Inspection Methodology

1. Bishop Walsh Primary SchoolEnglish Language Education KLA Focus InspectionInspection Period: 1, 2 and 5 February,2010

2. Inspection Methodology The inspectors employed the following methods to evaluate our school performance in the learning and teaching of English: • Observation of 11 lessons • Meetings with the school head, panel chairperson coordinator, panel chairpersons, teachers and students • Scrutiny of documents and information provided by the school • Scrutiny of samples of students’ work and examination papers • Observation of school activities such as English Morning Assembly, morning reading, etc.

3. The English Language Education Key Learning Area Students’ Performance • Students’ overall performance is quite good • Speaking skillsare average and can be improved, listening, reading and writing are comparatively better • Most students are positive in attitude towards learning English • Critical thinking skills has been developed but it can be further developed • Students like to attend English lessons • Students complete their assignments conscientiously • Some students are relatively soft-spoken • Many of the students attained good results in the Speech Festival

4. Quality of Learning and Teaching • The English programme plan has been formulated in alignment with the major concerns in the Annual School Plan, taking into consideration students’ performance and development needs in English Language learning, as well as the need to keep abreast of the Curriculum Reform.

5. Active steps are taken to enhance students’ motivation to learn English, including the adoption of interactive classroom activities, drama teaching, and requiring P3-6 students to look up words in the dictionary. Attempts to foster students’ writing and critical thinking skills include designing open-ended questions in the Challenging worksheets through co-planning, developing writing tasks with reference to EDB Curriculum and Assessment Guide of the subject, and getting students to evaluate selected pieces of their peers’ writing The panel has also joined the Bureau’s Gifted Education on Critical Thinking at P3 & P4. Students are seen to be able to tackle a range of writing genres through parallel writing, guided writing and creative writing, the latter including journal writing on the theme of “My Story”.

6. Fine attempts are made to design at level coordination meetings information gap activities and open-ended questions in worksheets to promote class interaction and thinking. Teachers generally strive to adopt pair and group work with some opportunities for learner presentation. Students are mostly well engaged in the activities.

7. What can be improved? • The panel could further plan for the progressive development of high-order thinking skills across year levels, and tie with the framework of critical thinking skills that the schools has drawn up to implement its major concern on critical thinking. The panel could further explore enhancing class interaction as well as students’ critical thinking skills through effective questioning and provision of feedback.

8. With drama lessons launched in P4-P6 in the current school year, students enjoy the lessons and exhibit enhanced motivation and participation. The drama syllabus helps students to recycle language they have learnt, and eventually engages them in creating stories and drama scripts for performance.

9. How can be improved? • A stronger link with the General English Programme of the English syllabus and with life events to help consolidate and extend learning is needed. The panel may further consider drawing up a plan for progressively developing and reinforcing students’ drama and language skills across year levels. For development in the longer term, it is advisable to adopt a train-the-trainer approach and involve teachers in co-planning and teaching drama lessons to equip them with the relevant pedagogy.

10. Students’ reading habits and strategies are cultivated through measures including: P1-3 PLPR Programme P4-6 English Extensive reading scheme Take Home Reading Programme On-line holiday reading Book recommendation on campus TV and the school website Accessibility of English books in the playground and classroom and online reading

11. How can be improved? • The panel could step up students’ sharing of reading in front of their peers to further cultivate a reading culture on campus.

12. Learner diversity is suitably catered for through measures including after-school remedial classes and reinforcement classes for less able students, and enhancement classes, the English Ambassador Programme and the Readers’ Theatre for the more able students in P4-P6 Split class teaching is also implemented to provide more individual attention to students. Worksheets for remedial and reinforcement classes are designed to address students’ areas for improvement, while some task sheets with more cues are also provided to students in need in regular English classes.

13. The panel is well managed by three panel chairpersons with support from the Vice Principal, who serves as panel coordinator. Assignments inspection duly focuses on the level of difficulty of work and teachers’ marking and feedback.

14. How can be improved? • The scope could be extended to the review of students’ learning outcome by level with particular regard to the panel’s development focuses.

15. Professional development is concerned, more post-seminar sharing and in-depth discussion on key issues such as enhancing class interaction through questioning techniques and group work.

16. Recess Fun, Recruitment Day and Fun Fun Fair are particular well received with active student participation. While some students are more keen on speaking English with the NET and English Ambassadors, opportunities for active use of English for communicative purposes outside class need to be created for the relatively passive students.

17. Adequate stock of English readers and multimedia learning materials. More thematic activities by the school library linked to reading could be organised to give a high profile to reading in English.

18. The panel has a clear assignment and assessment policy. There are detailed guidelines on assignments and assessment stipulated in the panel handbook for teachers’ easy reference. • Assignments are of a good variety • Mind-mapping is commonly used to help students develop ideas prior to their writing. • Creative writing is well designed for the enhancement classes to promote students’ imagination and creativity.

19. How can be improved? • Other modes of assignment in addition to paper and pencil mode, tape recording of students’ story-telling and acting out of a play can be considered.

20. Students’ assignments are conscientiously marked. Different marking systems are made use of for assignments of different nature. • Teachers give positive feedbacks and sometimes establish a dialogue with the students. Teachers’ feedback can in general facilitate student learning, with students’ corrections closely followed up. • Commendable efforts have been recently made by the panel to make good use of students’ sampled writing for students to comment on to encourage reflection and achieve “assessment for learning”.

21. How can be improved? • Teachers can further stretch students’ potential, some of the questions set could be better deliberated. • Introduce simple marking code at the upper primary level to promote students’ self-editing skills.

22. Emphasis is put on both formative and summative assessment to keep track of and monitor students’ learning progress. • Assessment papers are well set with due consideration to contextualisation and the balanced coverage of the four language skills. • Post-assessment evaluation is conscientiously conducted. There is analysis and discussion of student performance, with recommendations for follow-up actions. Appropriate remedial worksheets are designed to support the needy students.

23. How can be improved? • The school could consider increasing the weighting of continuous assessment.

24. Teachers are friendly, approachable and supportive of student learning. • English is consistently used as the medium of instruction. • Classroom discipline is well maintained, sometimes with use of hand signals and award systems. • Good teacher-student relationship and the learning atmosphere is harmonious and encouraging.

25. Lessons are well prepared with clear focus. Most teachers share the learning objective with the students at the beginning of the lesson. • There are use of puppets, songs and PowerPoint to stimulate students’ interest and facilitate their understanding. • The school focus on promoting interactive learning is evident, with properly arranged pair or group work activities supplemented with questions and answers.

26. Opportunities are provided for students to come up before the class to present their leanring. • Most students are well engaged in the group activities, yet a few off-task or failing to make use of the target language. • Questions are mainly for checking factual recall. There is a need for teachers to adopt more high-order questions and more prompting and probing.

27. Some teachers make good efforts by breaking the teaching process into small steps or using graded task sheets. • When students are engaged in group activities, most teachers monitor the progress of students and render assistance to those in need.

28. Students’ Performance during lessons: • Students are in general attentive and responsive in learning. They follow closely teachers’ instructions. Some demonstrate collaboration skills when working with their peers. • With opportunities given, students show creativity. • Students at times talk with one another in Cantonese during group discussion.

29. When communicating in English, most students tend to be soft spoken. Their confidence in speaking English need to be boosted. • More chances need to be provided for students to orally express themselves, especially before the whole class, such as book sharing and impromptu talk.

30. Students demonstrate a positive attitude towards learning English. The more capable students are particularly serious and active in learning English. • Rarely do they ask questions for clarification. The use of independent learning skills such as note-taking and using dictionaries could be further promoted. • Pre-lesson preparation could be more widely pracitsed.

31. Teachers’ feedback is positive and timely, but sometimes too brief. • More specific feedback could be provided. • In a few lessons, students show good improvement upon teachers’ constructive feedback. • Lessons are usually concluded with a nice round-up and appropriate assignments given to consolidate student learning.

32. In lessons with very effective teaching, the teachers give clear instructions and demonstration before asking students to proceed with their work. Students are given ample opportunity to practise the target language. Due attention is given to the recycling of the language items taught previously. The teachers also give timely and specific feedback to enhance student learning.

33. Concluding Remarks • The school accords due emphasis to enhancing class interaction and developing students’ writing and critical thinking skills, which align with both the school’s major concerns of the current development cycle and students’ needs in the learning of English. Positive steps are taken by the English Panel. Panel members are dedicated and collaborate well in co-planning, with fine efforts in designing and incorporating interactive classroom activities in lessons.

34. For the long term panel development, the English panel is advised to pay more attention to the following: To plan strategically for the progressive development of students’ writing skills and critical thinking skills across year levels, as well as developing and reinforcing students’ drama and language skills. It should explore ways to better use questions and feedback to enhance class interaction and students’ high-order thinking skills and to stretch their potentials.

35. Students’ learning strategies are generally limited and their confidence and ability in speaking English need to be boosted. Inside and outside English classes, teachers should provide more chances for students to present before their peers. Students should also have their independent learning skills fostered, including note-taking, using tool books, doing pre-lesson preparation and raising questions for clarification and extending their learning.

36. Thank you for all your help during the focus inspection period, especially all the English teachers!