Evaluation role for pupils and parents

PUPILS and parents are to have a stronger input into Department of Education assessments on the work of their schools, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan has announced.

The move to take views beyond those of each school’s parents’ association follows consultations with the National Parents Council-Primary (NPC-P) about ways of improving contributions to whole school evaluations (WSE) carried out by department inspectors.

The Education Minister told the NPC-P annual conference she has approved reforms to the WSE process that will see the introduction of confidential parental and pupil questionnaires.

The changes she approved last week will take effect for all evaluations carried out in primary schools from September.

The views of children and their parents will be considered in addition to those of parents’ associations, which are already consulted during the inspections. WSE reports provide information on issues such as how schools are managed, the use of resources, effectiveness of teaching, student assessments and supports for students with special needs or minority groups.

“Parents and pupils have an important role to play in improving the quality of the teaching and learning in our schools. I am sure the use of the questionnaires will give parents and pupils a stronger voice in the inspection process,” Ms Coughlan said.

Inspectors’ reports on WSEs at more than 200 primary and second level schools have been published in the current school year.

Largely in response to demands by parents for more information about schools, the department has published all WSE reports on its website since 2006. It also posts online reports of second level subject inspections and assessments of how schools cater for special needs or English language provision for pupils with a different mother tongue.

Under a trial inspection process at 12 second -evel schools focusing on management, second-year students, fifth-years and their parents have completed questionnaires giving their views of the school.

The NPC-P conference focused on the role of parents in helping their children develop literacy skills, as there is strong research evidence that pupils whose parents read to them are likely to have higher literacy levels. The Department of Education has set a target date of 2016 to reduce the proportion of children in disadvantaged communities with serious literacy difficulties from around one-in-three to 15%.

While a further €200,000 is being made available for family literacy projects at schools with the highest numbers of disadvantaged pupils, Ms Coughlan has been criticised after it emerged librarians will not have their contracts renewed at most of the 30 libraries set up in second-level schools serving some of the poorest parts of the country.