Cookstown Primary School

Overview

This monitoring inspection was conducted during industrial action, with teaching staff refusing to cooperate with inspectors. Consequently, the ETI could not evaluate the impact of improvement actions on learning, teaching, or learner outcomes. The report concludes that the inspectorate is “unable to assure parents/carers... of the quality of education being provided for the children.”

Strengths

• The school possesses a “well-conceived and coherent school development planning process” with consistent target setting.
• There are “agreed arrangements to monitor and evaluate the impact of the actions to promote improvement.”
• The development plan is informed by “meaningful consultation with all stakeholders and the effective use of data.”
• Action plans for literacy and numeracy set out a “concise and evaluative baseline” with sharply focused targets.

Areas to improve

• The report does not list specific areas for improvement, as the inspection was unable to evaluate the effectiveness of actions due to staff non-cooperation.

Safeguarding

The school provided evidence that safeguarding arrangements are “satisfactory” and reflect departmental guidance, with children reporting they feel safe, though the ETI was “unable to evaluate fully the outworking of the arrangements” due to the industrial action.