Edenderry Principal praises staff over ‘very good’ report

Mr Wilson said he was pleased with the outcome of the most recent inspection and said that it report was a ‘reflection of the hard work of all staff and of the high standards that exist in school.’

The report said that in the the areas inspected, the quality of the education provided by the school is ‘very good.’

It went onto praise the school.

“The school is meeting very effectively the educational and pastoral needs of the children; and has demonstrated its capacity for sustained self- improvement,” the report read.

Following the last inspection report in October 2012 it described that in most of the areas inspected the quality of education provided was satisfactory.

“The strengths outweigh areas for improvement in the provision,” the report read.

“The inspection has identified areas for improvement in leadership and management, standards, learning and teaching which need to be addressed if the needs of all the children are to be met more effectively.”

It stated at the time that issues needed addressing including disseminating the best practice within the school in order to promote consistently high quality teaching and progression in the children’s learning; and for the senior leaders to provide more strategic leadership focused on effecting improvement and raising the standards attained by the children.

Since 2012 the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) carried out two monitoring visits and a follow-up inspection and a number of actions have since taken place.

Among the major improvements since the last report are the restructuring of the senior leadership team where responsibilities are distributed across the staff; links between the senior leadership team, staff and governors are effective in raising the standards attained by the children and bringing about improvement and the strategic and rigorous system for monitoring and evaluating the quality of learning and teaching which informs well whole school priorities for improvement.

Others also included the staff’s effective use of assessment data and other information to identify the individual needs of all the children, to set appropriate targets, to track the children’s progress, and to inform the learning and teaching and the effective dissemination of best practice within the school resulting in consistently high quality teaching and progression in the children’s learning.

Other changes include the very good to outstanding learning and teaching in most of the lessons observed during the follow-up process; the children’s enjoyment of their learning and their confidence in articulating their ideas in response to the teachers’ effective questioning; the children demonstrate increasing levels of independence by taking responsibility for their own learning and they are able to transfer and apply key skills across the curriculum; and the improved quality of the children’s work and the standards they attain.