Head teacher improved struggling Glasgow primary school with ‘super’ lessons

Gayle McDonald and her management team at Corpus Christi delivered ‘super’ lessons side by side with teachers in classrooms – breaking children up into smaller focus groups.

Ms McDonald hired extra principal teachers to make it happen at the Knightswood primary. It meant two deputes, four principal teachers and Ms McDonald would take the floor to help kids achieve more.

The school has about 53 per cent of pupils coming from the most deprived backgrounds and 40 per cent who don’t have English as their first language.

How did it help?

Speaking at a council meeting, Ms McDonald said: “I realised the only way I would get on top of what was happening and the management team would get on top of what was happening was if we actually went into class.

“We went into teach in class alongside staff.

“The teacher would teach the class, we would teach the class. We would take groups, they would take groups.”

The classes took place during three or four sessions a week for a “considerable” amount of time and the timetable ensured either a depute or Ms McDonald would always be scheduled to run the school operation.

Ms McDonald said: “It worked really well. The staff appreciated us being in. It was good for us as management. You become distant from the classroom and what is actually happening in the classroom.”

Stating that standards in maths, reading and other areas have improved, Ms McDonald said: “Our figures are going up.”

She added: “Our reading was at 68 per cent. We are currently at 78 per cent. Our writing was at 62 per cent. We are currently at 75 per cent. Our talking and listening was 72. We are currently at 84. Our numeracy was 66 we are currently at 78.”

Changes

Mrs McDonald said the school got £190,000 government pupil equity funding (PEF) to help make changes in the primary.

The education boss told councillors how she split up children needing help into smaller classes among other measures.

She told the education skills and early years city policy committee: “We had two P4 classes with a lot of need. There was not enough support. So we used PEF to split them into three really small primary five classes the following year.”

Other changes included the introduction of standardised assessments to give the school an “honest raw opinion of where our children were” said Ms McDonald.

More targeted support for pupils who had English as an additional language have also been rolled out.

Turning things around

The transformation kicked off about four years ago after Mrs McDonald took over the reins and the school had received an “okay” inspection.

Mrs McDonald said: “We had a good inspection. We were pleased with how it went but what was very clear to us at the time was our attainment had to improve. It was okay.”

She added: “There was work that could be done to improve attainment across literacy and numeracy.”

She said at the time it was clear a “significant amount of support” was needed to raise attainment.

She continued: “What I realised quickly was ‘yes’ we had 40 per of pupils with English as an additional language. We had a high level of deprivation. That didn’t matter we had to improve our results.”

She pointed out that four years ago schools with similar profiles had higher results.

She said: “We had to work out why ours were not there.”

Ms McDonald made the presentation during an update to councillors on Glasgow’s improvement challenge as part of the Scottish attainment challenge.

The Glasgow Improvement challenge, which is in its last year, aims to raise attainment and achievement for pupils in the city.