The Department of Education and Science has published 171 school inspection reports on its website today.
Responses received from the schools and centres for education inspected are published alongside each report. Today's publication brings to 1,226 school inspection reports covering 794 different schools or centres of education published by the Department since February 2006.
There are two kinds of reports: whole school evaluations (WSE), which look at the overall performance of the school, and subject inspection reports, which report on how various subjects are taught. The reports do not assess the performance of individual teachers.
Of the 171 reports published today, 27 are school evaluations at post-primary level, and seven are school evaluations at primary level. The rest are subject inspection reports at post primary level and evaluations of centres of education.
Inspectors discuss their findings and recommendations with school management and members of teaching staff, and once a process of factual verification is completed, the WSE report and a response by the school are published simultaneously on the department's website.
The reports appearing today include a total of 129 subject inspections covering 29 subjects.