There is a shift towards increased accountability and assessment in schools and this is echoed in an Irish context, with assessment a neglected area of study in teacher education programmes. The aim of this study is to explore teacher educators understanding of school-based assessment practices and how they prepare pre-service teachers to assess…

When reflecting on my years as a doctoral student, I recall several questions that often came to mind throughout my journey: what is participatory health research? Is such an approach to research truly feasible in the pursuit of a doctoral degree? Is it worth it, or have I inadvertently made things more challenging for myself? My response to these…

This paper reflects on compulsory school self-evaluation in Ireland. It sets important historical and contemporary context by documenting the development of a culture of evaluation in Ireland throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium before charting the rise of school self-evaluation during the austere economic conditions of post-2008…

This Policy Brief draws on the "Quality beyond Regulations" policy review undertaken by the OECD between 2018 and 2022 to foster an understanding of the different dimensions of quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC), focusing on process quality in particular. Process quality encompasses children's daily interactions through…

A significant paradox of school autonomy is that it tends to constrain the autonomy of teachers, instead subjecting them to the increased controlling of their work, heightened monitoring, and greater accountability. This paper draws on interview data to show how teachers in accountability-driven and business-like schools face three different but…

This is a critical reflection upon the Quality and Qualifications Ireland (2018) guidelines on blended learning from the perspective of a Further Education and Training practitioner. The purpose of the guidelines is set out and it is suggested that there is much to be welcomed here. The contested meaning of the term blended learning is explored…

This paper offers a comprehensive account of Irish teachers' perspectives on life inside schools in England, as reported in empirical studies. The research literature shows that Irish teachers report experiencing intense pressure from the inspectorate, but also internally as a consequence of the demands placed on English schools. Within these…

Ten years on from the formation of SOLAS (An tSeirbhís Oideachais Leanúnaig agus Scileanna) and the Education and Training Boards (ETBs) in Ireland, it is appropriate to reflect on where adult education lies in the new Further Education and Training (FET) sector. This paper uses Denis O'Sullivan's schematisation of policy paradigms (2005) as an…

Through a series of conversations, Fintan McCutcheon and Joanna Haynes explore McCutcheon's reflections on school leadership in the contexts of the Educate Together movement (in the Republic of Ireland) and, specifically, in his aspiration to build an optimally democratic school in Balbriggan. Much of the academic and professional literature on…

Self-evaluation, a devolved, rigorous form of teacher inspection, has increasingly been promoted in educational circles as a way to balance both teacher autonomy and accountability. Such balancing acts help to alleviate anxiety around inspection, for the teacher who would otherwise face a visit from an inspector, and for the public who are…

This paper posits that almost all inspectorates are now following, if to varying degrees, a similar overarching ideology and methodology for school accountability and improvement. The first part of the paper provides an analysis of recent changes to school inspection policies across Frontiers. Using Ireland as a case example, the next part of the…

This article reports on a case study conducted in an urban post-primary school setting, which investigated a teaching and learning group, called a T&L Club, as a model of sustainable professional development for teachers. The group consisted of 18 members from a whole staff of 90 teachers and had been in existence for four years at the time of…

In this piece the author provides a critical response to the new 'Looking at Our School' quality framework in Ireland and illustrates how policy overlooks critical scholarship. The author questions the claim that the updated policy reflects recent thinking and developments, and critiques the policy's stance on notions of both distributed…

This research intends to provide understanding of the impact that a module consisting entirely of collaborative interdisciplinary science tasks had on students' group work behaviour, attitude and motivation. It was hypothesised that implementing a module based entirely of group tasks would develop positive attitudes and increase student…

The study at the heart of this paper was conducted in 2017 to gather data on Irish post-primary teachers' conceptions of assessment at the time immediately following the introduction of a revised policy for assessment by the Department of Education and Skills (DES). Central to the reform policy was an increased emphasis on formative assessment and…