Grantown Primary School success was down to the whole team, says headteacher
The headteacher who oversaw her primary school’s ‘stellar’ rise on the 2025 Sunday Times Scottish primary school league table has shared her secret with the Strathy.
“We all worked our socks off!” said Kip Clark.
Grantown Primary School’s astonishing improvement was the perfect high for the woman who has just retired to her beekeeping and family life after a long and eventful career.
She was given a tumultuous send off last month by the pupils, shortly before The Sunday Times’ confirmation of what it described as their ‘stella performance’ with the school rising 160 points over her final year.
It is the school’s best showing since the records began in 2016.
Now rated 22nd in the Highlands and 350th in Scotland, Grantown was just one of a handful of schools singled out in the newspaper’s report of this year’s movers and shakers.
A total of 47 primary schools across the Highlands were ranked including Aviemore Primary School which was rated as 42nd in the region
No other strath schools were named in the table - they need to submit performance data in order to do do.
In the league, schools are marked against four categories: reading, writing, numeracy and combined listening-and-talking. Each category is scored out of 100 for a total of 400.
“We’re all very pleased,” said Mrs Clark. “I was very pleased to go out with the school’s assessment and I’m so pleased for the staff.
“Teaching’s not an easy job and there are all kinds of challenges - following Covid there was a lot to catch up on. And then we had the school refurbishment going on around us. There was all of that and the staff have absolutely worked their socks off.
“It’s always a team effort. We have focussed, I feel, on the right things.
“We have used our data well - if you use the data correctly then you find out where the gaps are and what we really need to focus on to raise everybody’s attainment.
“And they’re still working hard - I think this year’s data will be the same.”
The secret was keeping very careful information on all the data, she added.
Mrs Clark continued: “I was constantly tracking and monitoring where the children are at and what they need to do.
“We track individual children. There are those who are maybe borderline who with a little bit of extra emphasis on certain things we can get over the line.
“That’s how everybody works at the school, we very closely scrutinise the data in assessments to ensure that we are focussing on the right things.”
The school has a roll of 223 in the main building and 31 in the nursery.
“The children sit their standardised assessments that staff run regularly at the end of phases and we scrutinise data coming back from those and also day-to-day feedback on what we’re seeing in the classroom.
“By focussing on individuals as well as the whole class then we can close gaps, you can go back where necessary.
“It’s being open to making mistakes, I suppose, it’s understanding that you may have to go back and repeat things.
“It’s having an open mind to embracing the information you get back when you assess.
“I am so delighted and it’s the perfect send-off for me after 28 years in the profession but, honestly, it’s always a team effort.!
Local Highland councillor Muriel Cockburn shared her delight: “It is great to see our schools being recognised for their hard work and achievements .
“These achievements are testament to all who deliver education alongside the parents and carers who support our young learners.”
A Highland Council spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government or local authority do not produce school league tables to measure performance.
“League tables do not tell the story of a school’s context, journey and the achievement of pupils to reach their full potential.
“There is a collective commitment to work together to improve attainment for our young people in Highland.”
Sara Riach is currently taking on the role of interim head teacher for the school.
The spokesperson said: “The headteacher post has recently been advertised as a permanent position, with interviews taking place within the next weeks.”
