabling them to gather the information they need to monitor children’s progress effectively. This is an area which requires further development.”

The letter concludes: “We are not yet satisfied with the overall quality of provision. As a result, our area lead officer will work with Moray Council to build capacity for improvement and will maintain contact to monitor progress.

“We shall return to carry out a further inspection within nine months of publication of this letter.”