Ballyoran Primary School

Overview

The inspection was conducted during industrial action, meaning teachers did not cooperate with classroom visits. Consequently, the ETI states it is “unable to assure... of the quality of education being provided” and could not fully evaluate outcomes, provision, or leadership.

Strengths

• Children display a “positive attitude to literacy” and read with fluency, using strategies to address unfamiliar words.
• In mathematics, pupils “apply accurately mental mathematics strategies” and are “secure in their knowledge of number facts”.
• Children are “well behaved and courteous”, engaging purposefully with peers and undertaking leadership roles that enhance confidence.
• The school development plan is “well-informed through appropriate consultation” with stakeholders and based on robust data analysis.
• Governors are “well informed about the life and work of the school” and exercise their challenge function to support improvement.

Areas to improve

• Action planning varies in quality; in some cases, target setting is “not sufficiently rigorous to enable the staff to measure accurately the progress”.
• Traffic congestion at drop-off and pick-up times presents “serious safety concerns” due to a lack of appropriate car parking facilities.

Safeguarding

The report notes that safeguarding arrangements “reflect broadly the guidance from the Department of Education” and children know what to do if they have concerns, but the ETI was “unable to evaluate fully the outworking of the arrangements” due to the industrial action.