Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Would you like to make your opening statement?

Mrs Noelle Buick (Education and Training Inspectorate): It is about eight to 10 minutes. Is that —

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Yes. We need to be out of the room before 1.45 pm, but we will probably need to conclude around 1.30 pm, really.

Mrs Buick: OK. I will try to be as brief as I can. You have met my new colleague John Baird, who is an assistant chief inspector and covers post-primary education, youth and the DEL/DCAL/CJI work we do. John Anderson is our managing inspector for post-primary schools. Paul is staying with us from the previous session. He is the assistant chief inspector for preschool, primary, Irish-medium and special education.

Thank you for the opportunity to outline some of the key findings from the most recent chief inspector's report, launched on 6 November 2014. By way of introduction, this chief inspector's report covers the period from 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2014. The main conclusion in the report is that education and training continues to improve and is serving the majority of learners well, but that challenges remain. The report has three key messages, which are that we need to aspire higher, enable more and expect better so that all learners can achieve their potential. We evaluated more organisations in this reporting period as good or better, with improving achievement and standards, learning and teaching, and leadership and management. We also saw high-quality support for learners and good provision for pupils with special educational needs. That is testament to the hard work of the staff in the schools and providers that we inspected. We also have some key challenges. There are some unacceptable variations and persistent shortcomings that need to be addressed. While outcomes are improving, the difference in achievement and standards for particular groups of learners reflects a system that serves some better than others.

I will outline in a little more detail what is going well in our education system. As I said, more organisations were evaluated as good or better in this reporting period. Without going through all the statistics, that was 83% of preschools, 84% of primary schools, 91% of special schools, 92% of youth and 91% of our Irish-medium schools. At post-primary level, 63% of schools inspected were good or better, which is similar to the last reporting period, although we must remember that we are talking about a different cohort of schools when we are comparing with the last reporting period.

We also saw improving achievement and standards across all sectors. Over 85% of preschools and primary schools inspected had achievement and standards that were evaluated as good or better. There was a modest increase in five GCSEs from A* to C with English and maths, and in three A levels from A* to C. The gap between grammar and non-grammar schools in five GCSEs from A* to C was reduced from 53·2% in 2005-06 to 30·1% in 2012-13, but when you add English and maths, the gap is actually widening. That focuses our attention on the need to improve our English and maths provision. We also saw better acquisition of ICT skills and excellent opportunities to develop positive attitudes and dispositions and the wider skills needed for employment.

We also saw improvements in provision that was previously satisfactory or below. I have mentioned some of this, but in the business year 2013-14, over 80% of the organisations that had follow-up inspections had improved by at least one performance level, and I have also mentioned the improvement already in schools that are in the formal intervention process and the fact that, at those schools that have exited, pupils are now getting a better quality of education.

We also saw a higher proportion of good or better learning and teaching. We observed over 9,000 lessons in schools and over 11,000 lessons and sessions in total, and we saw learning and teaching that was good or better in over 80% of preschools, primary schools, youth and special schools, and in 78% of post-primary schools.

We saw provision for special educational needs that has improved significantly. Ninety-one per cent of special schools were evaluated as good better, as I have already said, but we also saw that provision had improved for special educational needs pupils in mainstream schools. We saw good collaboration between the special schools and the mainstream schools, and capacity building to identify developmental issues early and to put in place appropriate support. We also saw good provision in further education around students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. So there are good opportunities for progression, but we saw improvements needed in dealing with persistent and challenging behaviour in some special schools and in the transition post-19 to post-school provision. We saw high levels of care, guidance and support in all phases and improved leadership and management in most phases. In preschool, it was 80%. In primary schools, it was 85% good or better. In special, it was 90% good or better. In youth, it was 88% good or better. Most of the EOTAS (education other than at school) and alternative education provision that we inspected was good or better, but post-primary schools remained similar to the last reporting period, with 66% good or better compared to 61% last time.

While I have outlined some areas that have improved in this reporting period, some areas still need improvement. We have a number of key challenges, and two of the biggest are in relation to achievement and standards and leadership and management. On achievement and standards, we need to improve outcomes for young people and international comparisons at age 15. On the five GCSEs from A* to C with English and maths, almost 40% of year 12 pupils — about 8,800 pupils — are not achieving the standard, and 66% of free school meal pupils do not achieve the standard either.

Boys are not achieving as well as girls, and we saw figures of 56·4% compared to 65·5% achievement.

On literacy and numeracy at Key Stage 2, over 5,000 children are in schools where achievement and standards were evaluated as less than good, and we need to improve our outcomes in PISA for pupils aged 15. We also need to ensure high-quality leadership and management in all provision. We need to improve leadership and management in 20% of preschools, 15% of primary schools and 34% of post-primary schools. About 21,000 pupils are in schools that we inspected where the quality of leadership and management is not good enough. We need to improve leadership and management at all levels of post-primary provision, including middle management. Although 73% was good, not enough was very good or outstanding, and in 47% of maths departments it was not good enough, which is similar to last time. The quality of governance was positive in the majority of primary schools and special schools that we inspected, but it needs to improve in 30% of preschools and 40% of post-primary schools inspected.

We have additional challenges to enable more young people to achieve. We need to raise ambition and aspiration through good-quality pastoral care. We need to have all stakeholders, including parents and carers, engage better with educators and trainers. We need to reduce the variability in life chances for children and young people, which is too dependent on where they live, and we need to ensure a broad and balanced curriculum to meet the needs, aspirations and career choices of all learners. There is a need to develop staff capacity further to meet the growing needs of children identified with special educational needs and ensure high-quality professional development for staff, particularly where areas have been identified as needing improvement. We have identified much good practice in the chief inspector's report, and that can be used to improve all provision. As we go forward with building a shared future, we have the good practice from the sharing in education programme, which was evaluated by ETI, which said that it had a positive impact on learners.

In conclusion, Northern Ireland has a good education and training system that serves the majority of learners well, with strengths in the high academic outcomes for some groups of learners; very good care, guidance and support; and high-quality leadership in many schools and providers. But because of the challenges that I have identified and the fact that not all learners have an equally good education and training, we cannot consider it world-class. If we want a world-class education and training system, we have to have high aspirations. We need to expect more of schools and providers and enable more of our young people to acquire and develop the necessary skills and dispositions to meet the increasing demands of the 21st century. That is a quick synopsis of what is in the chief inspector's report.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Thank you. I had the benefit of a briefing with you last week. You mentioned that you are looking at a different cohort of schools than you were in your previous report yet, in the current report, you also talk about improvements. How do you measure that when you are looking at different cohorts?

Mrs Buick: We have to make the two key points that they are different cohorts of schools but that there are similarities because we are comparing schools within a particular phase, or providers within a particular phase. Also, the evaluations that we are making are of the schools that we inspected. It is not all schools. That is an important point.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Your 2010-12 report referred to around 82% of primary-school children achieving the required standard in English and maths at the end of Key Stage 2. What is the position for 2012-14?

Mrs Buick: Because of the implementation of the levels of progression and the fact that not all schools entered the information around levels of progression, we have not been able to make a direct comparison between the two. However, what we did do was look at how we evaluated achievements and standards in English and mathematics in our inspections. We found that 87% to 88% in English and maths were evaluated as good or better. I will just make sure I have got those statistics right. In English and maths, 88% and 87% of achievements and standards were evaluated at Key Stage 2 in those particular subjects. That is what we have used to determine the quality of English and maths in our primary schools. Based on that, we did a calculation of how many children were in the schools that were not getting good-quality English and maths in terms of achievement and standards, and there are about 5,000 children in schools where achievement and standards in English and maths are not good enough.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Is that demonstrating an improvement?

Mrs Buick: We cannot compare like with like; that is the difficulty, because in the last chief inspector's report, the measure was levels of attainment and the figures that you quoted were measures of attainment. The levels of progression provide a different statistical calculation but, because all those were not submitted to the Department, it does not give you a fully rounded picture. What we have used is the evaluation of achievement and standards in our primary schools for English and maths. What we are saying is that, regardless of the percentage figures, a high percentage of children in our primary schools are achieving English and maths, but not everybody is. That is what I have just outlined to you. Those outcomes line up with what is said internationally, in TIMSS and PIRLS — that, generally speaking, our young people in primary schools are achieving well in literacy and numeracy.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You highlighted the issues around young people and free school meals, and also absenteeism. The 2010-12 report showed a particularly high level of absenteeism. What are the figures in this report?

Mrs Buick: There is a graph in there that shows attendance by schools, and what we are finding is that the higher the level of free school meals entitlement in a school, the higher the level of absence. The pupils on free school meals are those who most need to be in schools. We have seen from the GCSE outcomes that they are not achieving as well as other pupils. There are some statistics in the report on absence. John, do you want to talk specifically about absence in post-primary schools?

Mr John Anderson (Education and Training Inspectorate): There has been a slight improvement in attendance in post-primary schools. What we have been able to identify in inspections are the methods that schools use to improve attendance. They can put in some more positive reward systems and encourage attendance through straight rewards. However, the schools that are most effective are those that recognise that they cannot solve it on their own, because they are addressing social and environmental issues. The schools that are most successful at this are working with other agencies that work with parents at home and in the community. For example, we produced and published a very interesting report on work in north and west Belfast, where schools had worked very successfully with a range of agencies and were able to promote improvement. What we have seen through post-primary inspections is that the schools that are aware of those lessons heard about them through our report and have copied some of the methods and applied them in their own schools, to equally good effect.

What we have tried to do through inspections is to identify approaches that work better, and encourage other schools to take notice of them. We draw schools' attention to the report that we published on full-service schools in north and west Belfast. I am aware of work that is being done, particularly through the role of the district inspectors, to let the other schools in east Belfast, for example, know about that. They have taken a considerable interest and are beginning to see how they can apply some of those approaches and be more effective.

Mrs Buick: Paragraph 22 of the report, which is the statistic which I was looking for, shows that:

It is really quite a stark statistic. Attendance is really important, and that is why we have identified in the report the need to engage with parents more and reinforce to parents the importance of children attending school.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You have highlighted the positive impact that the full-service school has provided. Have you fed that back into DE as a recommendation that, perhaps, this is a model that should be mainstreamed?

Mrs Buick: Obviously, we produced the inspection report, and it highlights that the full-service school model is working well, but in addition, DE has its extended school model. Between £10 million and £12 million is being spent on schools in areas of high disadvantage, to enable them to put in place actions to help pupils who may be from disadvantaged backgrounds, and there is a whole range of activities that the schools themselves can implement. So, running alongside the full-service schools, the extended schools programme is taking place.

Mr Kinahan: Thank you very much. I am sorry that I was not with you last week for the brief. I have lots of questions in different fields. We talked earlier of the Delivering Social Change literacy and numeracy project. Do we have indications as to how successfully that is going, whether we think it is going to impact, and what sort of impact it will have on GCSEs in the future?

Mrs Buick: We would not like to pre-empt the evaluation that we are undertaking. That work has just begun. However, anecdotally, the response is that it is a positive initiative and is helping schools to address some of the issues around literacy and numeracy. However, I would rather wait until we do the evaluation and we have some definitive information to share with you.

Mr Kinahan: It looks good and looks like something that we should be trying to do everywhere there is substantial illiteracy and innumeracy.

Mrs Buick: I think that we have identified English and maths — literacy and numeracy — as an area that the education system needs to focus on, and that Delivering Social Change project around the newly qualified teachers is just one aspect of activity that is taking place. There is the money that I mentioned earlier that is being given to the area learning communities to enable them to identify good practice in literacy and numeracy and share it. There is our own Promoting Improvement in English and Maths project. We also undertook a best-practice survey of English and maths in post-primary schools. Those were schools largely in areas of high free school meals entitlement, and they were able to provide good teaching and learning outcomes for young people, and we ran dissemination events so that those practitioners could share it with other teachers and principals. There are a lot of initiatives that have been put in place over the last year or year and a half.

Mr Kinahan: On a different subject altogether, which is special needs, you identify a 9% increase in children on the register, and yet we have a feeling, from many of the people that we have been talking to, that there is a whole mass of children who are not getting assessed. Do you get that same feeling — that there are there not enough educational psychologists and enough people there to do all the assessing and testing, so we do not have a true picture of special needs?

Mrs Buick: Paul may want to come in on this, but certainly since 2010 we have seen a 10% increase in the number of pupils who are on the special educational needs register, so I think that we are getting better at identifying special educational needs at an earlier stage, but that is not to say that we cannot do better. I know that the special educational needs (SEN) review which has just taken place proposes reducing the number of stages in the statementing process, and I think that that reduction in bureaucracy can only be helpful.

Paul, this is your area of responsibility.

Mr Paul McAlister (Education and Training Inspectorate): I just want to say that the capacity of teachers to identify special needs and address them has been addressed quite effectively by courses that have been run in Stranmillis University College and St Mary's University College, etc. A lot of good work is going on there. I think that your reference to children having their special needs addressed probably relates, in the main, to children waiting to be statemented. The direction of travel with the review of special needs, as Noelle mentioned, is to take the emphasis off the statement and to put the focus on the child. Rather than the particular label that may be applied to the child, it is about looking at the individual person and the context and about building the capacity of teachers to address the needs of the child in a way that best suits that context. Partly, that may be what you are hearing back — that there is less emphasis on the statement. However, I emphasise that every encouragement is being given to putting more focus on the child. The Department has issued a special educational needs resource file to schools. Our inspectors are reporting back that that has been very well received in terms of the resources that have been provided to address the sometimes complex and varied needs of children.

Mr Kinahan: Is enough resource going in to the training of the teachers at an early stage? You say that it is working better; is there enough resource going in? I know that that is a loaded question because you always need more money.

Mr P McAlister: We would always want more resource, to be perfectly honest, particularly when it is being targeted towards those most in need. It would be very hard to argue against more resource. In the current resourcing climate, it is very positive that that focus has been put on identifying the needs of children in their early years. Another initiative that our inspectors have reported back very positively on, although it is at an interim stage, is the nurture project. It has benefited not just the children who have been the focus of it but the other children in the class that they have been taken from, because the teacher can get on with teaching the majority of the pupils while the needs of that small minority are addressed more specifically in another setting.

Mr Kinahan: I have a query about nurturing. Do we need to change the parameters and guidelines? When it moved from Education to OFMDFM, certain schools that had nurturing capacity and the skills suddenly found that they did not meet the parameters that were being set. Have you looked at that to see whether we should be expanding nurture to more schools, particularly in relation to special output areas?

Mr P McAlister: That survey is not complete yet, but the interim findings are certainly very positive in terms of the engagement of the school with the parents, as well as the benefits to the child and the wider school community of putting the focus on the specific needs of the child.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Since our conversation last week, I spent a morning with West Winds Primary and Nursery School and its nurture unit. I found it a very positive experience. Even in just that very limited time that I had, I could see the benefits of that for the children and the school as a whole. It is very positive about that project. It is obviously becoming a crucial part of the school, and it does not want to lose that. It would be interesting to see your report. We look forward to that project becoming mainstreamed where possible.

Mr Newton: In paragraph 47 you refer to the full potential of the pupil:

What best practice have you seen in that area? Will that be highlighted, shared and, hopefully, embraced by other schools?

Mrs Buick: I will come to John, who has been looking at that particular area, in a moment. Nigel Smyth from the CBI did the response to the chief inspector's report at the launch last Thursday, and he very much emphasised the need for pupils to be rounded in terms of their wider skills and dispositions. Schools work hard to make sure that they have well-rounded pupils. I will ask John to elaborate a little on that.

Mr J Anderson: Certainly. Thank you very much indeed for the question. We see it in a number of ways in post-primary inspections in particular. We see it in the way in which the school addresses pastoral care. Usually, pastoral care is rated as one of the most effective aspects of most of our schools. Encouraging young people to take responsibility through pastoral activities translates into the classroom, which is the second place where we see it.

Effective teaching approaches will encourage young people to carry that responsibility, taking on that ability to work with each other as well as concentrating on what they are doing themselves. Effective teaching approaches will build that effectively in the classroom.

The third way we see it is not just through the formal curriculum in the classroom but in the non-formal provision in the school: all the things that a school does that are extracurricular and that are not part of taught lessons, which again extend that responsibility. Just to give a few quick examples: older pupils in the school are sometimes given responsibility to mentor and support younger pupils to help them, first, to transfer from primary schools to post-primary; and, secondly, to work with those young people who may have difficulties at home that make their attendance poor, or to help them with their literacy or numeracy. That kind of growing responsibility as young people mature through post-primary school builds up all of these wider skills and capabilities.

The quality indicators that we use, which were referred to in an earlier discussion today, identify these very well and fully and, therefore, we do gather evidence. You cannot count that aspect, but you can measure its quality and the way that young people present themselves to you when you are there as an inspector. You get a very good sense of that very quickly when you go into a school. We are able to do that; we are able to record that in our evaluation system, and we do out best to make sure that, when we are writing the school reports, we reflect as strongly on the development of those skills, capabilities, dispositions and attitudes of young people as we do on the analysis of their examination performance.

As the chief inspector rightly said, the CBI has indicated that employers highly value those skills: the ability to work in teams; the ability to be creative; and to take responsibility for yourself. Some employers would rate them even more highly than formal academic qualifications. That sounds surprising, but that is what you can read in the most recent CBI survey. The head of the CBI was talking about the compelling individual, and what he meant by that is the development of the rounded young person who had literacy, numeracy and academic qualifications or vocational qualifications, but also had a rounded development. So we do our best to identify that, to encourage schools to identify it in their self-evaluation and to report on what we find in schools.

Mr Newton: When you see that best practice in a school, can you share it? Can that be shared with other schools where that best practice and development of the rounded pupil, as you say, is not being achieved?

Mr J Anderson: Yes, we can and we do. We share it through our reports, of course, but while we are engaged in a school, either as a district inspector discussing how they might develop their teaching, how they might develop their non-formal education or how they might develop their pastoral care, that will be part of the discussion. During the formal event of an inspection, when a team is in the school, it is part of the professional discussion that goes on during that week, because we are making an evaluation of how good the school that we are in is and how effective it is in doing this. If it is less than effective, the natural professional conversation that goes on constantly during an inspection is to help by sharing what we have seen elsewhere and what they could be doing that they may not be doing but that we have seen working well elsewhere. We have that professional discussion all the time.

Mr Newton: Is it being picked up by other schools?

Mr J Anderson: I believe that it is. We see improvement in it.

Mr McCausland: I welcome the comments about nurture units. I think that they have been proven to be a real success. When I arrived in the Department for Social Development, there were some that were being funded through neighbourhood renewal and, when I visited them, I was so impressed that we pushed that and met the Education Minister. I am glad to see that there is now a general acceptance through the OFMDFM initiative and elsewhere to pursue those, because I think that it really makes a big difference, particularly in some of the more difficult, challenging areas.

To pick up on two points, the first being the 40% of children not achieving five GCSEs including English and maths: children are along a continuum from those who will be the most academically gifted to those who have strengths in other areas but may not be so academic. What figure do you think that it is possible to achieve? Unless you go to some extreme, there will always be some who do not quite fit in to the five. What do you think is possible?

Mrs Buick: I do not think that we could speculate on the exact figure, because it would depend on the potential of the child. However, if we take year 12, about 22,000 children were entered for GCSEs, and what we are saying is that, broadly, 8,800 of those did not achieve the five GCSE grades A* to C with English and maths, and that is quite a stark statistic. I believe that a considerable number within that 8,800 could achieve the standard, with a greater level of support. We have talked about some of the initiatives that we have been put in place recently to help those pupils.

Mr McCausland: I appreciate that it is speculation but, on the basis of the professional experience and the years that you have had working with schools and children, could we get it up to 90% or 80%?

Mrs Buick: There is a Programme for Government target, and that is what the Executive have set as the target for achievement. That is the target that we are working towards. For pupils who are on free school meals, the fact that 66% of those year 12 pupils do not achieve the five GCSEs at A* to C is a worry.

Mr McCausland: Go to the number of young people who, for example, go to special schools. How many of those in special schools achieve that target? I suppose that that is one end of the continuum.

Mrs Buick: If you give me a moment, I will look up that statistic for you. Obviously, a smaller number in special schools will be able to achieve that target, just by the very nature of the pupils in those schools. Therefore, you have to take the special needs pupils out of that.

Mr P McAlister: Pupils with physical disabilities could quite reasonably be expected to achieve GCSEs. While I would be very loath to pitch on a number, it is accepted that, in the school population, up to 20% can require some form of help with their learning. If I were to talk in ballpark figures, you would be better not to set that ceiling any higher than 80% for that reason. Having said that, we are talking about a perfect world where every school is achieving as best it can. All that we can do is aspire towards giving every child the best possible opportunity. Looking at the best practices that we have done over the last year, we have organised conferences where the principals of post-primary schools could come with their head of maths and their head of English and participate in workshops presented by heads of department that we had identified in less-favoured areas, let us say, who were doing a particularly good job, and they talked about the ingredients or the components of building, developing and sustaining good practice in their school. The more we can share that, the better. However, it would be very hard to come down on a figure and say that that is what we would expect.

Mr McCausland: If we got to 80%, we would be doing —

Mr P McAlister: We would be doing very well indeed.

Mr McCausland: On page 25, you deal with the issue about a divided society. You make the point:

You talk about differences, and you use the terms, "differences in cultural identity" and "to live comfortably with diversity". Page 25, paragraph 85. As well as cultural identity and cultural matters, you refer to historical matters; history and culture seem to be the two areas. I welcome the fact that that has been raised.

At the front — or is this our comment on it? Yes it is:

and it refers to

being dealt with in the school.

and so on. I do not want to dwell on it today, but simply to make the point. I think it is hugely important. Last week, when we discussed shared education and the inquiry that is being carried out there, I touched on the issue that you cannot have a situation where people are coming together on the basis of inequality — "in bed with an elephant" syndrome, as Pierre Trudeau called it. You want children to come together in confidence about their own cultural identity, historical background and traditions, so that when they meet people from a different tradition, they do so on the basis of equality. I will just ask the question, and then I will leave it: do you ever assess or test the manner in which the Department of Education's provision is compliant with the cultural requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Mrs Buick: We do not explicitly make that evaluation. Obviously, the rights of the child are central to all of the work of the Department and the inspectorate. In that respect, the convention underpins the work that we undertake. I agree with your comments on shared education. We are just about to embark on some work on shared education. Maybe Paul would like to elaborate on it, as he is leading on that aspect of work.

Mr P McAlister: Some work was done on a series of projects under the umbrella of sharing in education. We looked at 15 of those projects. The next phase then is the shared education project, if you like. Typically, it is about building partnerships and understanding between schools, and the children in those schools. Recently, we met a number of education stakeholders, including academics in the universities, the education and library boards and the curriculum council to look at how best to get what you might call "indicators" of effective shared education. We have certainly learnt from what we heard from the inquiry. We are not going to talk about "inadequate" or "unsatisfactory". We will look at four different bands. First of all, partnerships see themselves as defining, developing, building or embedding shared education. So they see themselves initially where they get together and look at what shared education is. They start to define it for themselves. We have to be quite honest and say that we are on a learning curve here, too. We are working with these people to get a shared understanding ourselves, so that we can have a common language and understanding. We know that it can only be good if all of the different cultural backgrounds of children that we now have in schools can be recognised as richness in diversity, rather than a drawback.

Mr McCausland: I appreciate that. I think that it is important that the cultural rights of the child are seen as inherent rights in themselves and not simply in the context of whether it will help towards shared education. That is the point.

A report was done on north and west good practice about attendance. Could a report be done on good practice in the delivery of the cultural rights of the child?

Mrs Buick: There is nothing to stop us doing a report —

Mr McCausland: How would that be initiated?

Mrs Buick: We have the sharing in education report, the evaluation of the 19 projects —

Mr McCausland: Sorry, but —

Mrs Buick: I know that it is slightly different, yes.

Mr McCausland: Just focusing on the right of the child in itself — because it is a right — could a report be done on that, and who would commission it?

Mrs Buick: If it were commissioned by the Department —

Mr McCausland: Is it the only body that could commission it?

Mrs Buick: We work for DE, DEL, DCAL, DARD and the Criminal Justice Inspection, so it would be something for one of those —

Mr McCausland: Can you initiate projects yourselves?

Mrs Buick: We can.

Mr McCausland: So you could do it yourself, without them telling you to do it.

Mrs Buick: With a finite resource, we have to prioritise what we need to undertake.

Mr McCausland: At least we have established the point that you could do it. Now, the question of resource is the next thing, because it is the one right that, I think, has as much importance as anything in building a shared future in the context of shared education. Children must come together on that basis of equality for children from the controlled sector, children from the maintained sector and the Irish-medium sector. They must come together on a base of cultural confidence. I always remember the quote from Jude Collins, who was an expert in education and taught it. He said in the 'Daily Ireland' some years ago that, if you go to a Catholic maintained school, it is important that you send your child there and protect that sector, because, he said, not only will it look after religious issues, but it will teach the child to see the world through Irish eyes and give the child an Irish identity. He spelled that out. That was interesting, from somebody who taught education.

Different sectors have different views on culture and cultural identity in a lot of the things to do with young people and inter-community issues. It is not just in the classroom, because there is an impact outside the classroom. If a culture is not validated in the school and in the media, it is marginalised and regarded as second-rate.

Mrs Buick: I think that the shared education programme will fit in with and respect cultural identity. It is not saying that you leave your cultural identity at the door.

Mr McCausland: Absolutely, and it is good to respect it, but we are way before that. Before we move into that area of shared education, the fundamental right of the child, I urge you to consider doing some work on that good practice for other schools, so that they too can look on it. We could write to the Department about that. It is hugely important. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): Are members content that we write to the Department on that line? It might be useful that the Chair of the Culture Committee is present and could perhaps pursue that line through his Committee.

Mr McCausland: I certainly will.

Mr Kinahan: I have one last question. I am always slightly sceptical of TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), but we come quite low down when it comes to science. I wonder whether you feel that the science component of The World Around Us is being delivered consistently throughout or whether we should be looking at something instead which would give us a better scientific start at primary-school level?

Mrs Buick: I will ask Paul to come in on this in a moment, because we have just completed a survey on The World Around Us, which you have been involved in, and we are just about to report on the outcomes of that, probably in the next month. We generally found quite a positive approach to science education in our primary schools. Admittedly, it is wrapped up with other subjects, but, nevertheless, it seems to be getting sufficient emphasis. Paul will elaborate.

Mr P McAlister: I think that the report will be quite positive, but there are some concerns about progression because of the different strands of science and technology, geography and history in developing particular skills. Sometimes it is hard to get the progression. It needs very careful planning to get the progression right through. I think that the key thing, broadening it out to education generally, is that, in our education system, we need to be looking for coherent learning pathways for the young children from early years, to get the learning with the support of the parents and the wider community, and other organisations if needed, to bridge that gap between early years and primary and take that through to post-primary and then into the vocational, academic or whatever afterwards. It is important to have that coherence in individual subjects, but I think that it is even more important in the wider education of any individual child that they have got a coherent learning pathway.

Mr Kinahan: It was interesting; I think there was a study that showed that 13% of primary-school children felt that they had touched science, and so we were very low down, but at the other end we were producing more children coming out of the far end of our schooling system going in for science than that percentage, so the system seems to be working.

Mr P McAlister: I think that the strength of the primary-school curriculum is that we do not compartmentalise science and other subjects. For example, a child studying creation in RE could be finding the wonders of science and could be enthused about science through the way that the teacher covers that, as opposed to compartmentalising it into a science lesson.

The Chairperson (Miss M McIlveen): You will be relieved to hear that that was the last question. Thank you for your time this morning. This has been a useful session for us. There are issues that we will want to follow up on, but you are quite at liberty now to leave.

Mrs Buick: Thank you.