East End PrimaryAddressing Issues following Inspectors' Report
East End Primary is already hard at workaddressing issues raised in a recently released summary reportby school inspectors, says Principal Raphael Daniel.
Mr Daniel and his staff are currently designing a plan of actionthat will help steer the school towards long term improvement.The document must be submitted to the Schools' Inspectorate within5-6 weeks.
Describing the inspectors' visit earlier this year as an "important"stage in the school's development, the principal says: "Myown view is that it helps us to place our schools on a developmentalline. At the time of inspection we were at one stage. We are presentlymoving towards the point where we can focus on raising academicexpectations. Our goal is to pro-actively plan for students' needs,rather than reacting to problems as they crop up."
Improving students' language arts skills is an area the schoolwill pay particular attention to in the months ahead. It is presentlypiloting the McGraw-Hill reading scheme that along with a revisedtimetable, is expected to aid the transition to teaching languageas an integrated rather than a fragmented subject. Inspectorsfelt the previous approach of teaching skill areas such as reading,writing, phonics and spelling separately made it difficult forstudents to make the connections that they needed between thesedifferent areas.
Under the new scheme, language arts skills will also be presentedto students in the context of other subjects, such as maths andscience.
While most of the strategies focus on raising teachers' and students'performance, Mr Daniel notes that tactics such as a new homeworkprogramme also strongly rely on parent participation.
"East End Primary is an integral part of its surroundingcommunity. If our plans are to succeed we will need to build onthat link. Teachers, students, parents and the community can helpeach other best by working together," he remarks.
School inspectors visited East End Primary in spring 2001. Theirsummary report outlined the following strengths as well as keyissues for action in the school's performance:
Strengths
· Clearly defined objectives
· Caring, committed and hardworking teachers
· Quality provision for children aged less than five years
· An effective lesson planning format
· Regular attendance
Issues for Action
· Identifying and tackling underachievement
· Establishing guidelines for day-to-day teacher assessmentand its use in lesson planning to meet pupils' individual needs.
· Improving quality of teaching. This includes ensuringthat children are actively involved in lessons and that work isbetter matched to individual learning needs.
· Improving procedures for day-to-day running of schooland ensuring that these are consistently applied and communicatedclearly to pupils, staff and parents.
· Enriching pupils' total experience of school life andpublicly celebrating their achievements.