An Roinn Oideachais agus Eolaíochta

Department of Education and Science

 

Subject Inspection of English

REPORT

 

Rice College CBS

Ennis, County Clare

Roll number: 61910K

 

Date of inspection: 30 January 2009

 

 

 

 

Subject inspection report

Subject provision and whole school support

Planning and preparation

Teaching and learning

Assessment

Summary of main findings and recommendations

 

 

Report on the Quality of Learning and Teaching in english

 

Subject inspection report

 

This report has been written following a subject inspection in Rice College CBS, Ennis. It presents the findings of an evaluation of the quality of teaching and learning in English and makes recommendations for the further development of the teaching of this subject in the school. The evaluation was conducted over three days during which the inspector visited 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 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 subject teachers. The board of management of the school was given an opportunity to comment on the findings and recommendations of the report; the board chose to accept the report without response.

 

Subject provision and whole school support

 

Timetable provision for English is generally in line with syllabus requirements. In first, second, and third year, students are allocated four classes of English per week. This is less than is generally allocated to the subject. If possible, school management should seek to provide an additional English period for one junior cycle year group, as advised by the subject teachers.

 

Students are placed in mixed-ability classes in first year and remain in those classes until the end of third year. This practice is lauded for encouraging all students to aspire to sitting higher-level examinations. However, depending on the ability range of year groups, the subject department may find that a stand-alone third-year ordinary-level class group is needed in particular years. As is recommended by the Inclusion of Students with Special Educational Needs: Post-Primary Guidelines, the creation of smaller classes can be an appropriate way to deploy some hours of learning/resource support.

See http://www.education.ie/servlet/blobservlet/des_insp_inclusion_students_sp_ed_needs_pp_guidelines_foreword.htm). Decisions on the creation of such class groups should be taken by school management, in consultation with the English and special educational needs departments. The school’s one TY group is also formed on a mixed-ability basis. In fifth and sixth year, all students are again encouraged to opt for higher-level English classes, not limited by their junior cycle results. Of course, the range of achievement in particular fifth-year class groups means that differentiation approaches and resources need to be employed to support the learning of all students. School management’s concurrent timetabling of English in fifth and sixth years is good practice because it facilitates student movement between levels and the possible organisation of joint-class activities and team teaching.

 

Resource provision for English is good. The general school policy is to have teachers based in their own rooms, thus facilitating resource storage and the creation of print-rich environments, and this policy is commended. While school management has responded to resource requests on an individual basis to date, it is recommended that the subject department should co-ordinate such requests in future. Classrooms in the main school building are equipped with PCs, fixed data projectors in the ceilings, and internet access and the school’s computer room can also be booked by teachers. In addition, two mobile trolleys equipped with a TV and DVD player are available for borrowing. Moreover, the school has its own film studio and cameras and can access a hall in the adjoining primary school to stage performances. A stock of reference textbooks and of video, DVD and some limited audio resources to support the work of the English department has been gathered together in a store room within the library and an inventory of the DVD resources in that collection has been created. This is good practice. The print reference section should now be further increased by the addition of chief examiners’ reports, marking schemes, teacher guideline and syllabus documents, the 2006 inspectorate publication Looking at English, Teaching English Support Service (TESS) magazines, and other English-related resources. Then an expanded inventory should be created, listing the audio-visual (AV) and print resources available in the library store room, along with the AV and print resources in the possession of other individual teachers of English. That document should be added to the subject department plan, to guide collective resource-request planning. A copy of the expanded inventory should also be distributed to all teachers of English, to promote maximum use of available in-school resources. Finally, to promote greater use of ICT in the teaching and learning of English, teachers are advised to prepare handouts listing websites linked to particular texts/ topics and to compile them in a shared department folder (either on the school’s server or on paper). Those websites can then be examined live in class or the handouts listing them can be distributed to students, to support their own independent research and learning.

 

The school library is also the school’s computer room. A post of responsibility has been assigned for library management and the room is open for borrowing, for internet research, and for film viewing four days a week during lunch break. A good deal of library stock has been purchased in recent years, through the support of school management, and this is commended. To promote the habit of personal reading, World Book Day and M.S. Readathon posters are displayed on walls in different parts of the school, class groups have been required to prepare reviews of books they have read independently by individual teachers, and students have been surveyed on their reading likes and dislikes to aid library stock acquisition. To further motivate students’ personal reading, two recommendations are offered. First, it is recommended that the English department formally interweave the promotion of personal reading into its schemes of work for junior cycle students in particular. For instance, the teachers of English could decide to collectively celebrate “World Book Day” and/or other similar landmark days, to include the explicit teaching of dictionary skills and skimming and scanning techniques in the first-year scheme for English, and to post a list of recommended books for particular age groups on classroom walls and/or have them included with booklists for parental reference. (See Circular M16/99 “Guidelines for reading at Second Level Schools”). Secondly, it is encouraged that the English department and the relevant post-holder collectively review the Junior Certificate School Programme (JCSP) publications Time to Read and Room for Reading: The Junior Certificate School Programme  Demonstration  Library Project  (http://www.jcspliteracy.ie/library_demo_project.htm) for additional strategies that could be used to further promote personal reading. Relevant JCSP in-service materials, the School Library Association of Ireland and the UK School Library Association could also be referred to in this regard. (See http://www.libraryassociation.ie and http://www.sla.org.uk/advice-and-support.php).

 

Co-curricular and extracurricular activities support the teaching and learning of English in Rice College. Students benefit from trips to theatrical productions, encouragement to participate in writing competitions, a first-year lunchtime board game club, talks from guest speakers working in English-related careers, and an extracurricular drama club and public speaking training. The annual production of a school magazine also concretely supports the teaching and learning of English, by encouraging students in different year groups to submit articles for publication in return for small prizes. School management and the teachers who organise such English-related activities are highly commended for their commitment to providing such activities for their students. 

 

Sources of professional development that have been accessed by the English department as a group include a whole-staff input on reasonable accommodations available to students with special educational needs from the State Examination Commission. Individual members of the department have also availed of in-service courses for the introduction of the new LC syllabus, in-service courses for other subjects that are relevant to English, and further study. Given that individuals within the department have developed expertise in ICT and in learning/resource support, it is advised that peer inputs be scheduled as part of subject department meetings to facilitate department upskilling. Likewise, teachers with experience of teaching English within different second-level programmes could also be invited to share relevant methodologies and resources with the department. Finally, it is recommended that both non-specialist and specialist teachers of English seek to avail more of Teaching English Support Service (TESS) courses.

 

Planning and preparation

 

Subject department planning to date has been facilitated by senior management’s organisation of an input on the process by the School Development Planning Initiative (SDPI) in 2006/07 and by the annual organisation of formal meetings for the process at the beginning of the school year. Teachers of English also meet formally and informally from time to time to discuss issues of common concern. The senior teacher of English has acted as subject department co-ordinator for a number of years, at the request of school management. It is recommended that the English department meet formally at least once per term and that the role of subject department co-ordinator be rotated to help develop leadership skills across the department.

 

The teachers of English have documented their practices under the headings of the relevant SDPI subject-planning template and have been keeping minutes of their meetings since August 2008. This is commended. To help the English department’s planning even further, three recommendations are offered.

 

First, it is recommended that time be specifically allocated for a “show and tell” input at the beginning of each subject department meeting, where individual members would be asked to present an effective resource/strategy they use in their practice and/or to share insights they gained from a professional development course, from practices they observed in the English departments of other schools, and/or from further study. Secondly, it is recommended that over the coming years the department produce agreed collective termly schemes of work for all year groups. At the outset, the teachers of English should identify what they consider the most appropriate learning outcomes (knowledge, skills, and attitudes) for students in each year group. (See the draft rebalanced JC English syllabus available on the website of National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), the LC English syllabus, and Junior Certificate School Programme (JCSP) statement materials for exemplars of such learning outcomes). For example, a progression should be clearly apparent from first year onward in plans for the development of students’ writing skills (pre-writing, drafting, proofing, editing, and modelling strategies; spelling, punctuation, and paragraphing competencies; and the planned expansion of students’ vocabularies), reading skills (word and text-attack techniques, library layout and usage, and dictionary and thesaurus usage), and oral communication skills. Outlining strategies for working with students preparing for different examination levels in the one class group and for stand-alone class groups preparing for ordinary level examinations, for instance, will also be necessary. Individual teachers’ existing plans will be an important foundation for, and aid to, this work. The benefits of such year-group schemes will include more incremental, consistently-reinforced learning experiences for students and the creation of reference documents for teacher taking on class cohorts part-way through junior or senior cycle. If all subject department planning documents were prepared electronically, then they could be easily changed or added to as necessary and copies of them could be easily provided to all department members. Thirdly, it is recommended that an annual compilation of the single and comparative texts to be taught to all senior cycle year groups be created and included in the subject department plan, to ensure that those text choices can be checked for compliance with the relevant circulars and to ensure that the text choices allow for the movement of students from higher to ordinary level without the need to study multiple new texts after such movement.

 

TY was re-introduced into the Rice College curriculum in 2007 and this is commended. As for the current TY programme for English, two key strengths are lauded. Its incorporation of individual research and presentation projects on contemporary events develops students’ research, writing, and oral communication skills in a purposeful, active way. Also, it directs students to connect their prior learning of poetic techniques with popular songs, thus helping them to increase their critical thinking skills. Further development of four aspects of the programme will make it an even more stimulating and educative experience. First, it is advised that more formal, collaborative planning be engaged in by the teachers of the TY English module, of the combined TY drama and public speaking module, and of the TY Media Studies module, to minimise overlap and to maximise the potential for cross-curricular activities. (The plans for these English-related TY modules should also be included in the subject department plan, to ensure that all teachers of English are aware of their content and are able to contribute to their continued development). Secondly, it is recommended that a film-making component be incorporated alongside the film-analysis element of the TY English programme. The fact that the school has its own film-making studio should be very helpful in this regard. Thirdly, the department is reminded that “where Leaving Certificate material is chosen for study it should be done so on the clear understanding that it is to be explored in an original and stimulating way that is significantly different from the way in which it would have been treated in the two years to Leaving Certificate.” (See http://ty.slss.ie/resources/guidelines.pdf). Fourthly, to further promote the concept of students taking responsibility for their own learning, an outline of the TY English programme and of the associated key assignments (including criteria and dates for completion) should be provided to students at the beginning of the school year.

 

Teaching and learning

 

In all lessons observed, there was evidence of planning and continuity with prior learning. Most teachers’ ease and breadth of reference in relation to the studied texts was impressive. Lessons were well-structured and paced appropriately in almost all classes. Where best practice was observed, lessons were planned to serve specific learning outcomes and those learning outcomes were shared with learners at the beginning of lessons, helping them to connect new learning with previous work and also inviting them to share responsibility for the lesson.

 

Resources used in the lessons evaluated included handouts, copies of studied texts, film clips, and a PowerPoint presentation. Also, chalk/whiteboards were commendably used to structure lessons through the pre-writing of topics for exploration on them, to provide written reinforcement of new vocabulary, to model the organisation of information and ideas in preparation for substantial writing tasks, to record student feedback to questions, and to set homework tasks. Building on this foundation and given the variety of learning styles and of student abilities in the school, it is recommended that the department substantially increase its use of audio versions of texts, of concrete objects (such as relevant props and models), of information and communications technology (ICT), and of graphic organisers. Examples of graphic organisers such as mind maps, writing frames and timelines can be found in the SLSS booklet Using Graphic Organisers in Teaching and Learning and are available for download at http://www.slss.ie/. Finally, while efforts to create a stimulating learning environment had been made by all teachers, this is still an area where there is scope for development in some cases.

 

Teachers used questioning to good effect to stimulate and interact with students and to structure the learning activity. Where very good practice was seen, teachers asked a blend of questions open for whole-class answering and of questions targeted at particular students. Lessons where almost all questions were answered chorally by the whole class or where the same students were called on to answer did not support the same degree of distributed learning. Where careful progression from lower-order questions (recall/recognition) to questions requiring higher-order thinking and personal aesthetic responses was noted, this was good practice. However, this was an area for development in a few instances, where the majority of questions asked were lower-order ones. To motivate students across the range of ability, it is advised that lower-order questions be sometimes targeted to struggling learners and that students be occasionally encouraged to consult in pairs when developing answers to higher-order questions.

 

Direct whole-class presentations of content, the questioning of students, teacher and student reading, linking new learning with students’ prior knowledge and experiences, and students’ recording of orally dictated points or of notes from the board were the main teaching methodologies observed. Other strategies used less frequently included oral presentations by individual students, the viewing of a film sequence, the development of students’ oral vocabularies, quotation tests, and the use of ICT. The foregoing pedagogical practices are at the core of good teaching and need to be retained. However, it is recommended that the department’s strategies for supporting students’ learning be further expanded over the coming years. The use of more varied resources by teachers of English will offer significant support in this regard. Increased use of structured pair/group work within lessons and strategies such as prediction, role play, and differentiation will help replace the predominance of teacher activity in some lessons with partnership between teacher guidance and active and collaborative student learning. In particular, the habit of providing line-by-line “translations” of new texts to classes is one area where active learning techniques should be incorporated to harness students’ insights and reduce the amount of teacher explanation required. Ultimately, the expansion of the department’s collective range of active learning techniques will benefit all students by helping teachers connect with a wider pool of learning styles in class groups.

 

Teachers communicated high expectations to students and consistently affirmed students’ responses, integrating them orally into lessons. Good interpersonal relations between teachers and students were evident and discipline was maintained in all classes. Oral questioning by teachers and by the inspector demonstrated students’ very good knowledge of the plot, techniques, and relationships underpinning studied texts; that many students had wide-ranging vocabularies; and that many students could support opinions/answers using relevant quotations. An examination of students’ copies revealed some varied writing tasks had been assigned to them, including comprehension questions, functional writing tasks, scene summaries, character evaluations, exam-style questions, grammatical exercises, and some compositions. However, few creative intervention exercises (asking students to compose a letter, diary entry, report or other piece of functional writing from the perspective of a particular character in a studied text) had been assigned in the sample of copies examined. It is recommended that such writing tasks be alternated with comprehension questions and scene summary tasks to develop students’ capacities to purposefully integrate their literary and literacy learning.

Assessment

 

A range of assessment modes is used to monitor student competence and progress in English including oral questioning, homework, in-class writing assignments, competitions, and formal examinations. Other assessment practices are also used by individual members of the department. For instance, one teacher assigns differentiated homework tasks and prepares differentiated formal examinations to support particular students with learning difficulties. Furthermore, another teacher encourages students to engage in self-evaluation, by asking them to identify the most enjoyable and challenging aspects of the TY English course and seeking suggestions for its improvement. Such assessment practices are highly commended and it is recommended that they be incorporated into the department’s collective assessment practices.

 

From a review of student copies, it was evident that homework was being set and monitored in all classes. Students’ work was either acknowledged by a tick and short comment, by the highlighting of some errors in addition to a tick and short comment or by a comment offering advice for the improvement of the piece of work usually focused on issues of mechanics or length. In a minority of cases, evidence was noted of detailed developmental feedback being written on substantial pieces of student writing, with teacher identification of student errors/omissions balanced with affirmations of what students had done correctly and with specific developmental feedback on how they might improve their work. The practice of providing formative feedback of this type on substantial pieces of student writing is lauded and it is recommended that it be adopted by the entire department. Input on Assessment for Learning (AfL) would help to develop consistent departmental practice in this area. The department may find the NCCA’s AfL web pages and the JCSP publication Between the Lines useful in this regard.

 

Three other aspects of student assessment should now be further developed by the department. First, it is encouraged that teachers assign class time early in the first term of every year for students to produce a substantial personal writing sample. Analysing and recording the recurring errors in each student’s work will give the teacher a good benchmark for skill-development programme planning. Secondly, it is advised that the department agree a common position on awarding some marks toward end-of-term results for tasks linked to the agreed learning outcomes for different year groups. (Those tasks could include spelling tests, a cumulative average for composition work, folder maintenance, quotation tests, project work and so on). Thirdly, while it was evident that a minority of teachers deepen LC students’ understanding of the State Examinations Commission criteria for assessment for English through their correction practices, it is recommended that this practice be adopted as a consistent departmental one. For example, the grid explaining the criteria and the “Assessment Advice for Students” document issued at the time of the syllabus launch can be distributed to and discussed with students before asking them to use the criteria to evaluate comprehension passages, pieces of writing produced by their fellow students, and exemplars of standard from the 2008 chief examiner’s report for LC English.

See http://www.examinations.ie/archive/examiners_reports/cer_2008/LC_English_2008.pdf). The use of the PCLM (Purpose, Coherence, Language use, Mechanics) criteria by teachers to comment on and/or mark substantial assignments produced by senior cycle students will give those students more specific insights into strengths and areas for development in their writing. Similarly, a simplified version of the criteria could also be introduced in teacher commentary on substantial pieces of junior cycle writing.

 

The subject department reviews students’ State Examinations Commission results in English annually. As an aid to self-evaluation and future planning, it is advised that those reviews should also incorporate the comparison of results with national norms. Common assessments are prepared and administered to some class cohorts and it is encouraged that this practice be extended, as appropriate. (Open questions on themes, key moments, favourite characters and so on can be set to address situations where different texts from the same genre have been taught to class cohorts). In addition to twice-yearly reports, ongoing information on students’ progress in English is also communicated to parents through annual parent-teacher meetings.

 

Summary of main findings and recommendations

The following are the main strengths identified in the evaluation:

 

 

 

As a means of building on these strengths and to address areas for development, the following key recommendations are made:

 

Post-evaluation meetings were held with the teachers of English and with the principal at the conclusion of the evaluation when the draft findings and recommendations of the evaluation were presented and discussed.  

 

 

 

Published, October 2009