An Roinn Oideachais agus Scileanna Department of Education and Skills Subject Inspection in Art, Craft and Design REPORT Ainm na scoile / School name Seoladh na scoile / School address Uimhir rolla / Roll number Saint Paul s College Sybil Hill Raheny Dublin 5 60290B Date of Inspection: 02-02-2017
WHAT IS A SUBJECT INSPECTION? Subject Inspections report on the quality of work in individual curriculum areas within a school. They affirm good practice and make recommendations, where appropriate, to aid the further development of the subject in the school. HOW TO READ THIS REPORT During this inspection, the inspector evaluated learning and teaching in Art, Craft and Design under the following headings: 1. Learning, teaching and assessment 2. Subject provision and whole-school support 3. Planning and preparation Inspectors describe the quality of each of these areas using the Inspectorate s quality continuum which is shown on the final page of this report. The quality continuum provides examples of the language used by inspectors when evaluating and describing the quality of the school s provision in each area. The board of management was given an opportunity to comment in writing on the findings and recommendations of the report; a response was not received from the board.
Subject Inspection INSPECTION ACTIVITIES DURING THIS INSPECTION Date(s) of inspection 01 and 02 February 2017 Inspection activities undertaken Review of relevant documents Discussion with principal and key staff Interaction with students Observation of teaching and learning during three class periods Examination of students work Feedback to principal, deputy principal and relevant staff SCHOOL CONTEXT Saint Paul s College is a voluntary secondary school for boys with a current enrolment of 606 students. The school provides a range of junior and senior cycle programmes. Art is provided as an optional Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate subject and is a core component of the compulsory Transition Year (TY) programme. SUMMARY OF MAIN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: FINDINGS The overall quality of teaching was satisfactory, with some elements of good practice noted. The quality of student learning was appropriate overall; planning for differentiation needs development. The recently refurbished art room is being developed as a vibrant learning environment; the displays of exemplar material should foster a culture of high expectations. Good subject provision and whole-school support is made for Art; communication between the senior management team and the art department is very good. The overall quality of planning and preparation is good, although a more careful selection of topics and approaches to foster student interest and creativity is needed. Senior management actively promotes a culture of continuous improvement in teaching and learning; a good level of engagement with continuing professional development (CPD) is evident. RECOMMENDATIONS To appropriately challenge all learners, the art department should plan for the further integration of differentiated approaches in lessons. Questioning strategies should be extended to facilitate students deeper critical thinking about art work. A greater variety of activities which offer opportunities for creativity should be provided as an integral component of learning in Art.
DETAILED FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 1. TEACHING AND LEARNING The overall quality of teaching was satisfactory. Some elements of good practice were noted in the areas of integrating relevant literacy and numeracy skills into lessons. Learning intentions were shared with students and this provided the focus for all lessons. Best practice was noted in a lesson where the learning intentions were expressed in terms of what a student should be able to do, and time was taken to re-visit the intentions and consolidate learning. Differentiated teaching was observed in some instances. However, learning in the majority of lessons was not differentiated; all students were provided with the same material and tasks regardless of ability. Good practice was observed where the teacher differentiated instructions on a one-to-one basis with students. It is recommended that the art department develop further strategies in the area of differentiation to appropriately challenge all learners. Student behaviour was very good in all lessons. It was evident that students have clear routines for managing classroom materials. Teacher-student rapport was mutually respectful during the lessons observed. The overall quality of learning was appropriate in the lessons observed. At times, students were observed to work on low-level tasks such as note taking from teacher dictation or completing a worksheet; these specific activities were not sufficiently challenging. It is recommended that a greater variety of activities be provided in lessons to facilitate deeper learning and to develop students creativity. In addition, consideration could be given to implementing strategies to develop students note-making skills. Keywords, writing scaffolds and art historical imagery were displayed in the art room alongside exhibited pieces of work. The artwork displayed indicate that a good range of disciplines are being taught. To support learning, the art department should focus on displaying exemplar student material to foster a culture of high expectations and appropriately challenge students. A good focus was placed on developing students subject-specific vocabulary during all the lessons observed through repetition and effective reinforcement of keywords. There was also a good emphasis placed on integrating relevant mathematical concepts seamlessly into lesson content. Practices in relation to assessing student progress in Art are adequate overall. The art department has developed a series of self-assessment sheets that are used at the end of project work. To progress this good initiative, further attention to the questions posed would be beneficial; questions should be more explicit so as to encourage deeper analysis of the completed work. Lower-order questioning was the most dominant questioning strategy used in the majority of lessons observed. At times, there were opportunities to use more directed questioning to assess individual student s learning and to support student engagement. It is recommended that questioning strategies be extended to foster students deeper critical thinking about art work. Observation of students copybooks indicated some very good practice that supports learning. Constructive feedback and teacher-designed templates offered valuable guidelines for improvement in essay writing.
2. SUBJECT PROVISION AND WHOLE SCHOOL SUPPORT Art benefits from good-quality whole-school support. Access to the subject is good; option bands are set in junior cycle, and are constructed based on students choice in senior cycle. While appropriate tuition time is made for Art, the arrangement of teaching time into double and single lessons should be kept under review. Uptake for the subject at both junior and senior cycle has fluctuated over recent years. In an effort to address this, the art department should devise a time-bound action plan to review and monitor student uptake with a view to increasing numbers. A recently adapted space has been developed to create a specialist room fit for purpose. This space is well resourced and very good work is underway currently in organising art-room materials and the storeroom. There is a whole-school safety statement and subject-specific risk assessment in place. It is good practice that this assessment is reviewed annually and specialist equipment, housed both inside and outside of the main art room, is referenced in this document. Senior management actively promotes a culture of continuous improvement in teaching and learning. A good level of engagement with continuing professional development (CPD) is evident. It is noteworthy that attendance at a recent CPD event has led to the inclusion of calligraphy in the programme plan for Art; such initiatives should continue to be developed. 3. PLANNING AND PREPARATION The overall quality of planning and preparation is good. Departmental planning outlines general learning outcomes for all year groups. To further support students learning, differentiated learning intentions should be devised to reflect the full range of needs for all learners. Planning for TY merits particular attention. Current plans contain a large amount of content not being covered in depth. These plans should be reviewed formally and there should be careful selection of topics and approaches to foster student interest. A good analysis of certificate examination results is carried out annually. This analysis should be used further to inform planning for teaching and learning so as to provide appropriate levels of challenge for all learners. There is very good communication between the art department and senior management. It is commendable that the department organises initiatives to promote Art within the school; one such example is the annual art exhibition. Involvements in the school musical and mental health week are further examples of good cross-curricular artistic opportunities available for students. The draft findings and recommendations arising out of this evaluation were discussed with the principal, deputy principal and art department at the conclusion of the evaluation.
THE INSPECTORATE S QUALITY CONTINUUM Inspectors describe the quality of provision in the school using the Inspectorate s quality continuum which is shown below. The quality continuum provides examples of the language used by inspectors when evaluating and describing the quality the school s provision of each area. Level Description Example of descriptive terms Very Good Very good applies where the quality of the areas evaluated is of a very high standard. The very few areas for improvement that exist do not significantly impact on the overall quality of provision. For some schools in this category the quality of what is evaluated is outstanding Very good; of a very high quality; very effective practice; highly commendable; very successful; few areas for improvement; notable; of a very high standard. Excellent; and provides an example for other schools of outstanding; exceptionally high exceptionally high standards of provision. standard, with very significant strengths; exemplary Good Satisfactory Fair Weak Good applies where the strengths in the areas evaluated clearly outweigh the areas in need of improvement. The areas requiring improvement impact on the quality of pupils learning. The school needs to build on its strengths and take action to address the areas identified as requiring improvement in order to achieve a very good standard. Satisfactory applies where the quality of provision is adequate. The strengths in what is being evaluated just outweigh the shortcomings. While the shortcomings do not have a significant negative impact they constrain the quality of the learning experiences and should be addressed in order to achieve a better standard. Fair applies where, although there are some strengths in the areas evaluated, deficiencies or shortcomings that outweigh those strengths also exist. The school will have to address certain deficiencies without delay in order to ensure that provision is satisfactory or better. Weak applies where there are serious deficiencies in the areas evaluated. Immediate and coordinated wholeschool action is required to address the areas of concern. In some cases, the intervention of other agencies may be required to support improvements. Good; good quality; valuable; effective practice; competent; useful; commendable; good standard; some areas for improvement Satisfactory; adequate; appropriate provision although some possibilities for improvement exist; acceptable level of quality; improvement needed in some areas Fair; evident weaknesses that are impacting on pupils learning; less than satisfactory; experiencing difficulty; must improve in specified areas; action required to improve Weak; unsatisfactory; insufficient; ineffective; poor; requiring significant change, development or improvement; experiencing significant difficulties; Published April 2017 / Foilsithe Aibreán 2017