An Roinn Oideachais agus Eolaíochta
Department of Education and Science
Subject Inspection of Irish
REPORT
Ardscoil Mhuire
Mackney, Ballinasloe, County Galway
Roll number: 62890M
Date of inspection: 23 April 2009
Subject provision and whole school support
Summary of main findings and recommendations
Report on the Quality of Learning and Teaching in Irish
Subject Inspection Report
This report was written following a subject inspection, as part of a whole-school-evaluation (WSE), in Ardscoil Mhuire, Ballinasloe, County Galway. It presents the findings of an evaluation of the quality of the teaching and learning in Irish, and makes recommendations for the further development of the teaching of this subject in the school. The evaluation was conducted over two days during which the inspector visited the classrooms and observed teaching and learning. The inspector interacted with students and teachers, examined students’ work and had discussions with the teachers. The inspector reviewed the school planning documentation and teachers’ written preparation. Following the evaluation visit, the inspector provided oral feedback on the outcomes of the evaluation to the principal and the subject teachers.
Subject provision and whole school support
The teaching and learning of Irish enjoy favourable allocation on the various programmes. First year students are divided on a mixed ability basis. The students are streamed at the end of first year on the basis of a common examination and the other year groups in the school are organised according to state examinations levels. All year groups are concurrently timetabled except for first year and Leaving Certificate Applied classes. This student centred provision is commendable as it affords students the opportunity to choose the class most suited to their needs in consultation with teachers and with home. The teachers within the department give every encouragement to the students to follow the higher level course for as long as possible during the cycle according to their ability and wishes. Teachers are commended for setting high expectations for their students. Management seeks to ensure continuity by assigning teachers to the same class groups for the duration of cycles.
There are six teachers involved in the teaching and learning of Irish and some have many years experience while others have a shorter experience. The majority of the teachers are graduates of Irish. It is worthy of note that most of the teachers are teaching the various examination levels in the two cycles, an approach which means that the department has the appropriate experience to teach from first year through to Leaving Certificate. The members of the team also have experience of teaching in Irish colleges, correcting certificate examinations and one of them was an assistant examiner for the oral examinations. All teachers are members of Comhar na Múinteoirí Gaeilge and links have been established with other local Irish language organisations. Management gives every encouragement and support to the staff to attend continuing professional training courses. Many whole-staff days have been organised on general educational themes and representatives from the Irish department are facilitated to attend in-service workshops provided by the Second Level Support Service (SLSS) for Irish. It is commendable that the school’s representatives share the information from these in-service courses with the other members of staff and also include a copy of the workshop material in the plan as a point of reference. Management and the teachers are highly commended for supports afforded to Irish and for their professionalism in fulfilling their duties.
There is a strong tradition of Irish language co-curricular and extracurricular activities in Ardscoil Mhuire. The school enters teams every year in the Gael Linn debates at both junior and senior level and those teams have won numerous awards in the regional finals. The school also participates in Scoil Drámaíochta na Gaillimhe and in table quizzes organised by Conradh na Gaeilge. An Irish magazine is published every year. A tradition has been developed in the school whereby a number of students visit the Gaeltacht, and a certain number of students train as primary teachers. In conjunction with the teachers, senior students organise an Irish club every Tuesday at lunch time. The teachers are to be highly commended for enriching the students’ language awareness with such worthwhile activities.
A total of 33 students are exempt from Irish according to Circular M10/94. Evidence was provided to substantiate that 17 of these students were educated outside the State and that the other 16 were students with identified learning difficulties.
The department has compiled an impressive range of resources and teaching and learning aids over the years, including information and communications technology (ICT) resources. The Irish team share these resources. This cooperative approach is commendable. It is recommended that, when these resources are being updated in the future, the websites of the Second Level Support Service (SLSS) and www.cogg.ie should be included as points of reference. All teachers have their own base classrooms and the advantage of this has been used to its full effect in creating inspiring learning environments in the classrooms with notices and material displayed in Irish. The teachers are highly praised for expounding an awareness of the importance of the learning environment for teaching and learning as well as the respect they show for their profession and for the students in their care. The teachers have access to a multi-media room and two computer rooms as well as having ICT facilities in many of the general classrooms and in the library. There is a collection of Irish books and magazines in the library which are often used for the teaching and learning of Irish. There is easy access to televisions, CDs, DVDs and data projectors.
Planning and preparation
The Irish teachers are formally engaged with the school development planning process for a number of years. They meet together as a department on a monthly basis. A record of these meetings is kept in the Irish planning file. The minutes are given to the whole school planning coordinator and are forwarded to senior management. This practice is commendable. The department has appointed a subject and a deputy coordinator and these two appointments are rotated an agreed annual basis. It is recommended that this practice be reviewed and that these two roles be alternated annually instead of nominating two different people each year. In this way, there will be continuity in terms of planning objectives and this approach will ensure that all staff members will in turn gain the leadership experience pertaining to the role of coordinator. The department and management are to be commended for prioritising language planning.
The department have developed an Irish plan and the organisational details of the department are all collated in the first section of the plan. There are long-term curricular plans for the delivery of the curriculum for all year groups. It is recommended that short term plans be developed based on the outline contained in the long term plans as recommended during the inspection, including the curriculum for Transition Year (TY). It is also necessary to agree on the order in which literature is taught so as to better meet the needs of senior students who change form higher level to ordinary level. The recommendations in ‘Treoirlínte mar thaca le Múineadh an Chúrsa Leasaithe Litríochta’ by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) are a valuable point of reference for this cooperative work, especially in terms of the examples given on the integrated skills approach for language teaching and learning as recommended in the syllabuses.
The strong links which have been forged between the Irish department and the learning support department are commendable. There are differentiation strategies for teaching and learning among the documentation in the planning folder. It is recommended that these differentiation techniques be included when the short term plans are being drafted, especially when learning outcomes are being decided.
It is recommended that an action plan be drawn up based on priorities agreed by all Irish teachers to ensure the department develops strategic ways on a co-operative basis. In this way, the department will be in the position to evaluate its progress as well as indentifying new aspects for planning.
The quality of planning work carried out for TY in generating teaching and learning objectives is commendable. Objectives are in line with national objectives for TY as recommended by the Department in the guidelines The Transition Year Programme, Guidelines for Schools or on www.slss.ie in particular in terms of skill development and self-directed learning. It is also commendable that preparations are underway to develop cross curricular links in the TY plan. The staff is to be congratulated for designing the curriculum at school level and for the subject matter included in the curriculum also. It is recommended that student input be included in the teaching and learning programme for Irish the next time the TY plan is being reviewed.
Teaching and learning
High standard short-term planning and preparation characterised the lessons of all the teachers in Ardscoil Mhuire. There was a progressive structure and a purposeful pace in all lessons. The majority of teachers shared the learning objectives with the students at the beginning of the classes and when the learning activity changed. It is recommended that a debriefing session be held with the students at the end of the class, as was done on the board in one class, to clarify what learning has been achieved, as this fosters independence in the learners by making them recognise their own learning outcomes. In one junior class there were differentiated learning expectations used in teaching tenses. One tense was directed at the whole group, a second tense for the more able students and the conditional mood was set as a learning expectation for students of high ability. This approach is highly commended.
The learning atmosphere was one of mutual respect and diligence in all lessons observed during the evaluation. All teachers employed very good classroom management skills. The teachers knew the students in their care well and this greatly enhanced the learning and teaching encounter. High expectations for learning and discipline were set in every class and the efforts and opinions of the students were always positively affirmed.
Good teaching and learning methods were employed in all the classes observed during the inspection. Integration of the four language skills as well as various aspects of courses were evident in exemplary lessons. Skilful use was made of the problem solving to learning approach to put in order the verses of a poem in one class and to organise[d1] a conversation in another lesson after the students had first listened to these extracts on a tape. The majority of teachers carried out good pre-skill work for written, aural and oral exercises. It is recommended that this good practice be used by all staff members to give students access to the meaning of the tasks according to their ability. There was a good mix of whole-class work and students working alone or in groups. The vast majority of the teachers attended to the needs of individual students or pairs of students when completing tasks. This practice works better than remaining centrally located at the top of the classroom. In those lessons where group work was used, three recommendations are made. Firstly, it is recommended that sufficient time be allocated to the task and that this be agreed with the students beforehand. Pair work is more successful when the worksheet is shared between the two students instead of giving each a sheet. A debriefing session should be carried out with the students to afford all groups the opportunity of presenting to the class the learning which occurred while the task was being completed. Differentiated expectations could be set for different groups and the recognition of their efforts will motivate all the students to participate in the next group task. Good use was made of a variety of questions which elicited information at different ability levels and greatly enhanced student participation in the lessons.
Irish was the language of all classroom interactions. The students were at ease with classroom terms as well as having an overall good standard of Irish. It was clear that the students understood the content well and they willingly participated in the target language when given the opportunity. All teachers expertly and skilfully simplified the vocabulary while avoiding over use of translation. The teachers made every effort to enrich the students’ vocabulary and to draw their attention to points of dialect, pronunciation and grammar in a communicative context instead of single extracts in themselves. It is recommended that discussion take place regarding the effective methodologies for language acquisition in order to ensure that all staff members have the effective skills commended above. It is recommended that the department further consider the type of vocabulary required by the various year groups to ask questions, to make a request and to highlight difficulties in the target language during Irish classes.
Effective use was made of the whiteboard or the data projector during all the lessons. The date and aims of the lesson, as well as the homework, were often recorded by the teachers. Adding to these techniques, use was made of the board to display the structure of the lesson, to spell new words, to record the tape answers, to explain a grammar point, as well as to look back over the main points of the lesson. All of these approaches are commendable as they enhance student learning, in particular for learners whose preferred style is visual.
Assessment
Whole school policies have been formulated for assessment and for homework which provide a framework for the department’s approaches in this regard. There is a significant emphasis on continuous assessment in the assessment policy. In this regard, it is recommended that the department agree to allocate a certain percentage for the participation of students in the target language in the different year groups during the terms. This would increase the amount of spoken Irish used by students.
The usual arrangements for summative assessments are in place and reports are sent home based on these examinations. It is commended that all language skills are included in these assessments and that parents or guardians are informed about student achievement across these skills.
There is a very good homework journal system in the school. They are regularly monitored with the school stamp as well as the class teacher’s signature. Homework was being assigned on a regular basis and sometimes this was recorded in Irish. The teachers are to be highly praised for using the recording of homework as a source of teaching and learning. Emphasis was placed on memorising and writing in the random sample of journals observed. It would benefit student learning if a variety existed in the skills assigned as homework tasks in line with the integrated approach recommended in the syllabus for the teaching and learning of the language.
The inspector reviewed a random sample of the students’ copybooks and folders. It was evident from this review that a significant amount of work had been carried out in line with syllabus requirements. It is also commended that organisational skills are been fostered in the students and that different aspects of the courses are kept in an ordered, structured fashion in the different copybooks or folders. Mechanical corrections were made in all copybooks. It is recommended that teachers reconsider the correction of all mistakes and that the correction criteria be established for a writing exercise beforehand. In this way the corrections will be directed at specific aspects of the language. The use of red biro, as well as the negative influence that too many corrections has the intrinsic motivation of the learner, would decrease. In a small number of copybooks there were developmental corrections made on substantial pieces of writing giving guidelines for learning. Three whole-school inputs have been provided on the theme of assessment for learning (AFL) and it is recommended that wider use be made of these techniques by all the Irish teaching staff. One teacher used corrections as a diagnostic method to begin a class. The teacher drew the students’ attention to the most common mistakes in the copybooks. This is good practice. It is recommended, as a supportive approach to this technique, that the most common errors be recorded on a sheet and that this be used as a method to foster the students’ self-evaluation or peer-assessment skills.
The ongoing work with students in TY, as well as the assessment methods employed, is commendable. These provide the students with the opportunity to demonstrate the outcomes of their learning in a way that does not depend on an end of term examination only.
An analysis of student participation and achievement at different levels in state examinations is carried out. This analysis informs subsequent planning, as appropriate.
Summary of main findings and recommendations
The following are the main strengths identified in the evaluation:
- Favourable allocation is given to the learning of Irish on the various programmes and senior management give every support and guidance to the Irish department.
- Management give priority to departmental planning for Irish and good progress has been made in certain aspects of planning.
- A high standard of short-term planning and preparation was used by all the teachers.
- Good teaching and learning methods were employed in all the classes observed during the inspection.
- Whole-school policies have been developed for assessment and for homework which provide a framework for the department’s approaches in this regard. There is a significant emphasis on continuous assessment and on assessment for learning at a whole school level.
- All language skills are included in summative assessments and parents or guardians are informed about student ability in relation to those skills.
As a means of building on these strengths and to address areas for development, the following key recommendations are made:
- It is recommended that short-term plans be developed based on the framework outlined in the long term plans according to the criteria recommended during the inspection. It is recommended that an action plan be drafted to enhance strategic development of the department.
- It is recommended that the teaching and learning techniques employed in the exemplary lessons commended above become practice for all team members.
- It is recommended that further use be made of continuous assessment, developmental corrections and assessment for learning.
Post-evaluation meetings were held with the teachers of Irish and with the principal at the conclusion of the evaluation when the draft findings and recommendations of the evaluation were presented and discussed.
Published February 2010