THE DEPARTMENT of Education has established a special school improvement working group to assist schools that have “serious weaknesses’’.
The performance of 18 schools is under review by the working group which includes the department’s chief inspector, Eamonn Stack, and several senior officials.
The schools under review include three Dublin schools that were strongly criticised by department inspectors. These are Trinity Comprehensive in Ballymun; the fee-paying Catholic University School (CUS) in Leeson Street and the Muslim school in Cabra.
The department says that the working group “leads focused responses to improve quality and efficiency . . . in a very small number of schools where serious weaknesses arise”.
The department says that the inspectorate works to ensure that schools engage with recommendations for change and “are enabled to improve their leadership and the quality of education provided for students’’.
The department has published over 2,500 reports in the past three years.
The reports, which have been widely praised for their thoroughness, have become much more robust in tone in the past 18 months.
Sources say the department established the special working group because it has an obligation to address problems in schools where “serious problems’’ are identified.
The existence of the working group, which was established last year, was first confirmed in internal department papers prepared for the McCarthy report on public service numbers in July.
In its report on Trinity Comprehensive, the department said that the school – the largest second-level school in Ballymun – was on “a worsening downward spiral”.
There was poor behaviour by students and low morale among teachers, according to the department’s inspectors.
Inspectors also said that there was an increasing level of discontent among both staff and students and that “a climate of indiscipline prevails in the school’’.
It pointed to absenteeism, lateness, poor behaviour on the corridors, bullying and disruption of classes by students.
Sources say that vast improvements have been evident since the department and the school worked together on a development plan.
At CUS, department inspectors last year praised the high academic standards, but expressed concern about tension between management and a small number of staff.
Inspectors say that poor relationships between some teachers with senior management was having “a negative impact on many areas of school life”.
Sources say that the establishment of the working group had helped to resolve many of the issues that were highlighted in the report.
Earlier this year, inspectors delivered a scathing report on North Dublin Muslim National School in Cabra.
The report said that it was not possible to ascertain how money allocated by the department had been spent at the school because the inspectors could not find out the precise enrolment figures.
