Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you for your patience in waiting to give evidence. We ran over time in our previous session.

We have Dr Suzanne Kingon, deputy secretary of policy, delivery and infrastructure in the Department of Education; Kathryn Menary from the school improvement team in the Department; Nicola Byrne, assistant chief inspector at the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI); and Barry O'Rourke, assistant chief inspector at the ETI. You are all welcome; we appreciate your time.

You may begin the session with some opening remarks or presentations. I ask that those be up to 10 minutes, and then we will move to questions and answers. We will try, as far as possible, to keep each enquiry from members around the five-minute mark. I urge members to avoid preambles, where possible, and witnesses to get to the nub of the issue in their response as quickly as possible. There is certainly no expectation that every member on the panel will answer every question. That will help us to get through. Over to you.

Dr Suzanne Kingon (Department of Education): Thank you, Chair and Committee members, for the opportunity to brief you on the Department's intention to introduce a stand-alone Bill to strengthen the legislative framework that governs inspection.

Inspection is a vital issue that sits at the heart of our shared commitment to ensure that every child in Northern Ireland receives the highest standard of education. The Committee received a written briefing on the topic, so my opening remarks will address four main questions: why do we need inspection; has inspection operated as intended; is legislation necessary; and is it the right time for the legislation?

I begin with the question of why we need inspection. The Education and Training Inspectorate, through its vision to be the voice for excellence and equity for all learners, champions the rights of children and young people. Without inspection, we have no clear picture of educational effectiveness in individual schools or our education system as a whole. At the most fundamental level, inspection provides independent assurance to government and wider society that schools and other educational settings provide a good standard of education, maintain a safe and effective learning environment and meet all legal requirements. It does so not only by recommending areas of action but through an ongoing process of professional dialogue with school staff and by identifying and sharing best practice to ensure that children and young people have access to high-quality learning experiences. Inspection shines a light on what is working well and where improvement is needed, benefiting both teachers and pupils. For teachers, inspection is a mirror and a motivator. It recognises excellence, shares best practice and supports professional growth. Members will note that ETI is the only organisation in Northern Ireland that inspects the arrangements for child protection and wider safeguarding in schools and other educational establishments.

Over recent years, ETI has worked extensively to rebuild the trust of education professionals and transform the inspection process. That was acknowledged by trade union colleagues in the previous session.

As I said, inspection is about not only individual schools but the strength of the entire education system. ETI plays a vital role in driving system-level improvement by identifying patterns, highlighting best practice and exposing areas of concern. Its insights, through, for example, thematic evaluations on issues such as specialist provision, PE, the statutory assessment process and teacher professional learning, inform policy, shape curriculum development and guide professional learning. A unique aspect of ETI's work, which makes it different from other research and the roles of other organisations, is the first-hand observation of practice in the classroom and the understanding of the lived experiences of children and young people in the school. In short, inspection is the cornerstone of every healthy, accountable and ambitious education system.

Has inspection operated as intended in Northern Ireland in recent years? Regrettably, it has not. No fewer than three quarters of ETI inspections in the past eight academic years have been impacted on by action short of strike (ASOS). To be clear about what that disruption means in those cases, it means that ETI is unable to provide assurance to parents, carers, school communities and all stakeholders on the quality of education that is being delivered. It also means that, in each and every one of those cases, ETI has been unable to fully evaluate child protection and wider safeguarding arrangements, which is a core and critical protection for children. As a result of action short of strike, many schools have gone without meaningful inspection and, therefore, external scrutiny and, importantly, the support that is essential to driving improvement to make sure that children are safe and making progress in their learning. I will give you some figures around that. This year, with the return of inspection, five schools were identified as needing external support through the formal intervention process. They were the first schools to enter formal intervention and receive external support since 2017. By way of comparison, in the eight academic years before 2017, 80 schools received support.

To be clear, what does it mean when inspection is obstructed or cooperation is withheld? It means that there is no classroom observation of teaching and learning. Lesson plans, pupil data and individual learning materials are not shared. Staff and governors have refused to meet inspectors, preventing evaluation of their training and awareness and understanding of key policies. Often, questionnaires have not issued to pupils and parents, and their voice has not been heard.

The trade unions have contended that safeguarding was protected during action short of strike, and it is important to provide clarity on what that looked like in practice, because, as I noted earlier, ETI is the only organisation that inspects arrangements for child protection. To effectively evaluate child protection and safeguarding, inspectors need to take the views of pupils and parents through pre-inspection questionnaires, to observe classes, to talk to key pastoral staff such as the designated teacher and designated governor, to analyse key pastoral data, to talk to pupils and to scrutinise key policy documents. Clearly, almost none of that is possible in an inspection impacted on by action short of strike. It is through inspection that ETI identifies organisations where child protection requires improvements, and, where inspection is impeded, the risk increases that schools that are in need of support are not identified and children are left vulnerable. Only a consistent, unimpeded programme of inspection can provide the necessary assurances that unknown safeguarding issues are being identified and that robust child-protection arrangements are in place in our schools.

I turn to whether legislation is absolutely necessary to ensure that inspection operates as intended. The Department has reviewed a range of options, and it is clear that only fit-for-purpose legislation will remove the ongoing disruption. All efforts at negotiation to have inspection excluded from action short of strike have been unsuccessful, and that includes in January this year, when there were no outstanding areas of disagreement between ETI and the Northern Ireland Teachers' Council (NITC). When the new model of inspection had been widely welcomed by stakeholders, non-cooperation was still a feature of action short of strike. If one union includes inspection within action short of strike, we have seen time and time again that the others are under pressure immediately to do likewise or lose members in a competitive market. The trade union responses to the recent inspection consultation clearly stated that they objected to any proposal to remove inspection from the arena of industrial action.

It has been suggested that the requirement to cooperate with an inspection process could be incorporated into teachers' terms and conditions rather than being taken forward as a stand-alone piece of legislation. That would simply not work for two key reasons. First, the revised terms and conditions would have to be negotiated and agreed with the relevant trade unions and teachers, who, based on their response to the issue, would robustly resist the introduction of such a clause. Secondly, even if such as clause were introduced into revised terms and conditions and into teachers' contracts, the right of trade union members to take industrial action is protected in law and, when the union has secured a valid mandate through the balloting process, there would still be nothing to preclude teachers from specifying refusal to cooperate with inspection as one of their actions short of strike. As we have seen in recent years, many teachers have taken part in industrial action even when elements of that action are a specified requirement in their terms and conditions. Quite simply, in any scenario other than this legislation, refusal to participate in inspections will remain a feature of action short of strike. As in every other jurisdiction across the British Isles, the proposed separate statutory requirement is the only realistic and effective solution. We need a legal framework for inspection that guarantees consistent, independent oversight of educational quality, child protection and safeguarding and that is fit for purpose and practical.

The final question that I would like to address today is whether it is the right time for legislation. The honest answer is this: if not now, when? The reality is that, for some stakeholders, particularly the teaching unions, there may never be a right time, and I think that you heard that in the previous session. The opposition to inspection-related legislation has been consistent and unwavering. We have had nearly a decade of disruption — 10 years where inspection has been undermined; 10 years where the system has been in a state of uncertainty. We do not currently have action short of strike, and there are no outstanding areas of disagreement, as I mentioned, between ETI and the NITC, yet the issue of inspection will be included in any future action short of strike. Without legislative clarity and protection, we risk another 10 years of disruption. I will clarify that the legislation will not be in place until 2027 at the earliest; it will not be in place immediately. Further delay is not a risk that we can afford to take for our schools, our pupils or the integrity of our education system.

Some have expressed concerns that the legislation could damage the good, positive working relationships that, we know, exist between ETI and teachers. ETI exists to inspect. That is its statutory function. Inspection done well is not a threat; it is a cornerstone of quality assurance, improvement and public accountability. There can be no meaningful, long-term relationship between ETI and the profession if inspection is continually disrupted, diluted and politicised through industrial action. Relationships built on avoidance are not relationships at all. To be clear, the legislation is not about confrontation; it is about prevention, restoring stability, ensuring consistency and reaffirming the principle that inspection is a non-negotiable part of every high-functioning education system.

To conclude, inspection exists to safeguard educational standards and, most importantly, to protect children. Northern Ireland remains the only jurisdiction in the UK and Ireland without legislation to protect the integrity of inspection. That is not a technical gap; it is a systematic failure. As I said, three quarters of all inspections in eight years have been disrupted by action short of strike. If we collectively accept that inspection is essential — I believe that we do — we must ask ourselves this: should it be voluntary, and should it function only one year in eight? The Department's position is unequivocal: it is no longer acceptable for Northern Ireland to be the only part of these islands where inspection lacks legal protection and where it fails to operate consistently and as intended. An appropriate, preventative legal framework is required. Our duty is not to ensure the comfort of the adults in the system but to the child in the classroom. We must reject the notion that safeguarding is achieved simply by ensuring that adults are content. Safeguarding is not about comfort; it is about vigilance, and inspection is part of that vigilance.

In the coming days, the Minister will write again to Executive colleagues providing a first draft of the Bill and seeking urgent agreement to introduce it to the Assembly. Chair and members, the legislation is about protecting children, supporting our teachers and schools and ensuring public confidence in and information on our education system. The Department looks forward to working with the Committee as this important proposal progresses. I and my colleagues, of course, welcome questions from Committee members. Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you. I will make a start and try to be brief to make sure that the session does not run over time.

There was some discussion in the previous evidence session about the consultation process. Concern was raised around the commentary that was provided about the tracking of IP addresses. Two different sets of figures were presented: one related to when the data was accepted as collected and the other to when the data was interpreted with the IP addresses tracked and the filtering out of those whom you believed were double responders. We had a slight concern in that just because someone lives in the same house as someone else does not mean that the same person is responding. Is that normal practice in a departmental consultation? I have not seen it referenced explicitly in any consultation responses that I have dealt with. There was a little bit of a concern that there was an attempt to discredit the responses as not being worth the time of day.

Dr Kingon: I will make a few points on that. At the outset, I say that the Department values the contributions of all stakeholders — teachers, parents, trade unions and others — through the consultation process. We carefully reviewed and analysed every consultation response in detail, and we spent significant time responding to the points raised. It is expected and appropriate that individuals who are more directly affected by proposals will respond to a consultation in greater numbers. That is what we expect to see; that is the norm. To ensure transparency, we provided the full dataset and a filtered analysis using the IP addresses.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): My question is this: is that normal practice? I have not seen it in departmental consultations before.

Dr Kingon: We felt that it was appropriate, because around half of the responses that came from the same IP addresses were the same name and used the NASUWT and other unions' pro forma response. Although it was filled in with a parent, it came from the same IP address with the same name, the same response and spoke as a trade union member. It said things such as, "We, as teachers" and "Us, as teachers". It was clear that there was a significant proportion of those responses.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I understand. To be clear on the question: is it the normal process in a departmental response that it is broken down to that level of detail? I have not seen that before.

Dr Kingon: I cannot answer for other consultations, but I believe that it is absolutely appropriate to give a full contextual picture. Different information is given in different consultations about who and what groups responded. To clarify, all users of Citizen Space are informed on its privacy notice that IP addresses are collected. That information is important and is used as a check, as normal practice, because it helps to ensure the integrity of the consultation process against not only automated responses but multiple responses from the same IP address. There could be thousands of responses from the same IP addresses. It is the norm to collect it, and it is the norm to analyse it. The Department adheres to the highest standards of data protection, and all data protection was adhered to. We believe that it gave a fuller and more appropriate contextual picture. Would it have been appropriate for us to give only the figures with the separate IP addresses stripped out? Of course not. We gave the full dataset and the contextual dataset. I believe that that was absolutely appropriate.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There was some concern around that. I think that all members received contact from people who had responded to the consultation and were concerned about it. I wanted to get whether it was normal practice on the record.

I want to pick up on the safeguarding point, because that seems to me to be clearly at the heart of what you are setting out. I want to check something for my own comfort around the safeguarding regime in our schools. If inspection is the only way that we monitor safeguarding, in reality, schools are inspected quite infrequently — even in a normal regime. My first question is this: what is a normal timescale for a school to be inspected in a normal regime? How often do they expect an inspection?

Ms Nicola Byrne (Education and Training Inspectorate): The inspection of safeguarding is not just carried out through formal inspection. We have district inspectors. Our statutory duty is monitoring, inspecting and reporting on. That monitoring piece is an important piece for us. We can do that through part of our district work.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is happening on a rolling basis.

Ms Byrne: Not during action short of strike, but yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful clarity. One of my concerns is that, if safeguarding is looked at every five, six or seven years, it is not very robust, system wide. However, there is a rolling process in normal industrial conditions. That is helpful.

Ms Byrne: Yes, and during action short of strike, some, but not all, schools still engaged through district work. Some schools would not let an inspector through the door, but others engaged through district work on different pieces of work, such as the empowering improvement framework. However, there were others that did not engage at all.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful. I do not want to take up too much time, but I am just making sure that I understand some of the processes that have led us to this point.

Your evidence was clear that there is no other option. I have two questions on that. One is about potentially getting an agreement with the unions, and I can see you giving a wry smile. You mentioned that the process did not go anywhere in January. Has the work to get an agreement with the unions on excluding inspection from action short of strike been picked up again further to the pay deal and the agreements on workload? In the evidence that we heard today, those all seem to have been received very positively, including the work on the independent review of workload. Has that been picked up again?

Ms Byrne: Do you mean to see whether inspection could be excluded?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): To seek agreement with the unions on it.

Ms Byrne: There has not been further discussion about that. In all previous discussions, the unions have been very clear that action short of strike has included inspection. There had been discussions with the trade unions about it being excluded prior to the previous period, but it was not. It is highly unlikely, however.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You do not know because the conversation has not happened. Is that accurate?

Ms Byrne: We are not in negotiations with the unions about what might happen in a future action short of strike.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I understand that there have been fraught industrial relations for quite some time. I absolutely understand that. I am asking in order to be clear that, if the message is that there is no other option, we know when the most recent engagement on it was. You have been clear that that will not happen and will not work. I just want to check on the most up-to-date position further to improved industrial relations.

Ms Byrne: There was engagement for eight years, and, at various times during those eight years, there were pay deals. It is not that 2025 is the first year that a pay deal was secured. We have had periods without action short of strike. There has never been agreement to exclude inspection from action short of strike. Of course, if we get into a situation in which it looks as though there will be a further period of action short of strike, the Department will attempt to negotiate an exclusion for inspection. However, as you will appreciate, that would have to be done each and every time there were a period of action short of strike. It is not an effective long-term safeguard or mechanism for our education system because it does not remove inspection from the arena of industrial action. The difference in the proposed legislation is that it will take inspection away from pay disputes. It will take inspection away from workload dispute, give it a separate legal protection and allow it to operate while providing assurances on those to the public without the fraught ongoing negotiation that is dependent on pay and the industrial environment. It is a very deliberate proposal that will take inspection out of the industrial relations arena.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Finally from me, just so that we can understand the global picture on the matter, it is very clear that our neighbouring jurisdictions have comparable legislation. Has the Department looked at anything more widely, and could that be shared with the Committee to help it to understand what inspection regimes look like globally and give it a sense of what they look like in comparable democracies and education systems?

Ms Byrne: Inspection varies from country to country, and there is a danger of comparing apples with oranges in that. When you look at the inspection processes across the British Isles, you see that what you are comparing is clearer. In other jurisdictions, the form and nature of inspection may be very different. When we have looked at that, we have found that it is not the norm for inspection not to function in three-quarters of inspections for eight years, and I do not believe that we will find an international example like or a counterpart to Northern Ireland.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is very helpful. Thank you. I will bring in the Deputy Chairperson and then open it up questions from other members.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for your presentation, Suzanne. Just to pick up on Nick's last point, you said a couple of times in your presentation that inspection is the "cornerstone" of every "high-functioning education system." That is actually not accurate, because Finland has been held up as having one of the top education systems in the world for a number of years now, and it does not have external inspections. I am just throwing that out there for information. My question has been sort of asked already but was not answered in the way that I would like. How often, on average, are inspections carried out?

Ms Byrne: Before action short of strike, there was a seven to 10-year window, so we had a cycle of seven to 10 years for most inspections. Since action short of strike, we have not been able to carry out inspections, so there are now schools that, because they were due an inspection in 2017-18, have not had one since 2011-12. Suzanne mentioned a couple of times that three quarters of schools have not engaged during the period of action short of strike. Some of that was not when there was action short of strike. If you look at the periods of action short of strike, you see that almost all schools did not cooperate with inspections — the figure is over 90%. That impacts our ability to carry out an inspection within a reasonable cycle. The work that we are doing at the minute is about looking at the types of work that we are doing in schools. For example, we are looking at not just full inspections but the engagement of our schools in thematic evaluations.

Mr Sheehan: I understand that, Nicola, but what I really want to find out is this: how often are schools inspected on average? You are saying that the cycle was seven to 10 years. It is my understanding, and correct me if I am wrong, that the resources that are available to the inspectorate now are fewer than they were in 2016. Is that correct?

Ms Byrne: Yes.

Mr Sheehan: We could then expect the seven to 10-year period to actually be extended. I will put something to you. A child could go through a primary school that had not been inspected. They then could go on to post-primary school and, depending on when that school was inspected, go through their whole school career with their school not having been inspected. We are talking about 14 years. That is a possibility, is it not?

Ms Byrne: There is no possibility of a student going through school in that way and to not have engagement with the ETI in a non-action short of strike context.

Mr Sheehan: Is it not a possibility that a child could go through their whole school career and not be in a school that was subject to an inspection by the ETI?

Ms Byrne: Not before action short of strike. Before action short of strike, we had a seven-to-10-year window, and we would have looked at that type of situation. Therefore, that absolutely does not happen, because we are conscious of it. We did area-based inspections — we did them in West Belfast and in Downpatrick etc — to look at early years, primary, post-primary, special and youth. We looked at the whole block through an area-based inspection in some schools where there were risks and where we had not been in carrying out the full inspection. However, we always had the district inspector who, using the lens of school improvement, was engaging with the school and helping to it. That is a core element of our work.

We also have the thematic evaluations. We pick certain schools to see whether they are a risk. We pick those schools to go into as part of our thematic evaluations. We always keep an eye out to make sure that those risks do not happen, because that is the lens through which we look at it. We refer to it as being proportionate to need, which is what children need us to be, and that is the lens that we use.

We are now at quite a low level in recruitment, Pat, because we could not recruit in an action short of strike context. We could not justify that to the public purse, but we have recruited three inspectors in recent months. We are going out on 15 September for another four, and there will be another four after that. We need to recruit to ensure that we can manage that inspection cycle. That is very much on our mind.

Dr Kingon: Pat, can I pick up the point that you raised about Finland and its high-performance systems and to make a point, as an extension to Nicola's, on what I said in my opening remarks? It is not just about individual institution inspection.

The point is that the information from inspection across the board is aggregated and used in thematic inspections to give us a picture of how our education system is performing overall and to identify strengths and areas for improvement at system level. Just to be clear about Finland, it performed strongly in the programme for international student assessment (PISA) in 2001 but has been in significant decline for the past 15 years. If you read some of the important research literature on that by Tim Oates and others — I recommend the article titled 'Finnish Lessons or Fairy Tales' — you will find that it will talk you through how Finland's high performance in PISA was achieved when it had a high-accountability system and how its decline now is because of its low-accountability approach. If you are familiar with the literature on Finland, you will know that that representation of it is not correct, and —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are running short of time. The Deputy Chair wants to come in, and we will then probably need to draw a line under this.

Mr Sheehan: I have a final question about educational outcomes during this period of work to rule. The unions say that educational outcomes have improved over the period. What is the response of the Department or the inspectorate to that?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask for a brief response.

Dr Kingon: I will pick that up. In international studies, our outcomes at primary level are strong in the international mathematics and science study (TIMSS) and in the progress in international reading literacy study (PIRLS), but when we look at our PISA data outcomes for our 15-year-olds, we see that they have stagnated over the past 12 years. We are above average in reading, but we are only average in science and in mathematics. You will have seen that, in recent weeks, the outcomes of Key Stage assessments have been published. Teachers recorded that 28% of children at the end of Key Stage 2, which is P7, were not at the expected level in communication, which you may be more familiar with as "English", or mathematics. Saying that standards have continued to improve during the period of action short of strike is not a correct representation. It is a little bit like saying, "Standards improved during COVID because there were higher results", which is a nonsense; there was a different awarding system. When we look at the whole picture —.

Mr Sheehan: Are you saying that the unions are misrepresenting what has happened over the past number of years?

Dr Kingon: I am saying that they are using a particular dataset, and I am offering other data that gives a fuller picture of the operation of our education system more widely. Our colleagues in the inspectorate, having gone back into schools post-COVID, highlight the issues that they see with teaching and learning.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): In the interests of bringing our —.

Dr Kingon: The pandemic has had an impact internationally —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will have to —.

Dr Kingon: — including on disadvantaged children, so it is unlikely that children in Northern Ireland have not been impacted.

Mr Sheehan: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): If I ask for a question to be brought to an end, I expect not only members but witnesses to work with me. I have no interest in cutting any evidence short, but I do have an interest in making sure that everybody has an opportunity to ask questions. I will open it to members.

Mr Burrows: I am alarmed and aghast that three quarters of inspections have been disrupted in the past eight years. That should be in every school's risk register, particularly where safeguarding is concerned, so thank you for the work that you are doing.

If it eases the concerns of members, including the Chair, I want to clarify a point about the absence of negotiation on this. I do not know whether you heard the unions' evidence. They clarified to me, under cross-examination, the fact that there are no circumstances whatsoever in which they would ever agree to legislative protection of inspection, so your judgement call on that sounds right.

IP addresses were mentioned in the previous session. One member thought that information was discarded. As I understand it, that was not the case and that it was all presented and you contextualised it.

Dr Kingon: Yes. We provided the full dataset, so all the responses that were recorded as coming from parents that came from the same IP addresses as responses from teachers were fully recorded and presented in the tables. We just clarified in the narrative underneath the tables the fact that there were double IP addresses.

Mr Burrows: Thank you. That was my understanding. It was just that another member thought that it had been discarded; I think that that was the phrase that was used. However, that is not the case.

Dr Kingon: It absolutely was not. The full data set was presented throughout with just that bit of nuance. It is absolutely appropriate for the public to understand that there may have been multiple responses from the same individual.

Mr Burrows: My next question is for Nicola. The Justice Minister has warned that there would be an increase in bullying, which would be a sort of hate bullying, of LGBT or trans pupils because of the withdrawal of the Education Authority's (EA) guidance on gender issues. I do not accept that teachers would be engaged in that bullying. If, however, we were to take the Justice Minister's concerns at full face value, is it your professional view that, if there were a culture or practice of that kind of bullying, inspection would be one way of identifying it?

Ms Byrne: I know that that is a way that it is identified. Our work is focused a lot on observing practice in schools, where teachers are going over and above for children and young people every day. I am thinking, Barry, of our training on Monday, which was our refresher training on child protection and safeguarding. We have to have the highest expectations of ourselves in child protection and safeguarding. One quote that was used was from Nelson Mandela:

That is important for us as we have to believe that, at times, teachers are not always doing right by children. We have evidence of that at times. Although it is a very small element, it is an important one. For example, when action short of strike was lifted, one of the first things that we were able to do was share our questionnaires with schools. The schools distributed them to the young people and their teachers. Very early on, we had a response from a young person saying that they were being bullied by a teacher — I am just giving this as an example — on the basis of race. The young man stated that, if it was not sorted, he would commit suicide. That was in his written response to us. My fear is that, if we do not have this as a mechanism, we run the risk of some of our children not having someone to whom they can disclose.

Back in 2022, we carried out research on the preventative curriculum. We had some responses to that from children from the LGBTQIA+ community. That research revealed that those children were more likely to state that they did not feel safe in school. We have to take that on board.

Mr Burrows: Of course.

Ms Byrne: We have to look to see what strategies we can have in schools to make sure that every child in school feels safe. That is a fundamental right of our children.

Mr Burrows: Thank you for that answer, which was really powerful. I am going to ask a leading question in order to confirm something that you already indicated to me. For absolute brevity and clarity, however, do you believe that — you are from the inspectorate — any child who may be trans, gay or of colour is actually safer from bullying as a result of inspection and therefore, by extension, that inspection should be protected in law?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will ask you for a brief response to that question.

Ms Byrne: Yes.

Mr Burrows: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That was certainly brief. Thank you, that is great.

Mr Brooks: I want to start by making clear my perception — I am sure that you can confirm it — that we are getting tied down, sometimes necessarily, by the idea that ETI is there to scrutinise just teachers. Dundonald High School has been mentioned a few times in the Committee. Last year, the school was quite pleased with its ETI report, which said that it was:

It absolutely is, and it is doing so in fairly dreadful conditions. I will not list everything, as I have done previously in Committee, but the ETI report was probably one of the most useful tools for shining a light on what needed to be done and for giving a bit of urgency to it. Inspections are therefore not just about turning a spotlight on teachers and putting them under duress in some way. Sometimes, they are about identifying issues that are putting barriers in the way of our teaching staff giving our children the best possible education. I thank them for that work.

I will move on to asking some questions, but you can comment on that after if you wish. We had a situation in which there was action short of strike. Since that time — I understand that there are ongoing issues, and I am not putting the blame on anyone — have safeguarding issues been identified that had gone undiscovered because we had a lack of inspection?

Dr Kingon: Do you mean now?

Mr Brooks: Have we become aware of issues that might otherwise have been discovered had there been inspection?

Dr Kingon: Nicola can talk a little bit about some of the issues that the ETI has found this year when it has been back inspecting schools.

Ms Byrne: I will start with the first point that you made, for which I thank you. A key role for us is to advocate for teachers. Through our thematic evaluations, we can see the barriers that teachers are facing to delivering high-quality education, particularly in a way that is equitable. It is therefore key for us to be able to voice those concerns and provide advice to the Department on where things could be changed to make them better for our teaching workforce. An example is the teacher professional learning to support children with a SEN evaluation. We said at the time that teachers were not provided with sufficient support to meet the needs of the children presenting in classrooms. We had a range of recommendations for the Education Authority, which, in the main, were about practical things that had to change and that could have an impact at pace. The Education Authority has taken forward some of that work really well, but there is still work to be done.

The other piece is quite difficult for me to talk about without identifying specific schools in a way in which I do not want to. We are seeing things not happening in schools this year that have been in place for quite some time. For example, training is to be carried out every two years, yet we have schools that have not done it for over four years. That may sound as though it is a technical piece that is not that important. It affects the culture of a school, however. If training is not being prioritised, children feel it in other ways. That can prevent disclosures, because teachers do not feel confident. I sometimes hear, "It's only policy. It's only a bit of training that wasn't carried out". That has massive impacts, however, particularly when there are staffing changes or whatever. If teachers do not know what to do when a child discloses, children behave in a certain way. For safeguarding, we have policies, training and practice. For us, the policies can often be fine but the practice is not. The teaching unions say that they cooperate with safeguarding when doing inspection, but that is through their lens. Their lens is that, if we were to call for a safeguarding inspection, they would cooperate with us. The phrase that they use is that, first, teachers are not to cooperate with the Education and Training Inspectorate. The unions also provide guidance that states that, if an inspector goes into a classroom, they are to stop teaching. They also have —.

Mr Burrows: Will you repeat that for me?

Ms Byrne: If an inspector goes into a classroom, they are to stop teaching and are instead to supervise the class. There was guidance that stated that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): David is keen to come in with another question. We are very short on time, so, in order to give you the opportunity to —.

Mr Brooks: Do you want to comment first, Chair?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): No. I will bring you in for a comment or a question, but the response will need to be very brief.

Mr Brooks: I thank you for your answer, Nicola. It was very useful. The Chair, not unreasonably, was talking about normal practice, and I understand that that question came from the consultation responses.

I am less interested in normal practice and more interested in good practice and best practice. You are right when you say that those who are most concerned and who are at the coalface have the opportunity to respond and naturally respond in greater numbers. Nobody involved in a consultation, no matter whether they hold dual roles or not, is entitled to game the system, however. I am not saying that some people may not have done so genuinely, but we need to make sure that there are not multiple responses coming from one person that may create bias in the system. It is therefore right and good that the Department have safeguards in place to ensure that that does not happen.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A response has been provided to that. I ask whether you are content to take that as a comment.

Mr Brooks: Suzanne may want to comment.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Very briefly.

Dr Kingon: Citizen Space routinely collects IP addresses to support the integrity of consultation processes and to avoid automation and significant gaming. I am not saying that that is what took place in any way in this instance, but it is why such safeguards are in place for any consultation.

Mr Brooks: It could happen in any sector and with any poll.

Dr Kingon: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It was just to determine whether there was anything new to add, but that is fine and has been noted.

Mr Baker: There are a lot of concerns about the IP stuff. Who gave the direction to track IP addresses?

Ms Byrne: It is done automatically.

Dr Kingon: They are automatically recorded.

Mr Baker: Who gave the direction to do it in the way in which you did it here, with the deliberate release of information?

Dr Kingon: Who decided?

Mr Baker: Yes. To my knowledge, it is not —.

Dr Kingon: Officials decided to present the information in that format.

Mr Baker: That is not the normal format, however. We have not come across that before. I am just wondering who gave the direction. Relationships, and building on them, are key here if you are a teacher looking in from the outside. The cornerstone of our education, in my experience, is our school leaders, teachers and classroom assistants, all of whom do an amazing job. There are many reasons behind educational underachievement. One that screws it all up and warps the whole system is academic selection. I am not going to get into the core stuff of what kids are falling behind on, but it is important to note that the consultation was widely rejected, yet the data was then released almost to manipulate and misrepresent the responses. I have never before seen a consultation broken down like that, so I am trying to understand why.

Dr Kingon: There was absolutely no misrepresentation of the data. The data was given in full. Every group was given —.

Mr Baker: It is not enough, Suzanne, to be fair —.

Dr Kingon: I cannot answer for all public consultations across the public sector, but I have seen data presented in a range of ways. I have seen instances in which multiple respondents' responses or campaign responses were counted as single responses.

Mr Baker: It would be fair for a teacher or a school leader who is listening to this now or who saw the way in which the data came through to say what was put out about the IP addresses was clearly misrepresented. If you are a teacher, you are still a parent.

Dr Kingon: Of course. Absolutely.

Mr Baker: You are now at a stage — we heard it from the unions — at which things are working. There were workload issues in the past. The reason that the unions were not engaging was because of the extra bureaucracy from the EA. That has now been moved away from. The real question is this: why decide now to go and do that? Why make that the cornerstone going forward?

Dr Kingon: I will finish on the IP addresses by saying that all responses are valued. Every response that was returned was counted in the tables —

Mr Baker: I am sorry, but you did so with an asterisk. When someone does that, they are almost saying, "Here's the data, but".

Dr Kingon: We did not use an asterisk.

Mr Baker: No, you did not, but that is what it was like.

Dr Kingon: We gave a qualification statement that highlighted the fact that some respondents responded multiple times. We clarified that, but we did not use an asterisk, and all the tables presented the full information.

Mr Baker: Sorry, but look at the terminology about gaming the system. Those words getting dropped in there paints a different picture. I am awfully sorry, but that is how it has been picked up.

Dr Kingon: I do not think that I used the term.

Mr Baker: I know you did not use it, but it was said. We are not saying that that is happening, but those were the words used. That is what I mean about relationships and good communication and about where we are getting to now. Teachers and school leaders are telling me that they are in a good place now, but this decision would now criminalise them for taking action. What is the good in that? What confidence building will that achieve if we are really looking to take a child-centred approach?

Dr Kingon: Such legislation is in place in the Republic of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. No teacher has ever been prosecuted. The law is therefore about prevention.

Mr Baker: Why bring it in then?

Dr Kingon: We are bringing it in because its existence has ensured inspection in all four of those jurisdictions. Two of them — England and the Republic of Ireland — have continued to improve, and they now outperform us in every domain in PISA. We used to outperform them 10 years ago. They have continued to improve, while we have not. PISA has stagnated here. They have a legal protection that enables inspection to operate consistently. They have not had three quarters of inspections disrupted in the past eight years. Rather, they have had a consistent, uninterrupted, unimpeded programme of inspection because of the legislative framework that is in place, and it has not resulted in the criminalisation of any teacher.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Please be brief with your question and also with your answer.

Mr Baker: That is like saying that inspections are the reason that our schools achieve more. It completely ignores the elephant in the room that warps our whole education system, which is academic selection.

Dr Kingon: There is a whole variety of reasons for underperformance.

Mr Baker: I know, and that is my point. You are selling the point that it is about inspections.

Dr Kingon: I am saying that the lack of inspection is not helpful for supporting or driving improvement across our education system and that inspection is a key means of identifying schools that require support. Is there a range of factors that lead to educational underachievement and poor performance? Of course. The biggest single factor, however, behind achieving a high-quality education system and improving student outcomes is the quality of teaching. If the quality of teaching is not being assessed and monitored, you can see some of the difficulties that arise. The single biggest factor in every single study by the OECD and others will tell you that every other structural factor, including academic selection, pales into insignificance compared with the quality of the experienced teaching in the classroom.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Peter, you had indicated to come in next.

Ms Byrne: May I add something about inspection, Danny?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask that you be brief, because I was about to bring in another member.

Ms Byrne: I will be.

Mr Baker: I am not saying anything against inspection. I am just challenging you specifically on the data, on the way in which it was presented and on where we are right now. Good relationships are being built, but this has the potential to destroy all of that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): In the interests of fairness to members, it is probably reasonable to bring in Peter at this point.

Ms Byrne: No problem.

Mr Martin: I was more than happy to give Danny a little bit of extra time there in an effort to build relationships. My questions are fairly straightforward. First, who has the responsibility for evaluating safeguarding procedures in schools in Northern Ireland?

Ms Byrne: The ETI.

Mr Martin: During action short of strike, is safeguarding, in your professional opinion, fully evaluated to the professional standard?

Ms Byrne: It will not be evaluated fully.

Mr Martin: Given your answers, could it be classed as an increased safeguarding risk that, during ASOS, there is no evaluation of safeguarding procedures?

Ms Byrne: Yes.

Mr Martin: You are doing very well. This is dead easy, is it not? Do you deem the legislation as described in this session to be a way in which to mitigate the risks that you have just said could be concurrent with a lack of inspection?

Ms Byrne: Yes.

Mr Martin: My only other question is a slightly broader one, and you will be able to provide a bit of narrative, I imagine. In the previous session, Mark McTaggart said that the relationship between the ETI and the unions and teachers has improved significantly over the past while. I imagine that that is to the credit of some of the people whom we have in front of us today and the unions for building that relationship. From their perspective, there is also the feeling that the ETI is coming in to inspect them, mark their homework and give them, as it was in my case, a D or E in school. Other grades are available. My understanding, however, is that school inspections are meant to help support schools that are having specific problems or issues. If there were not action short of strike and if inspections were happening as they are in the rest of the jurisdictions in the British Isles, how would those inspections help support schools that are having specific problems or issues?

Dr Kingon: Before Nicola comes in, may I provide a couple of figures for clarification, Peter? This year, 71 inspections took place in schools unimpeded by action short of strike, because we have had an industrial relations agreement in place. Of those 71 schools, nine were identified as requiring a progress inspection. That is 13%. Five of those schools were placed into formal intervention in order to receive intensive and sustained support. A significant percentage of schools therefore receive sustained support through the Education Authority to improve their practice, leadership, governance, teaching and learning or whatever other issues the ETI has identified.

In the eight years prior to that, owing to action short of strike, no school was placed into formal intervention. That is a startling figure for those schools that were not identified to get the support that they need in order to improve. Pat talked earlier about children passing through school without an inspection being done, and I worry that a whole cohort passed through school in those eight years without the support that their school needed being identified.

Mr Martin: You are saying, Suzie, that it is not about targeting schools but that there could be schools that need help and support that have not been identified and that, over that period, the ETI could not identify the schools, because it could not go into them, and that, in turn, those schools could not get the help and support that they needed in order to be a higher-performing school.

Dr Kingon: It is more than "could be", Peter; it is definitely the case. In the previous eight years, 80 schools had been identified as needing help and support, so I cannot believe that no schools would have needed help and support in the following eight years in order to become better.

Mr Martin: I tend to agree with you.

I am sorry, but I interrupted Nicola. You were finishing a point, Nicola. That is then me finished.

Ms Byrne: A key facet of our work when we are in schools is to disseminate the highly effective practice that we see. That helps support school improvement. We regularly hold events on themes such as emotional health and well-being and on thematic pieces, in different phases, on special educational needs. We hold seminars and dissemination events at which we showcase the highly effective practice that we see. That is key for schools that struggle to address the needs of some of the children and for them to make those links.

Some schools did not allow us, as district inspectors, to go in during that period of action short of strike. Others did, however. Part of our district work in our time in the schools involved our saying to them, "There is a school up the road that has been working on that area", so we can then make links and build relationships. It is always about the next steps. Through inspection, rather than saying that a school is outstanding, inadequate or whatever, we are in schools saying, "These are the strengths of the school, and the next steps for it are this". In that model, it is —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I ask that you draw your remarks to a close, please.

Ms Byrne: Sorry. There is a focus on improvement even more than there is one on accountability. Our balance leans much more towards school improvement.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are out of time, unfortunately, Peter. Michelle has indicated that she wishes to ask a final question.

Mr Martin: That is OK, Chair.

Mrs Guy: Thank you for your time, folks. Having listened to everything, I have a couple of questions that have come to mind. What safeguarding is in place for kids who are electively home-educated?

Ms Byrne: An issue for us is that a number of children are missing from school. That is why we look more widely. In the past, we focused only on individual organisation inspection, with very few thematic evaluations. Our work is much more balanced now. It looks at individual organisation inspection, but even individual organisation inspection is looked at much more widely. We have a core question — question 5 — that looks at a school within its community and the community of learning, which is, "How is a school supporting all the children in the community?".

Mrs Guy: I am talking about absence.

Ms Byrne: I am coming on to that now. A number of children are missing from school. One group is those who are electively home-educated. We have issues with that. We are seeing the issues in the Republic of Ireland now. There are therefore issues in our system that need to be addressed. That is one area that causes us concern.

Mrs Guy: What is the ETI doing to address that? For example, are you noting when schools do not complete the SA1 form when a child is deregistered? Is that information captured?

Ms Byrne: Yes. We have just completed a primary —.

Mrs Guy: There was a circular that stated that schools did not always do that.

Ms Byrne: That is right. In June, we carried out a thematic district engagement piece that looked at attendance solely in our primary schools. Some elements were picked up on through that work. We also looked at where our post-primary schools were at with the anti-bullying legislation. Those were our two foci for June. We then presented papers to the Department on particular learning that needs to be taken forward.

Mrs Guy: That is interesting, because my next question is about bullying. Perhaps there is a different context in schools now. Through inspection, what monitoring is done of schools' compliance with anti-bullying legislation?

Ms Byrne: That is part of the evidence base in all inspections. We look at equity, diversity and inclusion. There is therefore a piece on anti-bullying. We look at how schools monitor bullying. We look at boards of governors' minutes and at how that information is shared. Most importantly, we look at the actions that governors take as a consequence of the information that is provided to them.

Mrs Guy: We are at the stage at which we need that data to be properly disaggregated so that we can see what the triggers for bullying in schools are.

Ms Byrne: Yes. We have found that not all schools are doing that.

Mrs Guy: The data needs to be shared so that we are all aware of the bullying behaviours that occur in schools and why particular children are targeted.

Ms Byrne: Yes, absolutely, but the way in which the data is to be understood has to be clearly stated. When some schools have zero, that is an issue for us to tease out.

Mrs Guy: It does not have to be disaggregated down to school level. Rather, I mean that it could be done to show the different reasons for bullying across the school estate. I am not suggesting at all that —.

Dr Kingon: Michelle, my group in the Department does not have responsibility for elective home education or for bullying in schools. If you want a longer, written response, I am more than happy to provide a departmental response. Nicola has answered from an ETI perspective, but neither Kathryn nor I are equipped to answer that question from a departmental perspective. I would like to provide a fuller, written response on that for you, if that is OK.

Mrs Guy: Yes, that would be great. I appreciate that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you all for your time, and for your patience earlier. No doubt we will hear from you again.

I will finish with a comment. There is probably not agreement around the room, because there are questions on the legislation and different views, but I am happy about that. The Committee needs to take the time to work through everything. A positive from this conversation, however, is the message that we are hearing about the reset of relations between the ETI and the teaching unions. That seems to be having a really positive impact on the system in the here and now. Wherever the legislation goes, that is a real positive that we can all take from the conversation. Thank you.

Dr Kingon: Thank you.

Ms Byrne: Thank you.

Mr Sheehan: On a point of information, Chair. I know that Suzanne did not mean to misrepresent the situation in Finland. Finland is just outside the top 10 education systems in the world. Its education has not fallen off a cliff. It is ahead of places such as the UK, Austria and the Netherlands, all of which are held up as being top-class education systems. I just make that point for information.

Mr Burrows: Is the trajectory downwards?

Mr Sheehan: No, it is not. It has risen in the past couple of years.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The witnesses have left their seats, so —. [Laughter.]

Ms Byrne: We are interested in learning experiences, not just outcomes. The quality of the learning experience is crucial to us. It is not just about the standards that are achieved at the end of the day.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is not normal practice to continue the evidence after the session has finished, so we will leave it at that.