Network of School Planners Conference Curriculum Planning

1
Network of School Planners Conference Curriculum
Planning

• John Hammond, Deputy Chief Executive, NCCA

2
Structure of presentation elements of Curriculum
Planning

• Initiation and scoping
• External context
• Organisational context
• Curriculum review/planning
• Making changes
• Evaluation of change
• Collaboration and consultation at all stages

3
Curriculum planning and change
4
ESRI Research A good teacher is someone

• Who explains things well and encourages questions
• Who enjoys teaching
• Who likes their subject
• Who relates the subject to life
• Who you can talk to
• Who has a good sense of humour and doesnt give
  out all the time

5
ESRI Research Good learning happens when

• Its clear what youre supposed to be learning
• Youre having fun
• When its being done in different ways, through
  different activities
• When the subject is practical (or the teaching
  methods are practical)
• When the pace is right not too much expected,
  not too little

6
ESRI Research Learning

• Its hard to concentrate because all we do is
  read from the booktheres no fun stuff.
• If the class is boring you just cannot
  concentrate, even how much you want to take it in
  and everything, I think if its boring it just
  wont stay in your head, you just want the class
  to end.

7
ESRI Research Alarm bells

• Transition remains very difficult for some
  students
• Students engage with or disengage from
  learning in second year
• Negative effects of streaming intensify year to
  year
• The Junior Certificate can feature too large in
  the educational experience
• Subjects students enjoy most they have least
  access to
• Suitability of curriculum for a minority is
  questioned
• Gender and social class differences emerge along
  predicable lines

8
ESRI Research Streaming, class allocation,
subject levels, underperformance

• I have to say I think this was the stupidest
  thing they could ever have done, was to decide
  before you even come into the school. I cam into
  the school and I know I wasnt brilliant at Irish
  but I wasnt terrible and I was put in one of the
  low pass classes. And I was sitting there and
  everybody was learning cad is ainm duit and Im
  like oh my god this is stupidand nowlike Im
  likesort of not learning it or something.
• They are clever and we are dumb

9
ESRI Research Good news for schools

• Schools do make curriculum choices
• Positive interactions and informal school
  atmosphere really do count!
• School policy in areas of curriculum planning can
  have a real effect

10
Key questions for NCCA

• Effectiveness of rebalancing JC syllabuses?
• Should the number of (core) subjects be
  specified?
• Should the number of exam subjects be limited?
• Should more concrete advice be generated on
  suggested programmes of study? More autonomy for
  schools?
• How best to support mixed-ability settings and
  differentiated teaching and learning?
• Introduce a wider range of possibilities in
  summative assessment?
• Review and revise least popular courses Maths
  and Gaeilge

11
Key questions for schools

• Whether to/how to
• encourage within-class differentiation over
  streaming?
• control the impact of the exam on student
  engagement and teaching methods?
• provide more access to practical subjects and
  adopt the pedagogy in other subjects?
• promote access to higher level subjects?
• promote a positive social and extra-curricular
  climate?

12
Planning Internal school factors

• School tradition
• School culture
• Staffing
• Facilities
• Resources
• Views of Board of Management and Trustees
• Relationship with other schools
• Potential for outreach

13
Planning Organisational context

• The inclusive school
• International learners
• Special educational needs
• Educational disadvantage
• Changing lives of students / student behaviour
• Schools as changing organisations
• Developments in curriculum and assessment
• Responding to research findings

14
Planning External context

• The speed of globalisation and its twin demands
  difference and complexity
• Individualisation and education the individual
  or the common good?
• Marketisation of education
• Inequality and the lack of a strong commitment to
  addressing it
• Accountability, responding to imperatives
• Challenges facing children and young people
• From NCCA Strategic Plan 2006-2008

15
Planning Initiation and scoping

• Why is planning being initiated?
• What is the essential purpose of the planning?
• Aligning planning with key contexts
• What scale and quality of review/planning is
  envisaged?
• What are the intended outcomes?
• What timescale and costs are involved?

16
Some thoughts on curriculum

• Curriculum is not neutral
• It is a social, cultural and political
  construction
• It is usually - and should be - contested
• Direct influence of the NCCA is on the curriculum
  as envisaged
• Direct influence of schools/teachers on the
  curriculum as realised
• Curriculum the full range of learning
  experiences the learner encounters

17
Resources

• NCCA Website - www.ncca.ie
• School Development Planning
• Curriculum Review at Junior Cycle
• ESRI Research 3 NCCA summaries/commentaries
• john.hammond_at_ncca.ie