/ 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
Hillsborough Primary School
Inspected: October 2002

BASIC INFORMATION SHEET (BIS) - PRIMARY SCHOOLS

A. i. School: Hillsborough Primary iii. Date of Inspection: W/B14.10.02

ii.School Reference Number: 401-1633 iv. Nature of Inspection: Focused

B.

School Year / 1998/99 / 1999/00 / 2000/01 / 2001/02 / 2002/03
Year 1 Intake / 60 / 51 / 54 / 48 / 56
Enrolments
Primary / 356 / 368 / 378 / 371 / 384
Reception / 0 / 0 / 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):97.03%

Primary &NurserySpecial Reception Unit Unit

D. i.Number of Teachers
(including the principal and part-time teachers):17--
(Full-time equivalent = 25 teaching hours)

ii.PTR (Pupil/Teacher Ratio):27.43 NI PTR: 19.9

iii.Average Class Size:27

iv.Class Size (Range):25-30

v.Ancillary Support:
Number of Hours Per Week: i.Clerical support:30

ii. Official Making A Good30

Start Support:
iii. Making A Good Start funding45

additional hours and other

classroom assistant support:

vi.Number of pupils with statements of special educational needs:2

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

viii. Percentage of children entitled to free school meals:2.34%

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1Hillsborough Primary School is situated in the village of Hillsborough. Most of the children come from the village and the immediate surrounding area. The plans for a new school on a site adjacent to the existing school are at an advanced stage. It is anticipated that the new school, an amalgamation of Hillsborough and Newport Primary Schools, will open in September2004.

1.2The arrangements for the inspection of pastoral care included the completion of questionnaires by one-third of the parents; 65% of these parents returned the questionnaire, with just over half including a written comment. There were meetings with nine parents, five governors and with a representation of children from years 4 and 6. The governors and most of the parents commended particularly the care and commitment of the teaching and ancillary staff. Any issues raised in the written responses were discussed with the principal.

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

2.THE QUALITY OF THE CHILDREN’S WORK

2.1Relationships within the school are good; both the teaching and ancillary staff support the children well in their learning and their general education. The children are happy and articulate, take great pride in their work and are welcoming to visitors. Within the classrooms, the children work well with their teachers and with each other; their behaviour is exemplary. In the assembly hall and corridors, and in the majority of classrooms, there are colourful displays which celebrate the children’s achievements.

2.2The parents and governors demonstrate a great sense of loyalty to the school through their good attendance at meetings and their active participation in a wide range of fund-raising and social activities. The communication with parents on curricular matters is improving, with the school working on initiatives that will involve the parents to a greater extent in their children’s education. For example, a minority of the parents of children in year 1 will be undertaking the Developing Early Learning and Thinking Abilities (DELTA) programme.

2.3There is a good range of extra-curricular activities. The children have been successful in a range of sporting and other activities over the past few years. The school supports well the work of the local community and helps those less fortunate through its support of a wide range of charities.

2.4The school needs to carry out a comprehensive review of its pastoral care policy to bring it more fully into line with the recommendations of the Department of Education (DE) circular 1999/10. In particular, it needs to ensure that the parents are made fully aware of its pastoral care and child protection policies, and that all staff, including ancillary workers, receive appropriate training.

2.5The teachers are hard working and prepare well for their lessons. The school has rightly identified a review of the overall planning as a priority. While much of the planning is based currently on content, the teachers are attempting to define the anticipated learning outcomes more clearly and, in a significant minority of instances, are beginning to use their evaluation of lessons to inform assessments and future planning. In general the more able children, who constitute a high proportion of the school’s intake, need more opportunities for challenging work better matched to their abilities; equally, the minority of children who experience some difficulty with a subject need more support.

2.6The quality of teaching was always satisfactory and, in a significant minority of the lessons observed, it ranged from very good to excellent. In the most successful lessons, the teachers provided good opportunities for talking and listening before starting an activity. Through skilful questioning techniques, they encouraged the children to develop their ideas fully. Many of the resources used helped the children develop their understanding of the topic and presented them with a challenge which was appropriate to their needs. In the less successful lessons, the pace was too slow and the resources used did not allow the children to develop their initiative and to learn independently.

2.7The children are keen to learn and respond readily to their teachers. When asked to work in groups or independently, they settle quickly to their work. They co-operate easily with one another and there is a sense of enthusiasm and enjoyment in many of the classes. The standard of presentation of their work is very high.

2.8The teachers have recently completed their New Opportunities Fund (NOF) training in ICT. The school has a small computer suite with computers provided by funds from the Parent Teachers’ Association. A significant minority of the teachers use the ICT suite regularly with the children and there is evidence of the use of ICT in the majority of classrooms. There are good examples of the use of the digital camera in the early years of key stage (KS) 1, and a significant minority of the teachers are developing the use of data-handling. While there are examples of very good practice, the use of ICT for research purposes needs to be developed more widely. Overall, the children need more frequent opportunities to use ICT to support and enhance their learning. The range of experiences offered to the children is restricted because the school has not been involved in the Curriculum 2000 initiative due to the proposed amalgamation.

2.9In year 1, the children benefit from regular periods of structured play, which are well organised and enjoyable. Many of the sessions observed were based on class themes and helped to promote the children’s use of language and develop mathematical concepts. The adults provide sensitive and useful support; the teachers’ planning, monitoring and recording of the children’s play experiences ensure continuity and progression in the activities. There is a need to review the current provision in the rest of KS1, in order to provide a broader programme of structured play activities across the key stage.

2.10The children enjoy their mathematics greatly and almost all achieve good standards in important basic computational skills. In a majority of the classes, the children are developing satisfactory to good skills in estimating, measuring and data-handling, and a majority of the children are successfully acquiring good mathematical reasoning skills.

2.11In the best practice observed, in just over one-third of the lessons, the work was suitably paced, well matched to the children’s varying needs and abilities, and, when appropriate, encouraged them to take responsibility for aspects of their own learning. The teachers used a wide and varied range of suitable teaching strategies. The children had frequent opportunities to talk to, and learn from each other, and there was a wider exchange of ideas within imaginative whole-class teaching. The children used a wide range of written and other mathematical resources to develop their investigative skills and flexible ways of thinking and solving problems. A key priority will be to extend this very good or excellent practice in mathematics to all the classes.

2.12Under the helpful guidance of the mathematics co-ordinator the schemes of work are being updated. These require clearer guidance on the intended learning outcomes, the progression expected across the key stages, and the key processes and skills to be covered in each of the primary years. Additionally, the schemes should specify the range of written and other resources to be used in the various classes, and set out the frequency with which the children are expected to carry out investigations or engage in mental mathematics. The school has already identified most of these issues as priorities.

2.13Following recent in-service training (INSET) from the South-Eastern Education and Library Board (SEELB) there has been an increased emphasis on developing new approaches to the teaching of mental mathematics and the number system. In the lessons seen, the children responded enthusiastically to activities designed to develop their speed and accuracy. All of the teachers are employing an increasing range of strategies and resources to support the development of the children’s skills in mental calculations and their understanding of the number system.

2.14The principal has been in post for just over a year during which time he has had to deal with the proposed plans for amalgamation. He is providing good leadership, has a clear vision for the future of the school, and has worked diligently to improve communication with the parents and to agree with the staff areas for development. The inspection findings would endorse the areas for improvement highlighted within the development plan as appropriate, including the proposed review of the roles and responsibilities within the school.

2.15The school policy for special educational needs (SEN) identifies appropriately the roles and responsibilities for all involved. The children who are in need of additional support with their learning in mathematics are identified clearly through teacher observation and standardised testing. The support teacher works closely with the class teacher to develop educational plans which reflect appropriately the children’s needs; she provides sensitive and appropriate support for the children who are withdrawn from class. A review is needed of the provision made for the children who are not receiving this additional support to ensure that the set work is matched more closely to their identified needs.

2.16The school has many strengths such as the caring ethos, the hard-working and committed staff, the confident and articulate children, and the examples of very good and excellent teaching. The inspection has identified the need to review the school’s pastoral care and child protection policy and to develop the planning in mathematics and ICT to meet more fully the needs of the whole ability range. These issues need to be addressed if the school is to meet, more effectively, the needs of all the children.

APPENDIX

HEALTH AND SAFETY

1.There is major traffic congestion at the main entrance to the school at the beginning and end of the school day.

2.The arrangements for the parking of staff and visitor vehicles in the school playground need to be reviewed as they constitute a possible danger to the children.

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 CROWN COPYRIGHT 2002

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