/ Providing Inspection Services for
Department of Education
Department for Employment and Learning
Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure
Inspection of Naíscoil Mhaol Íosa,
Ballymagroarty, Derry
(DE Number: 2AB-0511)
A Report by the Education and Training Inspectorate
March 2005

STATISTICAL INFORMATION

Name of pre-school centre: / Naíscoil Mhaol Íosa
Address: / 11 Coshquin Road
DERRY
BT48 0ND
Management Type: / Voluntary
Date of inspection: / 9 March 2005
Date of previous inspection: / -

The centre did not provide statistical information.

1.Details of Sessions

Duration of morning session / Duration of afternoon session
2 ½ hours / -

2.Parental Questionnaires

Number issued to parents:

/ 26
Percentage returned: / 26.9%
Number of written comments: / 7

Introduction

1.Naíscoil Mhaol Íosa is situated in new purpose-built accommodation in Ballymagroarty. The centre provides a programme of early immersion learning through the medium of the Irish language. The children come mainly from the local area. On the day of the inspection, 15 children were present; seven of these children were in their pre-school year.

2.In their response to the inspection questionnaire, the parents expressed a high level of satisfaction with the centre’s provision. The issues raised by some parents in relation to the outdoor area have been shared with the staff.

The Quality of the Educational Provision

3.There is a friendly, caring atmosphere in the centre; relationships at all levels are good. The centre is bright and attractive; good use is made of the children’s art work and photographs to create colourful displays around the playroom. Most of the children are settled and behave well. A few children still require adult support to share agreeably and to play productively.

4.The parents give good support to the centre’s work. A variety of methods is used to involve the parents in the children’s learning and they receive written reports on the children’s progress twice a year.

5.The centre has a written policy on child protection which the staff plan to review in the light of recent training on child protection procedures. Additional information about the centre’s procedures should be included in the child protection policy and shared with the parents. The staff have prioritised this aspect of work as an area for further development.

6.The staff meet regularly to plan a range of activities across the different areas of play and to identify the key Irish words and phrases which the staff will use each month. The written planning is at an early stage of development and the reference to the learning potential of the various activities is too general to guide effectively the day-to-day work with the children. The staff need to develop the planning further in order to outline more clearly how the activities provide increased challenge and progression over the year and take account of the children’s differing needs.

7.The daily timetable begins with a period of free play during which most of the children are engaged productively in activity. The children’s snack time is organised informally and provides some opportunities for the children to develop independence and to acquire early social and conversational skills. The staff should improve the organisation during the latter part of the session in order to take better account of the differing needs of the children and to ensure that the children’s choice of activities and the development of their play are not limited unnecessarily.

8.The staff often participate appropriately in the play to promote the children’s enjoyment and foster their social development. Often, however, they miss valuable opportunities to develop ideas and challenge the children’s thinking. At present too much of the Irish used by the staff remains at the level of basic labelling. They need to develop further their questioning techniques and their skill in interacting with the children so that there is as rich a language environment as possible. It will be important that staff recognise more fully the learning potential of all materials, in order to challenge the children, stimulate their thinking, and promote learning across all areas of the pre-school curriculum.

9.The centre’s programme promotes satisfactorily the children’s personal, social and emotional development. The range of activities provides some opportunities for learning in most of the other areas of the pre-school curriculum. Further planning and development are needed to ensure that early mathematical concepts are developed and that early scientific and technological skills are emphasised more clearly. The points which follow illustrate specific aspects of the programme.

  • The majority of the children are making appropriate progress in personal, social and emotional development. The staff encourage the children to share materials agreeably and to take account of the wishes of others.
  • Many of the children are acquiring good manipulative skills using small tools such as scissors and pencils. The lack of an outdoor area restricts the children’s opportunities to engage in energetic play. The centre has, appropriately, identified this aspect of the provision as an area for further development.
  • The range of creative activities provided encourages the children to explore and experiment with different materials and tools; some children have begun to make representations of people and objects in their surroundings. There are frequent opportunities for informal singing and for listening to recorded music; the children have acquired an extensive repertoire of rhymes and songs which they clearly enjoy.
  • The children’s language development is promoted through the use of books and opportunities for them to experiment with marking and writing. The staff should improve further the range and quality of books available for the children.
  • There is some useful promotion of early mathematical ideas through various aspects of play when, for example, the children match objects as they set the table for break, make informal comparisons of weight and length as they handle dough, and enjoy their counting rhymes. The promotion of mathematical concepts and language needs to be encouraged more consistently by all of the staff.
  • The children are helped to become aware of the properties of materials through play with sand and water, dough and scrap materials. The staff now need to build on the children’s interests more effectively in order to develop their early scientific ideas and to encourage them to observe, investigate, design and make during their play.
  • Appropriate use is made of seasonal and environmental topics to extend the children’s knowledge of, and interest in, the world around them. Visits to places of interest, like the farm, and the development of imaginative play, as in the hospital area, promote the children’s awareness of their environment.

10.The staff have begun to make observations of the children’s progress. The assessment methods, however, are at an early stage of development. The staff need to develop their confidence and skill in monitoring and recording the children’s progress to ensure that there are suitable, comprehensive records of the children’s achievements across all the areas of the pre-school curriculum.

11.The staff have a good awareness of the additional support needed by individual children; they have identified appropriately the need to draw up a policy for the provision of this support within the centre. The staff have established links with other professionals, and should, where appropriate, use the information and guidance received from these sources to develop additional planning, which takes account of the children’s individual needs.

12.Currently, the leader is seeking to establish links with the local primary schools. The staff report that they intend to complete transition records for the children at the end of the year and share these with the schools to which they will transfer.

13.The leader has been in post for six months, and is enthusiastic and committed to the development of the centre. The staff are hard-working and dedicated; there is a growing sense of team-spirit. The assistants are willingly giving their own time in order to attend Irish language classes to improve their skills. The staff meet regularly to plan and evaluate their work, and would benefit from more focused support and guidance from an early years specialist in order to help them plan and develop the programme further.

14.The quality of the accommodation is good and the centre has secured funding to develop the outdoor area. The quality and range of the resources are satisfactory. The staff have identified appropriate areas where additional resources are required to help them promote progression in learning throughout the year.

15.The strengths of the centre include:

  • the bright, attractive, learning environment;
  • the warm, welcoming atmosphere and the hard-working, dedicated staff;
  • the good relationships between the staff and the children;
  • the development of effective links with parents.

16.The inspection has identified areas for improvement. In addressing the most important of these, the centre needs to:

  • review and improve aspects of the organisation of the daily timetable to ensure that all time is used effectively to promote learning through purposeful play;
  • develop further the planning to ensure that the educational programme progresses appropriately over the year and meets the children’s differing needs;
  • improve the methods for monitoring and recording the children’s progress across all areas of the pre-school curriculum;
  • continue to develop the staff’s confidence and expertise in their interactions with these young learners in order to promote increasingly effectively the children’s language development and learning in all areas of play.

17.Although there are strengths which can be built upon, there are also important shortcomings in areas of the educational provision in this pre-school centre. The children’s needs are not being met as well as they should be. The staff and the management committee need to work together to plan and implement the necessary improvements.

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