Portumna National School (N.S.), Girls NS Observation Book, 1856-1898
Organisers' observation books detailing date and time of visit together with observations relating to specific classes and also to teaching practices and methods, observations on the school room and premises, school accounts, discipline and order, industrial training and the supply of books and apparatus.
Observations include for instance ‘I consider this school most useful; not only are the children carefully taught, but habits of neatness, order and regularity are established, the effect of which on the future of the girls will be of little less importance than the literary instruction which they receive...’ (GC/NS7/6, 14 Jul 1959, p11), and ‘School room clean and comfortable. A new map of the world is to be desired’ (GC/NS7/6, November 1891, p68).