Ms Yvonne Keating:

I will follow up on Deputy Ó Ríordáin's question with regard to whole-school evaluation and data. In terms of whole-school evaluation, not only is the focus on looking at policies, but attention is also given to the gathering of the perspectives of students, teachers and parents on a number of anti-bullying items through online surveys. Deputy Ó Ríordáin mentioned the frequency of whole-school evaluation. It is a whole-school approach which takes a number of days in a school. For that reason, the inspectorate has been and will be focusing, in the new term and during the 2021-22 school year, on conducting incidental inspections which are short and focused forms of inspection and take place over one day. That will allow the inspectorate to gather information on the areas I have alluded to previously. The plan is, from January 2022, to include a number of these checks on anti-bullying in schools through all the evaluation models. A circular with regard to those plans has been issued to all primary and post-primary schools in recent weeks.