Focus of our Evaluation
In our last school year, we gathered evidence over a number of months in the area of reading as teachers felt that children’s reading needed further development in the school. We did this by sending questionnaires to parents and children, completing questionnaires at staff meetings, analysing test results and observing the children reading in different settings in the school.
Our Findings
We found that our school has strengths in the following areas:
- Standardised test results in the school are above the national norms.
- A positive attitude towards independent reading was reported by parents and pupils
- Children enjoy reading a wide variety of genres
- Staff work collaboratively to plan for and implement whole school strategies in the area of literacy.
- A wide arrange of resources are available for the teaching of literacy
- Pupils with additional needs in literacy are being catered for through a variety of programmes.
- A variety of comprehension strategies and decoding skills are taught in class to enable children to access text.
Our school has prioritised the following areas for improvement:
- Children’s motivation and engagement with independent reading
- Fostering a culture of reading in school
- Opportunities for talk and discussion based on children’s independent reading
- Explicit timetabling for independent reading
As a result of our findings, we decided to focus on Independent Reading as our area for improvement
Our School Improvement Plan
Over the course of the year, we will implement a number of strategies aimed to increase children’s engagement with Independent Reading. These include building DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) into our school timetable, whole school approaches to choosing books, author visits, Readathon and many more initiatives.
Drimoleague National School 