An Roinn Oideachais agus Eolaíochta

Department of Education and Science

 

Subject Inspection of History

 

REPORT

 

St Colman’s Community College

Midleton, County Cork

Roll number: 71050P

 

 Date of inspection: 25 October 2007

 

 

 

 

Subject inspection report

Subject provision and whole school support

Planning and preparation

Teaching and learning

Assessment

Summary of main findings and recommendations

 

 

 

 

Report on the Quality of Learning and Teaching in History

 

Subject inspection report

 

This report has been written following a subject inspection in Saint Colman’s Community College, Midleton, Co. Cork, conducted as part of a whole school evaluation. It presents the findings of an evaluation of the quality of teaching and learning in History and makes recommendations for the further development of the teaching of this subject in the school. The evaluation was conducted over two days during which the inspector visited classrooms and observed teaching and learning. The inspector interacted with students and teachers, examined students’ work, and had discussions with the teachers. The inspector reviewed school planning documentation and teachers’ written preparation. Following the evaluation visit, the inspector provided oral feedback on the outcomes of the evaluation to the principal and subject teachers.

 

Subject provision and whole school support

 

St. Colman’s College offers History as a core subject for most junior cycle students, the only classes currently not having access to the subject being the lowest stream in each junior year group. Given that the school is not obliged to make History compulsory for junior students, this is an excellent commitment to maintaining a social studies core in the curriculum of junior students and certainly deserves to be retained. The matter of not allocating history classes in the current Junior Certificate School Programme (JCSP) groups in each year is deserving of some reconsideration, as there is little doubt that such a human-interest subject can be a tremendous support to all students, not least where there may be language support needs and cultural integration needs. History also lends itself very well to JCSP methodology, such as a focus on learning targets, keywords and on visual learning styles.

 

As the school has a very broad curriculum in junior cycle, and timetable space is correspondingly at a premium, it has been normal practice for both History and Geography to be timetabled for just two periods per week each. This is certainly below the level to be desired, and management is aware of how difficult it is to cover the junior history syllabus in such a tight timeframe. While it has been recommended that any means of increasing this provision ought to be sought, it is nonetheless important that the current core nature of History for most junior classes should not be diminished in order to increase the number of periods available for History, for example in an options set up. It is also important that, should the school move to introduce a form of taster system for other subjects in first year, providing any less than two periods per week for history classes, even for part of a year, could make delivery of the subject impossible. Current practice in timetabling sees the two history periods per week for each class group well spread across the timetable and, out of over twenty junior lessons, only one instance where a class has History on consecutive days has been noted.

 

Within the school’s Transition Year (TY) programme, there is currently no history or historical studies component. This is unfortunate and certainly merits review, as History can have a significant role to play in any TY programme seeking to promote local studies or a deeper knowledge of current affairs, and is tailor made for student research and project work. Management has expressed confidence that the lack of TY History is rectifiable and is applauded for being alert to this curricular hiatus. Part of the difficulty which the school has faced over the years, contributing to the absence of TY history, has been the fact that it has just three qualified history teachers on staff at the moment. Management is applauded for its efforts to ensure that the vast majority of history classes, including all senior classes, are taken by qualified personnel and this policy ought to be persevered with as far as possible.

 

The offering of Leaving Certificate history classes annually is commended. Numbers taking the subject can vary from year to year because, even though students are offered an open choice before any option blocks are developed, the popularity of History can vary depending on how many of the more popular subjects it is finally offered against. At present, History stands across from Construction Studies, Chemistry and Business Studies. The current fifth-year history class has a higher percentage of girls than would normally obtain and is thought to reflect the options for that particular year group. The subject invariably has two double periods and a single period for each class group, which is satisfactory provision. It is also good to note that the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) does not impinge directly on History in timetabling, with students asked to consider the LCVP only after they have selected their fifth-year options and the LCVP link-modules not being timetabled across from History.

 

In addition to the significant timetable commitment to History, as referred to, management is also applauded for its support for a beautiful subject-specific classroom for History. This excellent facility has a bright setting and is decorated with historical posters and charts, models and examination material, all of which greatly enhance the learning environment for History. The room also contains a fine stock of books and some video materials, in a lock-away press. The fact that a data projector has been acquired for the History department is also roundly applauded, as is the internet access in the room. History is a subject with a host of web-based resources available and, as previously intimated, lends itself particularly well to a visual focus, whether through images of sources, paintings and photographs with junior classes or documents and political cartoons with senior students. It has been mooted that a laptop computer to accompany the data projector is the logical next step in terms of provision for this history base room, and deserves consideration as and when resources allow.

 

Planning and preparation

 

Very good collaborative planning has been evident in History. Subject teachers meet as a department on a formal basis a number of times per year. A very experienced department co-ordinator has been appointed and minutes of all meetings have been maintained, providing a clear record of the issues discussed and decisions reached. Main issues for discussion in recent times have included the equipping of the history room, development of the history plan and dissemination of news items from both in-service sessions and the State Examinations Commission. Senior teachers have attended the in-service sessions for Leaving Certificate History provided by the History In-Service Team (HIST). Department members who have History as a main teaching subject are members of the Cork branch of the History Teachers Association of Ireland (HTAI) and keep other members appropriately abreast of news and developments in the subject association. It is also good to note that the department has discussed how best History can be accessed by students with special educational needs and, potentially, by students in the JCSP should that arise. The subject plan for History has been developed along the lines of the guidelines from the School Development Planning Initiative (SDPI) and is very comprehensive.

 

Among suggestions which have been offered for future consideration by the department are the creation of a list of the resources available to department members and the placing of discussion of teaching and learning as centrally as possible on the agenda of future meetings. A good collaborative spirit is already evident in the sharing of teacher-generated resource materials among department members and this is applauded. The availability of the data projector now increases the viability of the collaborative collection and scanning of visual resources by the department and some strategies which might be employed in this direction have been offered for consideration. The department’s development of a history notice board, located near to the history room, is also commended, and it is good to note the material on display not only highlights examination issues but also some promotional material, including an interactive session around the Clonmult Ambush, of which the school has been loud in its praises.

 

At the level of individual teacher planning, all lessons visited had clear structures to them, with clear explanations given to students around lesson objectives and learning targets. All lessons also left adequate time for questioning and review towards the end, which is applauded. Teachers presented very clear lesson plans and, in most instances, also had very thorough outlines of their yearly work schemes and copious amounts of handout material, tests and notes. The commitment to organising special events, such as an archaeology ‘dig’ on the school’s grounds, and the visit of a War of Independence dramatisation group, are highly commended not only on educational grounds but also in terms of raising the profile of History in the school. The fact that there are just two periods per week for junior classes has meant that the normal means of syllabus delivery has seen teachers have to continue with first-year syllabus material well into second year, and then continue with second-year topics into third year. In third year, naturally, with the need for exam revision having to be factored into the available time as well, it has then been necessary to trim some of the syllabus to meet the time available. While the time constraints have been referred to earlier, the degree to which teachers have sought to manage the syllabus in the time available to them is applauded. The only suggestion which can be offered in this regard is to always make sure that time is given to material specifically identified in the syllabus, not just in the textbooks, as the examination is intended to be syllabus-driven.

 

 

Teaching and learning

 

In all lessons visited, students took to their work with great diligence. Within seconds, all had taken their seats and taken books out, ready for work. Teachers gave simple and clear instructions, took roll calls and included brief outlines of what was about to be done in the coming lesson, with the result that lessons began in a pleasant but very purposeful manner in all instances. This was a credit to all concerned. Homework was generally monitored at the outset of lessons, by teachers circling the room to see copybooks while students called out answers when asked what they had done for particular questions. Where previously assigned homework had been of a more lengthy variety, a quick set of oral review questions also served to remind students of what had been covered in the previous lesson and set the basis for moving forward.

 

Questioning by teachers was a main element in all lessons visited. Such questioning contained a good mix of lower-order and, where appropriate, higher-order questioning. Quite often, such questioning was spread well around a number of students in class. It has been recommended in some lessons that slightly more variation in terms of seeking ‘hands-up’ answers might be employed, with at least as much focus on directing questions towards named students who may not be inclined to answer when the emphasis in questioning is on volunteers. Similarly, questions which require lengthy teacher exposition but mere ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answers from students might be avoided. These are minor quibbles in the general context of the questioning seen. The overall pitch of questions, including the language used, the age-appropriateness of the questions and their relevance to the material being covered, was excellent in all lessons and was a central plank in developing material and occasionally in linking new material to previous learning, which is very good practice. With older students, questioning invariably developed from relatively factual levels to more thought-provoking, analytical ones, with a particularly fine emphasis on getting students to identify connections and parallels. This is particularly good practice in terms of helping students to understand the overall context within which individual topics are set.

 

In some lessons, pictorial material was very successfully employed in teaching. This ranged from Renaissance material displayed via data projector to topics on ancient Irish and non-Irish civilisations covered using an overhead projector. The visual stimuli, many in colour, and allied textual glosses, were very engaging for students and teachers used the material very well to draw ideas and responses from students. On some occasions, students were asked to go to an image or map and pinpoint a particular detail. This is good practice and worth expanding on where practicable. It may also prove possible to identify pictures which students have in their textbooks and which can supplement the ones being presented to them on screen. The practice in several lessons of developing sets of key terms linked to the topics being visualised was very effective, linking visual and verbal stimuli and hence aiding student engagement and retention.

 

In all classes, whether teachers were employing screen-based visuals or not, a very fine emphasis on using handout material was noted. In all cases, such handout material was based on a combination of visual and verbal material, which is applauded. It bears reiterating that the emphasis on visual representation of source materials in junior cycle, and on textual and visual materials in senior cycle are very much in line with the ethos of each syllabus. The manner in which students in all classes were shown how to interrogate such sources, learning from the material and not just about it, was most impressive. Focusing on the details of primary sources in Renaissance art, Roman arches and Mesolithic corbelled roofs, 19th century mining and Irish evictions were all excellent means of engaging and teaching students simultaneously. Practice varied somewhat in terms of strategies to ensure that students retained such handout material in a cohesive manner for future revision and this is an issue which might be discussed at departmental level in time. On a few occasions, excellent summary lists of key terms had been developed on the whiteboard by the end of a lesson and it would also be worthwhile getting students to note such lists down, either as class proceeds or en bloc towards the end, simply to optimise retention possibilities. Some teachers achieve this by getting students to highlight key points in their textbooks, which is also satisfactory.

 

Teacher-student interaction was of the highest quality all through lessons. Teachers knew students’ first names and used them consistently. In most classes visited, girls were in a very clear minority and yet at no stage were they even indirectly marginalised, being asked proportionately as many questions and contributing to classroom activity and interaction every bit as much as the male students. Some very good-humoured banter was engaged in by teachers, often relating to the historical topics themselves, while modern analogies and items of student interest were also drawn upon to make the subject entertaining and simultaneously enhance learning. Where Irish history was under investigation, teachers also used local examples to add interest for students, as for example, in covering a period of land agitation or ancient tombs. Occasional recommendations have been made around the possibilities of using modern English words to help student remember what historical Latin ones meant, or concerning the desired use of comparisons to ensure that students understand measurements and distances. However, in the overall context of the work done, these are very minor concerns. It was particularly good to note that the modus operandi in all classes was teacher-student interaction. Where occasional reading by students was relied upon, it related to source material and assisted teachers in assessing how well students understood the particular documents or cartoons. This is good practice, as is the general non-reliance on textbook reading as a lesson development strategy. The levels of student engagement evident in all lessons, the quality of students’ responses to questioning, including questioning from the inspector, and the clarity of review sessions towards the end of all lessons showed that students had been given every conceivable opportunity to learn to their optimum potential in History, for which their teachers deserve much credit.

 

 

Assessment

 

Informal, in-class assessment methods involving oral questioning have been dealt with in the previous section of this report. The allocation of homework has been noted as a regular feature of such assessment also, with students’ copies displaying a fine commitment by teachers not only to the assignment of homework but also to the correction of students’ work when practicable. With older students, it is particularly good to note the level of teacher commentary being employed on students’ answers. The fact that teachers do not rely on summative assessment, using marks or grades, of homework is commended, as the formative comment-based strategies employed tend to have more benefits in the long term. It should be pointed out that great variety in homework assignment was also evident, ranging from short written tasks through wordsearch and crossword games with junior students. Some teachers have also given drawing or chart-making tasks as homework to junior students, another variation which is applauded. A number of homework tasks given to older junior students or to senior students have centred on document-analysis work, while the writing of full essay-length answers by senior students has been commended for the structured and diligent approach adopted throughout.

 

On a general level, the school facilitates timetabled examinations for all classes at Christmas and for non state-examination classes in summer. State-examination classes have mock examinations in February or March each year. Some in-class tests occur at other times of the year, as for instance where first-year classes have tests in October during class time. Within History, some consideration has been given to developing common assessment instruments such as end-of-term or end-of-year examinations. This is a challenge, not least because the junior classes are quite rigidly streamed, but certainly the development of common examinations, or ones which have some common sections, can not only ease the workload for busy teachers but also provide a very useful measuring gauge for students’ progress or in deciding what level of paper might be most appropriate to particular students in the Junior Certificate.

 

 

Summary of main findings and recommendations

 

The following are the main strengths identified in the evaluation:

 

 

As a means of building on these strengths and to address areas for development, the following key recommendations are made:

 

 

 

Post-evaluation meetings were held with the teachers of History and with the principal at the conclusion of the evaluation when the draft findings and recommendations of the evaluation were presented and discussed.

 

 

 

 

Published, June 2008