Inspection reports criticise maths and Irish teaching

Schools here have turned in a weak performance in the quality of Irish and maths teaching delivered in primary and post-primary schools, a report by the chief inspector of schools has found.

The report shows that a quarter of lessons at primary level given in these subjects during inspections were unsatisfactory. In post primary school Irish about a third of lessons were ranked as unsatisfactory.

Teaching quality and standards in all other subjects however were found to be satisfactory or better according to the Chief Inspector’s Report 2010-2012 released this morning. (mon) The highly detailed report includes assessment results after announced and unannounced inspections by staff from the department. And for the first time the inspector’s report includes surveys involving parents and also students who give their assessments of teaching standards in our schools.

Inspectors judged that 86 per cent of lessons inspected in unannounced inspections were satisfactory or better in primary schools, but 14 per cent were not satisfactory. The overall figures for post-primary schools was 87 per cent satisfactory or better and 13 per cent not satisfactory.

This generally good performance was repeated across all lessons assessed the inspectors except for in the areas of Irish and maths at post-primary level and Irish at primary level.

The responses from parental surveys were very positive across the board, the report indicates. The survey of 47,000 parents of primary school pupils showed that 97 per cent of them felt that teaching was good in their child’s school. At post-primary school level 87 per cent of the 20,000 parents surveyed were happy about the teaching standards at their children’s school.

The Minister for Education and Skills welcomed the report saying that it acknowledged all the good practice that takes place daily in our schools. It also revealed some weaknesses and pointed schools in the direction of improvement, Ruairí Quinn said.

The school system had been working "in a challenging context" given the fiscal restraints, said chief inspector of schools Harold Hislop. Student numbers had grown while the number of teachers has remained fairly static.

The report included the details of almost 800 whole-school evaluations and 1,100 incidental inspections at primary level, he said. At post-primary there had been almost 190 whole school evaluations, more than 1,400 subject inspections and 430 incidental inspections, he said.

The 29,000 post-primary student surveys showed that 70 per cent of students said their classes were interesting and 74 per cent agreed that their teachers explained things clearly for them.