/ Providing Inspection Services for
Department of Education
Department for Employment and Learning
Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure
Education and Training Inspectorate
Report of a Focused Inspection
St Malachy’s Primary School
Kilcoo
Inspected: January 2004
CONTENTS
Section Page
STATISTICAL INFORMATION
1. INTRODUCTION 1
2. THE QUALITY OF THE CHILDREN’S WORK 1
3. CONCLUSION 4
APPENDIX 6
BASIC INFORMATION SHEET (BIS) - PRIMARY SCHOOLS
A. i. School: St Malachy’s Primary, Kilcoo iii. Date of Inspection: W/B 26.01.04
ii. School Reference Number: 403-6036 iv. Nature of Inspection: Focused
Mathematics, ICT and P/C
B.
School Year / 1999/00 / 2000/01 / 2001/02 / 2002/03 / 2003/04Year 1 Intake / 9 / 16 / 27 / 10 / 24
Enrolments
Primary / 104 / 108 / 123 / 116 / 116
Reception / 7 / 9 / 4 / 4 / 7
Nursery Class/Classes / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
Special Unit / 0 / 0 / 0 / 7 / 0
The enrolment for the current year is the figure on the day of notification of inspection.
For previous years it is the figure in the annual return to the Department of Education.
The calculations at C and D should be based on the total of the primary and reception enrolments only.
C. Average Attendance for the Previous School Year
(expressed as a percentage): 95.33%
Primary & Nursery Special Reception Unit Unit
D. i. Number of Teachers
(including the principal and part-time teachers): 5.96 - -
(Full-time equivalent = 25 teaching hours)
ii. PTR (Pupil/Teacher Ratio): 20.6 NI PTR: 19.9
iii. Average Class Size: 24.6
iv. Class Size (Range): 17 to 30
v. Ancillary Support:
Number of Hours Per Week: i. Clerical support: 25
ii. Official Making A Good 10
Start Support:
iii. Making A Good Start funding 95
additional hours and other
classroom assistant support:
vi. Number of pupils with statements of special educational needs: 7
vii. Number of children who are not of statutory school age: 7
viii. Percentage of children entitled to free school meals: 17.9%
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 St Malachy’s Primary School is situated in the village of Kilcoo, four miles south of Castlewellan. The children come from the village and the surrounding rural area. The school identifies a quarter of the children in years1 to 7 as requiring special help with their learning, and approximately 18% are in receipt of free school meals. Over the last two years the enrolment has remained constant; the current enrolment is 116.
1.2 In recent years, the school management has had to cope with a significant number of staffing changes. These difficulties have affected the pace at which the school has been able to move forward on a number of areas it has already identified for further development.
1.3 As part of the arrangements for the inspection of pastoral care, all parents were invited to complete confidential questionnaires. Of the 79 questionnaires issued, 32 were completed and returned to the Department of Education (DE); slightly fewer than 50% of these included extended written comments. During the inspection, the inspectors held separate meetings with representatives of the Board of Governors (BoG) and had a discussion with a small group of children in year6. The parents and governors were strongly supportive of the work of the school and commended the helpful and supportive teaching and ancillary staff, the opportunities afforded to the children to succeed as individuals and the good standing of the school in the community. Comments from parents, including those relating to the time spent on silent reading, the lack of out of school activities and lunchtime supervision were discussed with the Principal. The inspection findings endorse the favourable comments made by the Governors, parents and children.
1.4 The inspection focused on the mathematics, information and communication technology (ICT), and the arrangements for pastoral care including child protection.
2. THE QUALITY OF THE CHILDREN’S WORK
2.1 The school has a friendly and caring atmosphere; there are excellent relationships between the teachers and the children, and among the children. The children’s work is celebrated in classrooms and around the school. The teachers and the classroom assistants know the children well and value their responses; they work co-operatively to provide good pastoral support for the children. The system of positive behaviour operates well in the school. The children, in all classes, are motivated to achieve merit marks or to become pupil of the month for behaving well and making an effort with their work.
2.2 Pastoral care has a high priority on the school development plan (SDP). The child protection policy sets out appropriate information on agreed procedures and guidelines. All the staff and the BoG have received appropriate training in child protection matters, and the school reports that relevant personnel have been vetted. The school is at present reviewing the documentation relating to the arrangements for child protection to reflect, more accurately, the guidance outlined in the Department of Education Circular1999/10, “Pastoral Care in Schools: Child Protection”. It is also updating important policies on related issues such as anti-bullying. The children appreciate the support within the school and are aware of the range of contacts available.
2.3 The school values the support it receives from the parents and the community. Useful Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) and curricular links have been established with another school and the children enjoy a comprehensive range of visits and activities undertaken as part of this programme.
2.4 The teachers are hard-working, well prepared for lessons and use the classroom assistants effectively to support learning. The quality of the teaching observed was always satisfactory; in almost all lessons it was good or better; in a small number the weaknesses outweighed the strengths.
2.5 There is a whole-school ICT policy in place. The staff have received training in the use and application of ICT across the curriculum. In the whole-school documentation there is detailed information on the integration of ICT into the children’s learning. Within the teachers’ planning, more consideration needs to be given to the detail in the whole-school ICT policy in relation to integrating ICT into the children’s learning experiences.
2.6 There are seven children in the reception group; these children are taught as part of a primary 1 class. The teacher plans across the seven areas of play and the children have the opportunity to select and play with a wide range of appropriate resources. The teacher and the classroom assistant provide good support for the children and helpful opportunities for them to develop early mathematical language.
2.7 At present, there is no whole-school planning for structured play. The teachers plan independently for their own class. The individual planning contributes to the organisation and management of purposeful play across the curriculum and the children have the opportunity to use a wide range of suitable resources. The planned activities support the children’s learning and their personal and social development. The children enjoy their play, work well together and share the resources fairly. By the end of the lessons the children are able to discuss their different activities with confidence and take pride in their achievements. There is a need for the teachers to share their individual planning and plan together to ensure continuity and progression in the structured play activities within and across year groups.
2.8 Since 2000 the school has focused on preparing a whole-school policy for the teaching of mathematics. The staff have been supported very well in this work by the field officer of the South-Eastern Education and Library Board’s (SEELB) Curriculum Advisory and Support Service (CASS). The school has made good use of the Dissemination of Good Practice funding it received to allow the teachers to engage in significant staff development in the planning for, and teaching of, mathematics.
2.9 The detailed, whole-school planning for mathematics identifies clearly the breadth of work to be taught, the teaching approaches to be used and the range of resources needed to support the children’s learning across each key stage. The mathematics co-ordinator, supported by the other teachers, has prepared a very useful self-evaluation report on the school’s progress over the last three years. The report makes a number of important recommendations, including, the better use of internal and external assessment data to
monitor the children’s progress, the clear identification of anticipated learning outcomes and the greater integration of ICT into everyday classroom teaching and learning. The inspection team endorses fully the recommendations made in the school’s self-evaluation report. In addressing the areas identified for improvement it will be particularly important to identify the anticipated learning outcomes for lessons and share them with the children.
2.10 In key stage (KS)1 the teachers use suitable strategies and resources to motivate the children and develop their competence and confidence in using and applying mathematical concepts in appropriate contexts. The teachers give good opportunities to the children to develop their mental mathematical skills and personal methods of calculation. Within most lessons there are regular opportunities for investigative work and the development of mathematical language. In some lessons, and through elements of the structured play programme, there was effective use of ICT programmes to support and consolidate the children’s learning in mathematics.
2.11 The children respond enthusiastically to the range of activities provided in mathematics, work hard and are keen to be successful. In the best practice, the pace of the lessons was good and the teachers were aware of the abilities of the children. They used a variety of activities, including mental and practical investigative mathematical activities to engage the children’s interest and enthusiasm, and the outcomes for a majority of the children were good. In a small minority of classes where the practice was less good, the pace of the lessons was slow and the children had insufficient opportunities to explore and investigate information and to develop mathematical language.
2.12 Almost all of the teaching observed in KS2 was of a high standard. In these lessons the teaching took account of the growing maturity and mathematical competence of the children. The learning outcomes were clear, the activities supported the children’s different abilities and allowed the children to experience success and gain confidence in their work.
2.13 The children mostly work diligently to complete the set tasks, are motivated by the use of ICT, can talk about their work and are supported well by the teachers and the classroom assistants. The majority of older children are confident about trying out their acquired mental mathematical skills in new challenges and there is clear evidence that they are developing sound methods of personal calculation. The lack of challenge for a small number of the children prevents them from reaching the standards of which they are capable.
2.14 Throughout the school there is a very good range of mathematical resources available to assist the children with their learning. In particular, the resources available to the early years children and throughout KS1 are plentiful.
2.15 Mathematics work is marked regularly and, while most class teachers ensure that unfinished work and corrections are completed, this practice is inconsistent. Usefully, the assessments carried out at the end of units of work by some teachers identify areas for improvement and support future planning appropriately. In addition, the school has made some use of the data it has on the children’s progress to inform future learning and teaching
practices. The wide range of internal and external data held in the school needs to be interrogated more effectively to ensure that the individual learning needs of the children are met. The school keeps a comprehensive file on each child in the school; the parents receive yearly written reports and have opportunities to meet with the teachers throughout the school year.
2.16 The school provides a supportive programme for those children who require help with their learning. Children who experience difficulty are identified at an early stage through the appropriate use of diagnostic tests and teacher observation and the class teachers use relevant education plans to support planning. A special educational needs (SEN) teacher is employed to withdraw children from class as individuals or in small groups for support with their English; a small number of children have recently been withdrawn for help with mathematics. The newly appointed SEN teacher is presently identifying the particular learning needs of individual children in mathematics. In the lesson observed, the teacher provided a very supportive environment, the work was appropriate and well structured and the child gained in self-esteem and self-confidence.
2.17 The Principal is committed to the school and is supportive of the teachers. He is supported very well by the vice-principal who ably co-ordinates the teaching of mathematics throughout the school. The staff work well as a team and are encouraged to become involved in decision-making and in developing the work of the school.
2.18 Monitoring and evaluation are at an early stage of development. It will be important that the good practice in teaching and learning, that exists already in the school, is shared and disseminated if the processes outlined in the whole-school planning for mathematics are to achieve their purpose of raising standards of achievement within and across the key stages. The inspection team agrees with the many strengths correctly identified in the school’s self-evaluative report, and would also agree that the continued development of mathematics is an area for further work.
3. CONCLUSION
3.1 The strengths of the school include:
· the friendly caring atmosphere;
· the relationships between the staff and the children;
· the displays of the children’s work;
· the pastoral care afforded to the children;
· the merit system;
· the hard-working teachers;
· the support provided by the classroom assistants;
· the quality of the teaching observed;
· the work of the mathematics co-ordinator;
· the EMU links.
3.2 The areas for improvement include:
· the identification of clear learning outcomes for all areas of the taught mathematics programme;
· the provision of challenging work and activities that meet the needs of all the children;