LCA Inspection In-service

1. LCA Evaluation in Schools
and
SSE and LCA
Presentation to LCANA
Miriam Horgan
22 November 2014

2. Purpose of Session
•Evaluation of LCA in Schools
•SSE and LCA

3. Planning for Evaluation
•Common procedures
–At least two week’s notice
–Phone call and principal’s letter
–Programme information form
•Returned in advance
–Programme timetable analysed
–Co-ordinator’s timetable reviewed
–Inspection timetable devised
–SEC data analysed

4. In-school Evaluation
•In-school evaluation work: 2 days
•Three key meetings
–Principal and/or co-ordinator
–Core team or small group of staff
–Focus group of students
•Classroom Observation
•Review of programme planning documentation
•Review of student work
•Post-evaluation feedback – principal and co- ordinator

5. Strategies/ Methodologies
•Lesson Observation – 5 to 7 lessons
“good teaching is good teaching”
•Planning
•Teaching and learning
Generic methodologies, numeracy and literacy
development, short, clear teacher inputs, cross
curricular learning, life skills, access to ICT
•Students
Active learning, affirmation, classroom
management, atmosphere, attendance, rapport
• Assessment
Tasks, Key assignments,

6. Programme Evaluation Framework - Report

7. SSE and LCA

8. What is SSE?
Just reminding ourselves:
•SSE is a way of systematically looking at:
–how we teach and
–how our students learn and
–making decisions about what we want to improve
•Because
–we want to make learning better for students
–we want to make teaching more rewarding
–schools are best placed to examine their own practice and to tell their own story

9. How does LCA link
with SSE?
SSE FRAMEWORK

10. Maybe your selected area for SSE was Literacy…
•Your school selected aspect(s) of literacy as its SSE area – oral literacy, understanding of key words, improving spelling and grammar…
•LCA key underlying principles include..
–basic skills (literacy)
–active teaching/learning methodologies
–teamwork
–integration across the curriculum
–inter subject/module planning
•Tasks and Key Assignments – presentation of information, oral examinations

11. Teacher’s Practice - Literacy
•Teaching Approaches – integration of literacy into lessons
–Questioning
–Placemat exercise
–Pre-teaching of subject-specific vocabulary
–Development of word banks by students
–Focus on oral use of subject-specific vocabulary
–Displays of key words in classrooms
–Use of graphic organisers –fishbone, mind maps
–Library development –included newspapers
–Writing frames to support writing

12. Teachers’ Practice
•Preparation for teaching - Literacy Resources
–www.jcsp.ie
–www.jcspliteracy.ie
•Resources for Developing a School-Wide Literacy Plan
–www.lca.ie
–www.adlit.org

13. Maybe you have numeracy as your SSE area
•LCA can obviously support the development of numeracy skills
•LCA key underlying principles include..
–basic skills (numeracy)
–active teaching/learning methodologies
–integration across the curriculum
•Use number, measure, data skills
•Resources
–www.jcspliteracy.ie
•Resources for Developing an Integrated Numeracy Plan
–www.lca.ie

14. Examples of numeracy in other subjects
•Art, Graphics and Construction, Engineering
–Designs may need enlarging or reducing introducing ideas of multiplication, proportion, scale, ratio
–Patterns and constructions are based on spatial ideas and properties of shapes including symmetry
•Music
–Rhythms and patterns correlated with numerical patterns
•Religion
–Study of concepts of “B.C. and A.D.”
•Leisure and Recreation
–Athletics – measurement of height, distance, time, speed
–Dance, gymnastics and ball games – time, symmetry, position and direction

15. How schools might review
their LCA using the SSE
process?
6-step cycle of SSE