/ 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
Drumard Primary School
Maghera
Inspected: October 2002

BASIC INFORMATION SHEET (BIS) - PRIMARY SCHOOLS

A. i. School: Drumard Primary iii. Date of Inspection: W/B 21/10/02

ii. School Reference Number: 301-2255 iv. Nature of Inspection: Focused

B.

School Year / 1998/99 / 1999/00 / 2000/01 / 2001/02 / 2002/03
Year 1 Intake / 9 / 8 / 13 / 12 / 9
Enrolments
Primary / 61 / 57 / 58 / 64 / 59
Reception / 0 / 2 / 0 / 0 / 0
Nursery Class/Classes / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
Special Unit / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 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): 97%

Primary & Nursery Special Reception Unit Unit

D. i. Number of Teachers
(including the principal and part-time teachers): 3.48 - -
(Full-time equivalent = 25 teaching hours)

ii. PTR (Pupil/Teacher Ratio): 16.95 NI PTR: 19.9

iii. Average Class Size: 19.7

iv. Class Size (Range): 17-23

v. Ancillary Support:
Number of Hours Per Week: i. Clerical support: 10

ii. Official Making A Good -

Start Support:
iii. Making A Good Start funding 10

additional hours and other

classroom assistant support:

vi. Number of pupils with statements of special educational needs: 1

vii. Number of children who are not of statutory school age: 0

viii. Percentage of children entitled to free school meals: 11.8%

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Drumard Primary School serves the villages and the surrounding townlands of Tamlaght O’Crilly and Innisrush. There are 59 children attending the school in the current school year, of whom almost 12% are entitled to receive free school meals.

1.2 As part of the inspection process, the parents’ views on aspects of the life and work of the school were sought by means of a confidential questionnaire. The inspection team also met with the governors, parents and groups of children to hear their views at first-hand. The governors expressed very strong support for, and confidence in, the principal, the staff and the work of the school. Their only concern related to aspects of the school’s accommodation. This matter is dealt with in Appendix1. Those parents who attended the meeting were generally very supportive of the work of the school. The responses to the parents’ questionnaire also indicated, for the most part, support or strong support for the work of the school, particularly with regard to its ethos and its provision for teaching and learning. The most common reservation, raised by a small minority of the respondents, related to the range of extra-curricular activities provided by the school. This point is dealt with in the main body of the report. In discussions with members of the inspection team, the children expressed their satisfaction with the arrangements for their care, safety and happiness at school.

1.3 The inspection focused on the work in English and information and communication technology (ICT), and pastoral care, including the arrangements for child protection.

2. THE QUALITY OF THE CHILDREN’S WORK

2.1 There is a clear sense of community within the school; the children and the teachers know, and work with, one another well. A stimulating display of artefacts and photographs in the entrance foyer celebrates the history of the school in the locality. Positive and supportive relationships were evident at all levels within the school throughout the inspection. The children are courteous to, and co-operative with, one another and their teachers. They are mannerly and welcoming to visitors and they display good levels of interest in their learning; their behaviour is generally excellent.

2.2 The teachers show strong commitment and loyalty to the school; they are hard-working and conscientious. They provide an attractive environment for teaching and learning through, for example, displaying the children’s written work prominently in classrooms and corridor areas. The classroom assistants and the ancillary and support staff make an important contribution to the ethos of the school. The school building is bright and well maintained; the standard of caretaking is good.

2.3 The children’s learning is enhanced by a variety of enrichment activities; they experience a good range of recreational and cultural activities as part of their curriculum each week. Each year, the children participate in, and they are provided with outings to, drama productions. In addition, they have opportunities to work along with children from other primary schools in the locality and they participate, with much success, in inter-school quiz competitions. Notably, the school makes the children aware of environmental issues and of the needs of others; they contribute much to local recycling initiatives and raise generous funds for charitable causes.

2.4 The parents are kept well informed about events in the school through regular news-sheets. They are provided with an annual written report on their child’s progress and there are suitable arrangements in place for parent and teacher meetings. The school has provided information for parents on curricular developments on a number of occasions; it reports that a small minority of the parents has attended these events.

2.5 The school places a considerable emphasis on the pastoral care of the children. Sound policies to guide the pastoral work of the school are in place and they are implemented effectively. In addition, the school has introduced sessions of circle time to enhance the pastoral dimension of its curriculum. The teachers and the support staff have received appropriate training on child protection matters and they are clear on their duties and responsibilities. The school is aware of the need to issue an updated summary of its child protection arrangements to parents and to maintain records of concerns raised orally by parents. The school is working appropriately towards the full implementation of the guidance outlined in the DE’s Circular1999/10, ‘Pastoral Care in Schools: Child Protection’.

2.6 The teachers are in the process of developing the whole-school and individual planning for English. They have drawn up a worthwhile literacy policy, and they have compiled clear intended lines of development in the children’s writing skills from year1 to year7, and in their reading skills at key stage (KS)1. The teachers are using these guidance documents to develop their half-termly planning for English in a common framework. This planning is, mostly, detailed and specific; it focuses on the anticipated learning activities for the children, makes clear reference to how account will be taken of the children’s different needs in the respective year groups, and it incorporates details of the intended learning experiences in ICT. A number of the teachers have begun to write useful evaluations in their planning.

2.7 The quality of teaching observed during the inspection was always satisfactory; often it was good to very good. The teachers prepare for lessons carefully and conscientiously; they provide a variety of activities and resources that take due account of the wide range of needs and abilities of the children in their composite classes. In the most effective practice observed, the teachers focused clearly on the learning outcomes for the children, they conducted the work at a brisk pace and they stimulated discussion in order to challenge the children to reflect on, and improve, their work.

2.8 The children are interested in their learning and they respond willingly to their teachers; they participate in the learning activities, for the most part, with sustained attention and concentration.

2.9 The structured play sessions observed provided the children with a sound variety of activities that were linked thoughtfully to a literary theme. The children, mostly, participated with keen concentration in their play, and they had good opportunities to display and discuss their work at the close of sessions. More attention, in particular, needs to be given to extending the children’s imaginative and creative play. The planning for the programme needs to be reviewed and updated to provide greater progression in the children’s learning experiences.


2.10 The children have frequent opportunities to develop and discuss their work in small groups, in pairs and in whole-class situations; they contribute to oral activities with good interest. The inspection team noted effective extended discussion at the close of a number of sessions. On these occasions, the children were encouraged to read aloud or report back the outcomes of their work; they would benefit from more widespread experiences in this aspect of their learning.

2.11 The children’s reading skills are being developed regularly and systematically. In addition to a graded reading scheme, the children’s interest in reading is stimulated through frequent opportunities to read folk literature and, from year4, to experience a thoughtful range of novels. Much effective use, in both key stages, is made of these reading materials to develop the children’s writing skills. The teachers use a good range of teaching strategies and resources to support and meet the interests and needs of individual children, and to address the wide range of reading ability in individual class groupings. On occasions, greater emphasis needs to be placed on using strategies to assist the children in coping with challenging and unfamiliar text. The teachers, in both key stages, are successful in promoting shared reading of stories to enhance the children’s oral confidence and expression. By year7, most of the children are reading competently and accurately.

2.12 The teachers are placing particular emphasis on supporting and encouraging the children as writers; the children are experiencing useful contexts and resources to assist and encourage their growing independence and breadth of experiences in writing. By year3, they are beginning to record regularly, albeit tersely, in diaries and personal writing books, and clear progress is also being made in beginning to develop empathy and imagination in their writing. The children’s opportunities to write independently in other areas of the curriculum at KS1 are limited. At KS2, the children are learning the purpose of particular forms of writing and they are developing successfully techniques of planning, drafting and editing. They have challenging opportunities to model their writing on a variety of authors and story forms and to discuss their writing with the teacher and their peers; these approaches are assisting the children significantly to construct their writing and improve their expression. By the end of KS2, the children are experiencing a good variety of writing in English, and they have some opportunities to respond to open-ended writing activities in other areas of the curriculum. They would benefit from more frequent opportunities to produce more extended written responses in English and in the learning of other subjects.

2.13 The school has a helpful policy document in place to guide its work in ICT. A recent staff development programme has increased the teachers’ confidence in the use of ICT for planning and teaching. The children are benefiting from the recent acquisition of modern ICT resources; these resources have been used well to promote the presentation of the children’s stories and their experiences in shared writing. During the inspection, the children made effective use of ICT to develop their early reading and writing skills to compose in draft form, and to develop further, dialogues and descriptive passages. The children’s use of the Internet for finding information and electronic mail for communicating with others is at an early stage of development. Many of the children use ICT confidently in lessons, particularly for communication, and they display considerable competence. Nonetheless the school needs to use ICT more extensively as a resource to enhance the children’s experiences across the curriculum and to promote progression in the children’s ICT skills.


2.14 The teachers mark the children’s work regularly; they often provide encouraging comments and suggestions as to how the children might improve their work. The teachers maintain ongoing records of samples of the children’s work, and they review, and set targets for, the children’s performance at the end of the key stages.

2.15 The teachers have identified five children as requiring additional help with aspects of their language learning. These children receive regular additional support in class or in withdrawal sessions from a part-time teacher. The special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO) has compiled a special needs register, and education plans for each of the children have been drawn up in consultation with the class teachers. The teachers review the children’s progress twice each year and they maintain useful records of consultations with the parents. Most of the targets in the education plans, and the associated evaluations of the children’s progress, are too broad; the school needs to identify more specifically the learning needs of the children and to quantify the improvement made by them in their learning. The withdrawal sessions and the learning support provided in class are well organised and clearly focused; the teacher makes effective use of a range of resources to provide the children with appropriate and challenging activities. The withdrawal sessions take place in the school assembly hall or the staff room due to the lack of alternative accommodation; this arrangement, in many respects, is unsuitable.

2.16 The principal has been in post for thirteen years. He administers and organises the school conscientiously and efficiently. Appropriate development planning and well-aligned in-service training have contributed much to the current curriculum development of the school; these are established and successful features of the principal’s leadership. The school has a useful policy on monitoring and evaluating teaching and learning. In practice, initial steps have been taken to review the teachers’ planning and the children’s written work; the school needs to implement further its strategies for monitoring and evaluation.

2.17 While the school building is generally well-maintained, there are a number of deficiencies in the accommodation and in aspects of health and safety that have an adverse effect on the operation of the school; these matters are outlined in appendices to this report.