January 2013 to May 2013
28 May 2013

1.1
The focus of the evaluation
A school self-evaluation of teaching and learning in Holy Cross Mercy School was undertaken during the period January 2013 to May 2013. During the evaluation, teaching and learning in the following curriculum area was examined:
 Literacy- specifically spelling.
This is a report on the findings of the evaluation.
1.2 School context
Holy Cross Mercy School is a primary school in Killarney, Co Kerry, serving the urban area and the local hinterland. The school population is 384 pupils, 23 teachers and 2.75 S.N.A.s. The school is coeducational from Junior Infants to First Class and serves single-stream girls from Second to class.
Sixth
Information from parents, pupils and teachers was collated in preparing this report. The data was gathered using online surveys and teacher reports of findings following the sustained period of assessment.
Parents/guardians were invited to participate in an online parent survey. The survey established the level of parents’ knowledge of the teaching and learning of spelling in our school. A survey of our pupils’ attitudes towards spelling and their perception of their own ability was also administered.
The response rate to the parental survey was 61% and 97% of our pupils participated in the pupil survey.
Key Findings from Parental Survey
 73% strongly agreed that spelling was very important in their children’s learning
 63% agreed that their children were good at spelling
 6% felt that their children were not good at spelling
 75% were of the opinion that their children’s would improve if they engaged more with reading and 65% felt further writing would improve their spelling.
 33% were of the opinion that studying for a spelling test was ineffective learning method
 42% of children spend 10-20 minutes learning spelling each evening as part of homework
 50% of parents surveyed reported that spelling tests caused anxiety

Key Findings from Pupil Survey
 58% stated that they liked spellings
 80% felt they were good at spelling
 14% sought independent learning methods when unsure of a spelling
An extensive evaluation of pupils’ spelling was carried out by teachers using a number of methods.
 The children’s level of attainment was analysed with a view to assessing strengths and areas for future development. The findings of this analysis will inform future teaching and learning in our school.
Target/sample pupils were selected from each attainment level with a view to tracking their future progression.
 Drumcondra Standardised Spelling Test – a sample quota from seven bands of attainment were analysed from First to Sixth Classes with a view to identifying high frequency errors at each level. A low number of pupils from First to Third Classes were found to be on the 10 th Percentile or lower band compared with Fourth to Sixth Classes. This would suggest that the younger pupils’ exposure to the Jolly Phonics and Ruth Miskin Programmes has had a positive impact on their level of attainment.
 Stareway To Spelling – dictation sentences based on the 200 most frequently used words were administered to establish common mistakes from First to Sixth Classes.
 Free writing – we selected the topics; ‘School Tours’, ‘Sports’ and ‘Summer’ for free writing from First to Sixth Classes. The pupils’ work was examined to establish the progression of the spelling of high frequency words from junior to senior level.
3.1 Our school has strengths in the following areas:
 The majority of teachers of infant classes have engaged in further training in phonics and phonological awareness .
 Our differentiated reading scheme from Junior Infants to First Class incorporates segmentation, phonological awareness, writing, high frequency words and comprehension.
 Pupils are exposed to a wide variety of genres and print-rich environments from Second to Sixth
Classes.
 Many of our teachers have availed of CPD in the area of spelling from Mr. Brendan Culligan author of

‘Improving Children’s Spelling’.
4.
2 We have prioritized the following areas for development:

 In line with international best practice, commercially produced spelling workbooks will no longer be used by pupils in any of the classes.Teachers may use a variety of spelling books as a resource..
 The results of our research has highlighted the importance of continuity of learning and methodologies throughout all classes. Consequently, we have decided that Jolly
Phonics/Grammar and Read Write Inc will be the principal phonological programmes to be implemented in all classes from Junior Infants to Second Class.
 Following prior analysis in 2010 of the Schonell Spelling Test results, commercially-produced spelling workbooks were dispensed with from Second to Sixth Classes as it was felt that spelling rules were not being allocated the necessary time for assimilation and therefore the level of attainment was not as high as we might have hoped. Arising from this, the Spelling Essentials Rule Book was introduced as the basis for the teaching and learning of spelling in these classes. The rule is taught and dictation sentences are administered based on the rule to consolidate the learning. We felt that it lacked structure so we investigated other programmes.
spelling programme Spelling Bank from 3 rd to 5 th
We have decided to implement a sequential
Class. Sixth Class will use the Oxford Spelling
Programme.
 From Third to Sixth Classes, pupils will follow a sequential spelling programme based on the
UK national literacy strategy called Spelling Bank. In 6 th classes the Oxford Spelling Series will be used.
 Based on our analysis of the 200 high frequency words in the Stareway To Spelling assessment, we will focus our teaching on the most common spelling errors.
 We will record the most commonly occurring spelling errors in the pupils’ writing and address these in our teaching of spelling.
 D.E.A.R./Story time will take place in the junior classes from 1.00 p.m. and the senior classes from 2.20 p.m. for twenty minutes to promote reading for pleasure. The use of independent learning tools such as dictionaries will be actively encouraged at this time.
 Traditional “Friday Spelling Tests” will no longer be administered. Activities such as; creating word families, identifying spelling patterns using common vowel and consonant digraphs and sentence building based on this. Dictation exercises will be used to consolidate spelling rules and high-frequency words.
 Daily dictation exercises will take place from Senior Infants to Sixth Class will be undertaken to endeavour to remove the anxiety surrounding assessment.
 Correction methods will incorporate a dot to identify the specific error and all other correct spellings will be acknowledged using a tick.
 Fostering independent learning skills will become a key learning objective from Second to Sixth
Classes. The use of dictionaries will be further emphasized than heretofore. The user-friendly
‘Jolly Dictionary’ which will further develop spelling, phonics and grammar will be introduced

Monitoring of Progress
 Each month the teachers will include a specific section on the spelling completed and the methodologies used e.g. what specific vowel / consonant diagraphs and word families were taught / completed in that month in Junior School-junior Infants to Rang 2. Suffixes/word endings etc. in the Senior School in each teachers’ Cuntas Míosúil in Second Class. From Third to Sixth Classes the use of large format Collins dictionaries will be widely used for information retrieval exercises.
September 2013 – December 2013
1 st Class
2 nd class – the first 50 words from the Stareway To Spelling list.
3 rd class – the first 100 words from the Stareway To Spelling list.
4 th class – the first 150 words from the Stareway To Spelling list.
5 th & 6 th class – the complete list (200 words) of the Stareway To Spelling.
We will base our teaching from January 2014 to June 2014 on the findings of assessments of progression of the
Stareway list in December 2013.
We expect to see an improvement in spelling in the pupils’ free writing. To assess this, we have devised the following plan. The writing of our target/sample pupils as mentioned in Point 2 will be monitored every halfterm to provide a focus for teaching common errors. Two common errors will be selected every half-term.
Week beginning 9 th September 2013
Week beginning 4 th November 2013
Week beginning 6 th January 2014
Week beginning 17 th February 2014
Week beginning 28 th April 2014
We will continue to track the progress of the sample pupils mentioned in Point 2 to evaluate the overall progress made as a result of the newly implemented measures. These pupils’ Drumcondra Standardised
Spelling Tests will be analysed with a view to achieving a 5 point percentile improvement.