This article is from page 19 of the 2012-04-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 19 JPG
A SMALL West Clare primary school has been praised for its enthusiastic teaching staff, well behaved pupils and significant improvements made in information technology.
A Whole School Evaluation Report under taken by the Department of Education and Skills at Clohanbeg National School, Cree, last November, found that its board of management and the local community enthusiastically supported the school, “for which this school is the primary focal point”.
“The teachers work diligently to provide effective teaching in an atmosphere conducive to the growth of mutual respect and inclusiveness,” the report into the 36-pupil school said.
“The quality of overall teaching, learning and pupil achievement, in the areas evaluated, is very good. The principal provides able leadership to the school and is well supported by a hard-working deputy principal.
“Significant improvements have been made to the school’s information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure and to the integration of ICT into teaching and learning,” it said.
The report found that enrolment was “somewhat higher” than in 2004, when it last carried out an inspection.
It recommended that the board should consider appropriate protocols for communicating its work to parents and said greater cohesion and consistency is required in planning for pupils with special and additional educational needs and in recording their progress.
The school’s board of management said it was committed to implementing the recommendations during the lifetime of the board and it was encouraged by the positive feedback of the report.
A Clare secondary school also came under the microscope of the Department of Education Inspectors.
The inspectors examined the teaching of English at St Camin’s Community School in Shannon in September. The resulting report found that good interpersonal relations exist between teachers and students at the 700 student co-ed school.
“Overall, teaching was good in the lessons observed, with examples of excellent practices in some lessons,” the report said.
“Further developing the school library would be a very useful wholeschool literacy support. While progress has been made in subject department planning, this is an area where there is still scope for development.”
The report recommended more active learning strategies in classes, by extending team teaching arrangements to meet the needs of particular cohorts, and by more widespread promotion of personal reading through planned year-group initiatives.
It said subject department planning for English would be enhanced by regular, planned teacher sharing of effective teaching methods and recommended that the existing programme for first-year English should be revised in order to provide a consistent, skills-focused experience for students.