LITERACY AND NUMERACY FOR LEARNING AND LIFE “a concerted national effort to achieve world -class literacy and numeracy skills among our children and young people” Ruairí Quinn, TD, Minister for Education and Skills 1
OVERALL APPROACH Consultation demonstrated support for… • A clear emphasis on literacy and numeracy in the educational system • The importance of L&N for an individual’s personal development, life chances and prosperity • Good L&N skills – good for equity and Irish society • Need to improve literacy and numeracy standards • A comprehensive approach from early childhood education to end of schooling • Making improvements through a broad range of measures in an integrated way • Setting of clearly defined targets and identification of definitive actions 2
OVERALL APPROACH The Strategy encompasses… • Actions relating to – How we help families and communities to support children’s learning – Improving practice among teachers and early years staff – Enabling principals and deputy principals to lead change and improvement – Making sure curriculum is clear about what we want children and young people to learn – Continued support for students with additional learning needs (special education needs (SEN), high achievers, students for whom English is an additional language (EAL), disadvantaged) – Improving the way we monitor how students learn, using this to inform teaching and improvement 3
EARLY CHILDHOOD AND FAMILIES The Strategy includes: • National public information campaign – role that parents/communities can play • Advice and information for parents www.helpmykidlearn.ie • Ensuring school improvement plans incorporate actions to support effective working relationships with parents • Better information for parents on children’s progress 4
EARLY CHILDHOOD AND FAMILIES The Strategy includes: • Ensure teacher education programmes address role of parents and how to establish and foster home-school relationships • Encourage schools and libraries to cooperate to support literacy in families • D/CYA evaluations of existing initiatives – Learn from existing initiatives and disseminate practice – Target funding over time • Pilot joint inspections of Early Childhood Education and Care provision 5
TEACHERS’ AND EARLY YEARS’ STAFF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE Strategy includes: • Higher entry requirements • Longer initial teacher education – 4-year Bachelor of Education – 2-year diploma for primary and post-primary teachers • Increased time in school-based experience – a developmental experience • Major changes to course content to develop student teachers’ understanding and ability to apply skills in areas such as children’s language acquisition. 6
TEACHERS’ AND ECCE STAFF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE Strategy includes: • Mandatory participation in induction programme for beginning teachers • Focussed continuing professional development for teachers on teaching, learning and assessment of literacy and numeracy as part of ongoing professional development requirements 7
SCHOOL LEADERSHIP Strategy includes: • Improve understanding and ability of principals and deputy principals to lead improvements in literacy and numeracy • Targetted professional development for principals and deputy principals on – leading improvements in teaching, learning, assessment of literacy and numeracy – Using assessment to inform improved teaching – Effective school self-evaluation 8
CURRICULUM + LEARNING EXPERIENCE Strategy includes • Revision of English and Irish using learning outcomes approach (primary and post-primary) • Supported by examples of what students should be able to do for English, Irish and Maths – to inform teaching • Phased revision of curriculum with Irish as L2 to follow • Principles of Aistear (early years curriculum) to be fully integrated into early school curriculum • Make sure reading material addresses range of interests (including boys) and digital literacy 9
CURRICULUM + LEARNING EXPERIENCE Strategy includes • Systematic attention to teaching and learning of key literacy skills, for example… – Oral and aural skills, phonological/phonemic awareness, word identification, reading fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, writing – Appropriate attention to lower order and higher order skills • Ensure in all curricular revision that integration of literacy and numeracy is addressed • Increase time for literacy and numeracy 10
ADDITIONAL LEARNING NEEDS Strategy includes… • Commitments to disadvantage supports, SEN and EAL supports within available resources • How to address these additional needs – modules in initial teacher education and teachers’ professional development • Target support services to designated disadvantage schools • Disseminate good practice from designated disadvantage schools that are succeeding • Ensure schools prioritise assessing, tracking progress of these students in school self-evaluation 11
ASSESSMENT + EVALUATION Strategy includes • Learning outcomes + examples of children’s work to guide teachers’ assessment and teaching – to support assessment for learning • Standardised testing in reading and mathematics at 2 nd , 4 th , 6 th class and 2 nd year (i.e. at ages 8,10,12 and 14) • Individual student data to parents • Better transfer of progress records between schools • Schools will aggregate data and look at strengths and areas for improvement • School self-evaluation: school improvement 12
ASSESSMENT + EVALUATION Strategy includes • Aggregated data reported to board of management and to Department annually • National trends reported from assessments • Inspection complementing self-evaluation • National assessments of reading and mathematics continue at 5-year intervals and extended to post-primary • International participation and benchmarking – PISA (Reading, Maths and Science, 15-year olds) – TIMSS (Maths/Science, primary), PIRLS (Reading, Primary) 13
A Framework for Junior Cycle • A Framework for Junior Cycle was published by Minister Quinn on 4 th October 2012 • Contains radical changes to how students’ progress and learning are assessed 14
Why Change? Evidence from Research: • A significant number of first-year students do not make progress, particularly in English and Mathematics • A significant number of students in second year become disengaged from the learning process and find it almost impossible to re-connect to learning subsequently • Choices made as early as first year of Junior Cycle (for example to take Ordinary level rather than Higher Level) are almost impossible to reverse and may limit the options open to young people for the Leaving Certificate and after leaving school. This is a particularly important issue for students in lower stream classes and those in schools serving areas of disadvantage • In third year, the Junior Certificate examination dominates the experiences of students; the focus of learning narrows, the emphasis is on rote learning and for many students, the examination does not lead to positive learning experiences and outcomes. 15
Components of the Framework • 8 principles • 24 statements of learning – describe what students should know, understand, value and be able to do • Key skills – literacy, numeracy and six other key skills embedded in all syllabuses and short courses 16
Principles • Quality • Wellbeing • Creativity and innovation • Choice and flexibility • Engagement and participation • Inclusive education • Continuity and development • Learning to learn 17
Key skills • Literacy • Numeracy • Managing myself • Staying well • Communicating • Being creative • Working with others • Managing information and thinking 18
A School Programme: What will it look like? • A school’s junior cycle programme will include: – Range of subjects – Range of short courses – Other learning experiences – Priority Learning Units (PLUs) – for group of students with special educational needs 19
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Assessment • Ongoing classroom assessment for learning providing feedback to students throughout the 3 years • Standardised testing for all students at end of second year – English reading and Mathematics – Irish reading in Irish-medium schools – Science Current Junior Certificate examination phased out and replaced by a school-based assessment over an 8 year period 21
Reporting • Learning achieved by students recorded and reported by the school to students and parents in the autumn after 3 rd year A junior cycle achievement profile • School certificate – Grades awarded to student in between 8-10 subjects or equivalent • Achievement profile – report on other learning experiences and achievements 22
Quality assurance to support new junior cycle • Subject specifications will contain clear outcomes and examples of students’ work to illustrate standards for teachers, parents and students • Comprehensive professional development for teachers • Professional development for principals in curriculum leadership and assessment • New reporting system will encourage generation of evidence of learning across subjects, short courses and other learning experiences • Standardised tests – information re students’ learning relative to the student cohort • National Council for Curriculum and Assessment moderation and assessment toolkit 23
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