Fc - St Joseph's L'derry

Providing Inspection Services for

Mr MoffettOur Ref: 401-3027

Chairperson of the Board of Governors

Clough Primary School

17 The Square

Clough

DOWNPATRICK

Co Down

BT30 8RBApril 2004

Dear Mr Moffett

Clough Primary School, Downpatrickhad a Focused Inspection in February 2003. A follow-up inspection was conducted by the Education and Training Inspectorate on 24February2004. You have already been given spoken feedback by Mrs A Balmer. Attached is a copy of the follow-up inspection report.

Copies of this short report will not be sent to parents by the Department, although the school may send out copies if it so wishes.

In line with usual practice, the report will be published on the website of the Department of Education after 30 April 2004. Any person who wishes to have a copy of the report may obtain one, on request, from Inspection Services Branch.

Yours sincerely

ELIZABETH WELLS (MRS)

Inspection Services Branch

Tel No: 028 9127 9726

FOLLOW-UP TO THE FOCUSED INSPECTION OF CLOUGH PRIMARY SCHOOL, DOWNPATRICK (401-3027)

The focused inspection in February 2003 highlighted strengths including the caring and friendly atmosphere of the school, the excellent relationships, the quality of much of the teaching and the excellent leadership of the principal. The report also identified the need for improvement in the following key areas:

• the provision of more opportunities for the children to discuss, explore and respond to the writing of others and to refine their own writing;

• the need to use the information gained from assessment and monitoring to evaluate the impact of classroom practice on the progress in the standards the children achieve.

In the interval since the inspection, the following action, which affects the work of the school, has taken place:

• the school drew up an action plan which was revised and modified at the end of the academic year to take account of the evidence gained through monitoring and evaluation;

• a greater focus was placed on the development of the children’s talking and listening skills, on marking, and on the children’s re-drafting of written work;

• the teachers’ planning gave greater emphasis to matching the work given to the abilities of the children.

As part of the ongoing process of monitoring and evaluation, the school prepared a self-evaluative follow-up report. The Education and Training Inspectorate carried out a follow-up inspection on 24 February 2004.

The following are the most important improvements since the focused inspection:

• the children have good opportunities to discuss, explore and respond to the writing of others and to refine their own writing;

• satisfactory progress has been made in using the information gained from monitoring to evaluate the impact of the classroom practice on the progress in the standards the children achieve.

The school’s self-evaluative report is based on a secure knowledge of the children’s progress, and provides clear guidance on areas for ongoing school development. The inspection team endorses the findings and recommendations from the self-evaluation report.

The schoolhas made good progress in addressing the key areas for action. The parents and broader communitycan have confidencein the school’scommitment to improvement and the effectiveness of its action in response to the findings of the focused inspection.

 CROWN COPYRIGHT 2004

This report may be reproduced in whole or in part, except for commercial purposes or in connection with a prospectus or advertisement, provided that the source and date thereof are stated.

Copies of this report may be obtained from the Inspection Services Branch, Department of Education, Rathgael House, 43Balloo Road, Bangor, Co Down BT19 7PR. A copy is also available on the DE website: