1.INTRODUCTION

1.1St Patrick’s College, Dungannon, is a new, maintained school which opened in September1998, when the local Boys’ and Girls’ Secondary Schools amalgamated. The school continues to operate from the accommodation used by the two secondary schools. The year 8 and year 9 pupils are taught on the Donaghmore Road site; the other year groups, including the sixth-form, are taught on the Killymeal Road site. In spite of careful curriculum planning, 7% of the timetabled week is allocated to give teachers time to travel between the two sites for their classes; in addition, some members of staff have to travel between the two sites each day, during their morning break or at lunchtime. Currently, there are 650 pupils enrolled at the school, of whom 32 are in the sixth-form.

1.2For the first two years after the amalgamation, the new school was involved in the School Improvement Programme; as an important part of its work in the programme, the school produced an appropriate school development plan, and established the practice of monitoring and evaluating its identified targets for improvement. The principal and senior management team worked hard, and with success, to establish among the staff, the culture of self-evaluating their work. The role of the middle managers was given an appropriately high profile, and the staff in these positions were given opportunities to take lead responsibility for key areas of the school’s planned curricular developments. The higher profile given to middle management, combined with a significant level of relevant in-service training (INSET), helped to establish a positive school ethos and the culture of self-evaluation. The staff of the new school gained sufficient professional confidence to invite the Education and Training Inspectorate to quality-assure a whole-school area of its internal evaluation work across the year 10 classes. The focus of the internal evaluation was, ‘Assessment - Marking for Improvement’.

1.3Prior to the inspection, a random sample of the parents of the pupils received a confidential questionnaire seeking their views on the school. One-fifth of the sample returned the completed questionnaires to the Department of Education. Nearly all the parental views expressed in the responses were very positive about the life and work of the school, and of the arrangements for the care and welfare of their children. Two members of the inspection team met with a group of parents of the year 10 pupils and with representatives of the Board of Governors. Each group expressed its strong support for, and confidence in, the staff and the work of the school; in particular, the parents valued the support provided for children with specific learning needs, and the very positive effect of the school’s marking for improvement on their children’s motivation to improve their work and marks. The groups of pupils from year 8 and year 12 who met with the inspectors spoke positively about their school experiences, and the academic and pastoral support available to them from their teachers. The very few issues raised in the written responses from the parents have been shared with the principal and the representatives of the Board of Governors. The inspection findings confirm the positive views expressed by the Board of Governors, the parents and the pupils.

1.4The school has invested heavily in providing preparation time, INSET, staff and material resources for the whole-school programme of personal and social education (PSE). There are appropriate and effective structures in place to secure the pastoral and academic welfare of the pupils. The school’s taught programme of PSE is managed competently, planned carefully and, monitored and evaluated regularly. A significant feature of the evaluation of the PSE programme is the opportunity given to the pupils to offer their views on the appropriateness of the topics studied in their year group, and on the usefulness of the information provided by the external speakers who are invited into the school to talk on a range of pastoral and social topics. The content of the PSE programme is reviewed and agreed annually, in consultation with the heads of year and the form teachers of each class, and meets the diverse needs of the pupils. The staff know the pupils well and are caring of them. The relationships between and among the pupils and the teachers, are generally good or very good, inside and outside the classroom. The pupils behave very well and are welcoming, friendly and courteous to visitors. Through the school council, the pupils have the opportunity to bring their views to the attention of the principal and they have been successful in bringing about requested changes, for example, to their school uniform. The school has a complementary range of whole-school policies, for example, its behavioural management policy, which contributes to and supports the PSE programme.

1.5The school’s arrangements for Child Protection are in line with the guidance in the Department of Education’s Circular 1999/10. All the members of the teaching and ancillary staff have had appropriate INSET, and the designated teacher for child protection matters updates this training each year for the staff and the members of the Board of Governors.

1.6In reaching its judgement on the efficacy of the internal evaluation procedures used by the school in its focus on ‘Assessment - Marking for Improvement’, and the validity of the findings presented, the inspection team, which included a serving principal from a similar type of school as the associate inspector, read the school’s comprehensive evaluation report, discussed the findings with the internal evaluation team, held separate discussions with key members of staff, observed lessons, examined books and assessment portfolios. The inspection team also met with representatives of the Board of Governors and a group of parents of the year 10 pupils, and listened to the views of a representative group of the pupils involved in the self-evaluation of their oral, practical and written work.

2.SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

2.1The school’s carefully planned self-evaluation of a significant area of its work has a number of distinctive features, which include:

  • the culture and ethos of the school, and the openness of the staff, that created the suitable climate in which the internal self-evaluation work took place;
  • the capable leadership and management of the self-evaluation team;
  • the competence, hard work, sensitivity and evident professional development of the members of the self-evaluation team;
  • the appropriately constructed instruments used to gather and record information about marking for improvement;
  • the agreed classroom observation of, and by, the self-evaluation team;
  • the involvement of, consultation and communication with, the pupils, the staff and the Board of Governors, throughout the process;
  • the clearly presented report of the process and findings of the internal self-evaluation work;
  • the regular support provided to the self-evaluation team by the link officer from the Southern Education and Library Board’s Curriculum and Advisory Service.

2.2The self-evaluation team has made valid and achievable recommendations, based on first-hand evidence, to the staff, to middle and senior management and to parents. These recommendations include the need for the teachers to:

  • make the pupils more aware of the assessment of their oral and practical work;
  • use more oral feedback when returning work to the pupils;
  • display examples of the pupils’ best work to encourage and motivate those pupils, and others, to improve their standards of achievement;
  • use percentages when marking assessments;
  • clarify, within departments, the level descriptors used to ensure that the pupils are more aware of their level of attainment;
  • involve the pupils in self-evaluating their work and in setting targets for improvement.

The recommendations to senior management include the following proposals:

  • that the whole-school policy on marking, recording and reporting is revised;
  • that the marks recorded in the pupils’ Christmas and summer reports should be aligned with the practices that have been agreed as a result of the self-evaluation work.

The team has also recommended that parents should be encouraged:

  • to sign and write comments on the pupil improvement reports;
  • to sign the pupils’ school diaries, and to write comments in them on a regular basis.

2.3The inspection team recommends the following additional areas for development:

  • further professional development for all staff, which will enable them to facilitate the pupils in self-evaluating their work, and in setting achievable and appropriate improvement targets, which can be supported and monitored through the pupils’ homework and other school work;
  • the monitoring and evaluation of the completed pupil improvement reports by senior management and heads of department, to inform any required modifications to teaching and learning practices.

2.4Observation of lessons formed a significant element of this inspection. The quality of the teaching observed was always satisfactory; in a majority of instances it was good, and there were a few examples of excellent practice. Relationships between the teachers and the pupils were generally good or very good; the pupils were usually well motivated to work, and were confident in asking and answering questions. Most of the teachers prepared carefully for their lessons; in the best practice, the teachers revised previous work, and took time to explain and secure the next phase of the pupils’ learning throughout the lesson. In the less successful practice, the presentation of the lesson content was not appropriately matched to
the age and ability of the pupils, and a significant minority of the pupils lost interest in the topics. All the teachers need to make time before the end of each lesson to remind the pupils of the intended key learning points. There is good evidence that the teachers are beginning to incorporate the agreed marking principles when correcting the pupils’ work. In the diaries for the pupils that have been prepared for the next academic year, the school has included the marking details of the assessments, and the descriptors associated with given grades, percentages and levels of attainment, so that the pupils and their parents understand the standards of performance and achievement.

3.CONCLUSION

3.1The principal and staff have worked hard to develop and promote the process of self-evaluation of the school’s work. In the short time since the school has been established, significant progress has been made in creating the culture needed for this self-critical way of working. The leadership of the self-evaluation team, and the dedication and commitment of the team members have contributed significantly to embedding self-evaluation as a useful approach to school improvement. Despite the logistical difficulties under which the school operates from two sites, the staff have managed to address a challenging whole-school issue in a constructive and coherent manner, with the minimum of disruption to the daily routines of the school, and with a very high level of personal commitment to making the process work.

3.2The inspection team endorses the findings from the self-evaluation report; the procedures used are comprehensive and fit for purpose; the recommendations made are valid and achievable in the shorter- and longer-term. The Board of Governors, the parents of the pupils attending the school, and the local and wider communities can have every confidence in the school’s ability to carry out self-evaluation of aspects of its work, in this instance in relation to ‘Assessment - Marking for Improvement’, and in the school’s competence to address the areas for improvement that it has already identified for itself in the internal self-evaluation report, as well as the two additional areas suggested by the inspection team.

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