The Quality of the Educational Provision

/ Providing Inspection Services for
Department of Education
Department for Employment and Learning
Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure
Inspection of Naíscoil Colm Cille An Charraig Mhór,
Carrickmore, Omagh
(DE Number: 2BB-0345)
A Report by the Education and Training Inspectorate
October 2002

INTRODUCTION

1.Naíscoil Colm Cille An Charraig Mhór is an Irish-medium pre-school centre under voluntary management. Almost all of the children are from English-speaking homes and they experience a programme of early immersion learning through the medium of the Irish language. The centre has undergone major changes in relation to the staffing and accommodation. At the time of the inspection, a total of 16 children attended the centre; all were in their pre-school year.

2.The inspection is part of a programme to ensure that appropriate standards of education are provided in centres receiving funding as part of the Government’s expansion of pre-school education. All of the centre’s places are funded through the expansion programme.

3.The inspection provided opportunities for the parents to express their views about the centre. All of those who responded were satisfied or very satisfied with the centre’s provision.

THE QUALITY OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROVISION

4.There is a warm, welcoming and supportive atmosphere throughout the centre. Relationships between the staff and the children are very good. The staff promote the children’s confidence and self-esteem and often foster a sense of enjoyment in play. Within the last month, the centre has moved to new premises which are shared with an after-school club. Examples of the children’s paintings, some books, pictures and topical displays arouse the children’s curiosity and enhance the playroom. The staff are aware of the few children who need focused support in developing their social skills.

5.The centre is developing an effective programme of liaison with the parents. Prior to the children starting to attend, there are effective arrangements to inform the parents about the work of the centre and, at the time of admission, appropriate settling-in procedures are operated. The staff use a variety of effective methods to inform the parents about the educational programme and encourage them to play a full role in the education of their children. There are good opportunities for informal contact with the staff at the beginning and end of the sessions. In addition to these opportunities, the parents are invited into the centre on two occasions to discuss their children’s progress with the staff.

6.The centre has a suitable written policy on child protection and the staff have recently attended relevant training in this area. The staff have discussed and developed appropriate procedures to safeguard the welfare of the children. The parents are given information about the centre’s policy and procedures.

7.The staff have made a very good start to developing the educational programme for the children. They have outlined long-, medium-, and short-term plans in which themes and topics are incorporated skilfully to provide interesting and varied learning experiences for the children. The short-term planning identifies clearly those aspects of learning which the staff intend to promote. As they develop further their approaches to planning, the staff should clarify how the programme will progress over the year and continue to identify the learning and language to be promoted across all areas of the pre-school curriculum.

8.The timetable provides good opportunities for the children to make choices, explore freely the range of activities and develop their play. During snack time, the children develop independence, and acquire social and conversational skills. Appropriate time is given to enjoyable sessions of story-telling and songs. The staff need to re-organise the latter part of the session to ensure that all the time is used to promote learning and that consideration is given to the differing needs of the children.

9.The interaction of the staff with the children is, in the main, of a high quality throughout; most members of staff provide the children with sustained, sensitive and skilful support that fosters and extends their language and learning. These members of staff use Irish consistently as the medium of communication and they

engage the children during their play and snack time with considerable ease, fluency and accuracy of language. Particularly good use is made of puppets, musical instruments, rhyme and song to encourage the children’s language and aesthetic development; the children participate and respond with interest and enjoyment in these activities.

10.The centre’s programme promotes effectively the children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED). The range of activities provided offers satisfactory opportunities for learning in most of the other areas of the pre-school curriculum. The points, which follow, illustrate specific aspects of the programme.

• The children’s PSED is promoted effectively. The children choose and handle materials independently and have begun to display responsibility in replacing equipment and in caring for their environment. Their play is generally settled and purposeful and a few children are beginning to co-operate with one another. The staff encourage them to share materials agreeably and respond quickly to deal effectively with minor conflicts.

• The children’s manipulative skills are developing appropriately through their use of tools and small equipment. Presently, the centre does not have an enclosed outdoor play area; physical play sessions are organised in the adjacent nursery unit’s outdoor play area or in the primary school hall.

• The children are encouraged to express their own ideas creatively and to explore a range of art materials and techniques. The staff value their efforts and display their work around the playroom. There are regular opportunities for informal singing in large groups and at times throughout the session. The staff share the words of the new songs and rhymes with the parents in order to help them support the children’s learning at home.

• Overall, the staff provide the children with many stimulating and challenging immersion language experiences. As a consequence, the children are already beginning to display satisfactory progress in their acquisition of Irish; many display a sound understanding of, and respond appropriately to, a number of simple greetings and instructions, and they are developing a vocabulary of single words in familiar contexts. On occasion, the staff provide the children with effective opportunities to explore books; the centre lacks sufficient resources in this regard.

• The staff encourage the children to count, match, and make comparisons; songs are used effectively as starting points to develop an awareness of number. The staff provide the children with a variety of natural materials; there is a need, however, to extend activities further in ways in which promote the children’s exploration and understanding of the world around them. The children have opportunities to learn about the environment through a range of visits to places of interest.

11.The staff have made a start in developing an appropriate system of assessment. They have just begun to observe and evaluate the children’s responses to play. The methods need further development to enable the children’s progress to be identified clearly, to ensure that key areas of development are monitored closely and to share the information regularly with the parents. The staff also need to link the assessment information to the planning in order to ensure that the children’s differing needs are met.

12.The centre has developed valuable links with the adjacent primary school.

13.The centre has undergone a period of considerable change; significant progress has been made in raising the quality of the provision. The staff, and the members of the management committee, recognise that further improvements are needed in the educational provision. The recent developments have ensured that effective leadership is provided, that a team approach is developing among the staff, and that the children receive a higher quality of learning experiences. The centre’s development plan identifies appropriately the need to further the professional development of the staff. The leader is efficient and well-organised; her deputy ably supports her. The staff work well as a team and display much commitment to the centre and to the children’s welfare.

14.The quality of the accommodation is satisfactory and the staff make good use of the space available. Additional resources are needed to meet the demands of the developing curriculum.

15.The strengths of the centre include:

• the efforts made by the staff in creating an attractive, inviting and well-organised learning environment;

• the high quality of most of the interaction between the staff and the children, which supports and extends the children’s learning;

• the strong links, and the good communication, with the parents, who are very supportive of the centre;

• the effective leadership, and the caring and dedicated staff;

• the progress made by the staff in developing aspects of the centre’s provision, including the significant start made to planning the programme;

• the quality of the language programme provided.

16.The inspection has identified some areas which require action. In addressing the most important areas, the centre needs to:

• review aspects of the organisation of the session in order to ensure that the children’s differing needs are met and that the day flows more smoothly;

• develop further the assessment methods, and share with the parents appropriate information about the children’s progress in learning;

• ensure that effective support and guidance are provided for the staff by an early years specialist, in line with the quality standards of the pre-school expansion programme.

17.Overall, the quality of the educational provision in this pre-school centre is clearly satisfactory but improvements are needed in the areas identified if the needs of the children are to be met fully. The staff should draw up a plan to address these areas. The Department’s Inspectorate will monitor the progress being made.

Appendix

Health and Safety

Greater care is needed to ensure safety when the children are handling scissors.

1

 CROWN COPYRIGHT 2002

This report may be reproduced in whole or in part, except for commercial purposes or in connection with a prospectus or advertisement, provided that the source and date thereof are stated.

Copies of this report may be obtained from the Inspection Services Branch, Department of Education, Rathgael House, 43 Balloo Road, Bangor, Co Down BT19 7PR. A copy is also available on the DE website: