Education and Training Board Ireland, National Survey on Ethos in ETB Schools
The DCU Centre for Evaluation, Quality and inspection was commissioned by Education and Training Board Ireland (ETBI) to undertake a national survey on ethos in ETB schools. This survey is the first of its kind for the Education and Training Board (ETB) sector. It explored how schools are living the ETB Ethos, which states that ETB schools are state run, multi-denominational, co-educational schools, the operation of which is underpinned by the core values of excellence in education, care, equality, community and respect.
The survey was carried out in ETB schools, across all 16 ETBs between March-May ’22, which yielded a 66% response rate. Preliminary findings from the national survey was presented by Dr. Shivaun O’Brien, Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection at the ETBI Annual Conference 2022 which took place in Mount Wolseley Hotel, Tullow, Co. Carlow. The conference session was shared with Dr. Séamus Conboy, Director of Schools, ETBI who highlighted the work on school ethos, as a case study of how school ethos can be clarified and supported across a national network of schools. The final report on the survey is due to be presented to ETBI in the near future.
This research builds on previous work, which EQI was commissioned to undertake, under the direction of Dr. Shivaun O’Brien over the previous two years. It related to the development of a systematic ethos quality assurance process for all 279 ETB primary and post-primary schools nationally. This involved the development of ETB Ethos Quality Standards and Statements of Effective Practice, an ethos school self-evaluation (SSE) process, the development of a suite of tools and guidelines to support the ethos SSE process, and the delivery of training for 20 schools who successfully piloted the ethos SSE process during 2021/ 22 school year.
The ETBI national survey on ethos was carried out by Dr. Shivaun O’Brien (Principal Investigator), Gerry Conyngham (DCU EQI) and Caitriona Pennycook (Research Assistant, EQI).
