PARENTS and councillors have hit back at a report on a village’s primary school.

Education Scotland inspectors visited Dirleton Primary School last September before publishing their report in January.

The report noted several key strengths, but also highlighted a need to improve the curriculum, increase the effectiveness of evidence-gathering to ensure self-evaluation approaches bring about measurable improvements for children and greater consistency in teaching.

This month, several members of the county’s education committee hit back at the report, including ward councillors David Berry and Jim Goodfellow.

Mr Berry felt the report did not match up with the school he knew. He said: “It was almost as if they were trying to find faults and missed a lot of the things that Dirleton does well.”

Mr Berry stressed it was not “a bad, bad report”, but felt the school was performing well, especially considering recent staff turnover, with headteacher Brian Moody having only been in post for just over 18 months at the time of inspection.

The report noted: “In this time, he has had a positive impact on the work of the school. Staff welcome his leadership and the support he has provided to them.

“He models good practice and has increased expectations of what the school can achieve. He has encouraged staff to be reflective about how the school can improve and ways in which they can develop their skills.”

Mr Berry’s ward colleague Mr Goodfellow was similarly concerned by the report and said: “I first got involved with Dirleton Parent Council four years ago and was astounded at the strength of that parent body. It calls itself Dirleton School Partnership and that describes exactly what it does. There is a partnership between the parents and the community and the school.

"It was developed under the last two headteachers and has been further developed. It is exceptionally strong and is the strongest parent partnership I have come across.”

Miranda Mayes, chairwoman of the school partnership, added: “The parent council were surprised and disappointed by the report. It doesn’t reflect the school we know, which provides a caring, creative and nurturing environment for our children’s early learning and development.”