School Self-Evaluation

This year we are focusing on improving the following areas:

School Improvement:

• Word Analysis: We want to help your child get better at looking at words and understanding what they mean. We are working on skills that help break words apart and make sense of them, so your child can understand words more easily.
• Maths Talk: We are also focusing on helping children talk more about their thinking in maths lessons. Teachers will use “Maths Talk” every day during maths activities. Children are given simple sentence starters like “I noticed…” or “I think this because…” to help them explain their ideas.
• PE through irish: We are teaching some PE lessons in Irish to help children develop their language skills through physical education. This approach is called CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). In these lessons, children use visuals, key phrases, and partner work to support their understanding and use of Irish.
• Assessment: Recently, we have been using a new and exciting assessment tool called Alpaca, for all children in junior and senior infants. It assesses children’s early reading and literacy skills. It helps children practice letter recognition, listening to and manipulating sounds, recognizing rhymes, and developing careful listening skills. By using Alpaca, we can spot any learning difficulties early and provide extra support where needed. Children complete these digital assessments three times a year. The results give teachers valuable information to plan lessons tailored to the children and we share insights with parents and our SET team to support the children further.